Chapter 39

On Thursday morning, the aftereffects of the beating Xiaoming received at the Iron Thorn Battle Hall on Wednesday slowly began to show.

After being beaten up yesterday, Zhang Tie still had the energy to take a comfortable hot shower in the staff bathroom of the Battle Hall before returning home. There were some bruises on his body, but fortunately, his face was unscathed, so Zhang Tie didn’t have to worry about his parents noticing anything.

After dinner, he chatted with his parents and his future sister-in-law for a while. After washing up, he secretly took two sweet potatoes and a handful of soybeans from the kitchen and returned to his small room.

He then proceeded with the development plan for the Black Iron Castle. Next to the corn and potato fields that had already sprouted, Zhang Tie quietly buried two sweet potatoes in the soil and planted a row of soybeans, just like he had done with the corn.

Sweet potatoes should be planted when the branches have grown more, similar to how potatoes are planted, as the teachers at school had taught. The soybeans, on the other hand, were planted similarly to corn, by poking a hole with a steel bar and burying them, after which they could be left alone.

The spiritual energy value of the Black Iron Castle continued to increase, breaking through 13. Besides the corn sprouting, on Wednesday, Zhang Tie noticed that the grass seeds given by Sister Teresa, which he had casually scattered on the ground, had also sprouted. A patch of green shoots emerged from the soil where he had scattered the seeds.

There was a little more than a day left before the first Non-Leak Fruit matured. On another branch of the small tree, another small silver fruit had appeared. Zhang Tie checked and found that the maturity progress bar of the Iron Embryo Fruit had reached a bit more than a quarter. It seemed that if he endured similar beatings four or five more times, this fruit would also be ripe.

Non-Leak Fruit... Iron Embryo Fruit... Hehehe...

After completing his scheduled cultivation, Zhang Tie muttered these two names and fell asleep.

On Thursday morning, when Zhang Tie’s biological clock woke him up at a quarter past six, he tried to get out of bed but his face turned pale, and a fine layer of sweat appeared on his forehead. The feeling was one word—pain! His entire body ached, especially the places that had been beaten frequently yesterday, particularly his two hands, which he had used to defend and block. The pain was so intense it felt like they were broken. This excruciating pain came from the natural reaction of his body to the external force after a period of time, and also because the amount of exercise yesterday had been too much. After a night’s rest, his muscles began to ache severely. When these two types of pain combined, Zhang Tie suffered greatly.

Almost gritting his teeth and drawing in cold air, Zhang Tie slowly put on his clothes. Any slight movement caused unbearable pain.

Zhang Tie then realized that the beating he received yesterday was not easy to endure, and the Iron Embryo Fruit was not so easy to obtain.

It took Zhang Tie twice as long as usual to get from his bed to school on Thursday. His entire body was performing in slow motion, and any slight movement caused him pain.

When Zhang Tie arrived at school, he saw the stern one-eyed man standing at the school gate, tapping a steel rod in his palm. The students, like quails, lowered their heads and entered through the farthest door from the one-eyed man.

“Kid, I heard you did well yesterday, didn’t disgrace me!” Zhang Tie hadn’t greeted Captain Colin, but unexpectedly, Captain Colin praised him first.

Zhang Tie forced a smile, looking somewhat shy. At this moment, he didn’t know whether he should be grateful or resentful towards the one-eyed man.

When he entered the classroom, he found that many students were discussing something. They weren’t talking about the lack of cleaning for the desks and chairs, but about the fact that some students had set up an ambush in another classroom next to theirs early in the morning, hoping to catch the “DSB” who cleaned the desks and chairs every morning. Unfortunately, despite arriving at the school before dawn, they waited until most of the class had arrived and still didn’t see the mysterious person. Their plan to expose the secret was completely foiled.

Damn, it seems that doing good deeds should be done more discreetly, Zhang Tie thought to himself. The curiosity of his classmates was too strong, and this path to earning merit points wouldn’t work.

Perhaps because of his guilty conscience, Zhang Tie, who had obtained the Black Iron Castle, didn’t want to become a topic of discussion in the school and class. A student who had always performed averagely suddenly becoming enthusiastic about doing good deeds was too strange. Although it was hard for anyone to connect Zhang Tie’s good deeds with the abstract concept of merit points, according to Zhang Tie’s cautious nature, it was always better to be low-key when he had something good.

The morning classes were the same as usual, with nothing particularly noteworthy. Everything proceeded as usual. Perhaps because they would all leave the school permanently in two weeks, the teachers were teaching less theoretical content and more practical experience. Sometimes, the students were simply sharing the teachers’ life experiences and insights.

Next month, according to the tradition of all schools in Black Flame City, from June 1st to July 31st, all graduating students would have a two-month wilderness survival course. This two-month course was a comprehensive review of the knowledge and skills the students had learned over the years. There were no exams at school because this era would eliminate all those unsuitable for survival. Every year, the wilderness survival course for Black Flame City graduates had a certain casualty rate. Last year, five students from the Seventh National Boys’ High School were eliminated, with four deaths and one disability. In the most brutal year, over 20 students were eliminated in a month. For all the graduating students, this month of wilderness survival was their coming-of-age ceremony!

A coming-of-age ceremony that required blood and even life to welcome! A coming-of-age ceremony that faced the most real side of this era without the protection of Black Flame City’s towering walls.

After the two-month survival course, their entire student life would be over, followed by a three-month holiday. After the holiday, most people would face a long military service. During those three months, before the official military service notice arrived, a few outstanding and lucky students, after obtaining the school’s recommendation, would have the opportunity to advance to higher places for further study, directly becoming the elite of many major forces and organizations. Many people’s life trajectories would be set at this point. The duration of military service was equal to the time they spent in compulsory education, one being a right and the other an obligation, and no one had any objections. After eight years, when ordinary people’s military service ended, they would find themselves standing on a completely different life stage compared to those who had the opportunity for better education, their former classmates.

After the four morning classes, the graduating students rushed to the cafeteria in a frenzy. Naturally, when everyone was queuing up for their meal trays, Gris and a few others, who always arrived late, swaggered in, pushed a few unfortunate and silent students aside, and stood at the front of the line.

Watching Gris and his group’s behavior over the past few days, Zhang Tie often asked himself what he would do if such a misfortune befell him one day. He had a vague answer in his mind, but every time he queued up for meals, he deliberately chose a position in the middle or towards the back, trying to avoid the choice he would have to make. For a 15-year-old boy, it wasn’t an easy choice.

During the meal, the fatso Bally told Zhang Tie that next week, he would complete another type of coming-of-age ceremony.

“From now on, all the brothers of the Airplane Brotherhood will have lost their virginity!” Listening to Bally’s grand declaration, the other members of the Airplane Brotherhood laughed lewdly at the table.

To be honest, although Zhang Tie had been fantasizing about a “wonderful life” and a “grand love” with the goddess Daina the day before, after Bally announced that he would complete his “coming-of-age ceremony” next week, Zhang Tie’s heart still raced uncontrollably, and he felt a faint desire. This desire turned into images in his mind, and when these images finally transformed into a small tent in his pants, Zhang Tie had to admit—well, he was also part of the school’s student army, not much better than the other members of the Airplane Brotherhood. But his love for Teacher Daina was still sacred! Zhang Tie consoled himself.

The second half of the meal was filled with the Airplane Brotherhood’s various ridicule, sarcasm, and taunts about Zhang Tie’s “tent.” Zhang Tie was completely immune to these guys’ attacks. After dinner, the students went to the classroom to play cards, their midday entertainment. Zhang Tie, on the other hand, found a spot in the small forest next to the cafeteria and sat down to practice the “Abacus Mental Calculation.” According to the book’s requirements, the first step to achieving a small success in “Abacus Mental Calculation” was to be able to instantly visualize a three-rod abacus and then use the abacus in his mind to get the results of any four arithmetic operations within three digits instantly.

Zhang Tie was still some distance from these two “instant” requirements. He had compressed the time to visualize the three-rod abacus to within 15 seconds, but there was still a delay of more than 4 seconds for the results of three-digit arithmetic operations. Thinking about the words on the book’s cover—“Elementary School Supplementary Reading Material”—Zhang Tie felt ashamed. This seemed to be a skill that elementary school students should master, and he had been struggling for so many days to reach this level. He felt embarrassed...

Just as Zhang Tie felt ashamed, it seemed someone wanted to make him feel even more ashamed. One of Gris’s followers appeared in front of him. When Zhang Tie wondered why this guy was standing in front of him, the slightly gloomy guy “slapped” a stack of meal trays onto the grass beside Zhang Tie’s feet.

“Wash these trays and return them to the cafeteria!” The guy dropped the trays, didn’t even look at Zhang Tie, and turned to leave, as if he never thought this unremarkable guy sitting against the tree would refuse.

Looking at the four messy trays in front of him, Zhang Tie scratched his head and felt depressed. He realized that in life, some difficult choices couldn’t be avoided just by trying to dodge them...

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I’ll try to update another chapter tonight. Thank you all for your support!

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