Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Arrival of Black Iron Age
Translator: WQL Editor: Geoffrey
After raining for a night, the breathless coal ash was cleaned off . Rarely breathing fresh air, Zhang Tie walked alone on the road to school . “It should be more azure without the black smoke from the towering chimneys rising into the sky,” he thought while absent-mindedly striding over the black puddles on the cement ground . After it rained, the remaining water on the ground was black and smelt like the coal ash in the mill areas . While this city brought people a sense of safety, it also brought the feeling of being bound and the feeling of congestion . Looking into the distance, Zhang Tie found the huge chimneys to be pretty dazzling under the crystal blue sky .
Teacher said that chimneys symbolized human civilization and guaranteed the prosperity and survival of human beings . Those upright chimneys, however, reminded Zhang Tie of his p*nis and the black smoke his seminal fluid . They polluted the air like how the liquid polluted his underwear . Although he couldn’t remember who was in his dream last night, for the third time this week, he could feel something sticky inside his underwear . In this age that severely lacked living necessities, Zhang Tie only had four pairs of underwear . Two pairs were tailored from his father’s torn sweaters, while the other two were his brother’s hand-me-downs . As it was always raining these days, two pairs of his underwear were still wet, including the current one . He only had the last half-dried one left; therefore, he had no other choice but to go to school miserably in this pair of underwear .
The half-wet, coarse cloth turned hard and felt uncomfortable in the trousers . As a result, he always felt pain on his d*ck . It also felt very cold; Zhang Tie couldn’t help but shiver . What’s more is the 15-year old’s d*ck got damaged . What torture!
It was said that human society owned rich materials before the Catastrophe . In that age, underwear was sold by the dozen . Moreover, many precious articles like cigarettes, wine, meat, and as well as various rare and eccentric goods could be easily bought from a place called the supermarket . At that time, an ordinary man could afford 40-70kgs of rice or wheat through a day of labor, which was enough for him to live for half to one month, or perhaps even longer . It was also said that a mysterious energy called “electricity” was made; human beings could use it to do many unimaginable things . Additionally, people also invented many great weapons which made them the only ruler on the celestial body . They were so arrogant that they held everything else in contempt . Unfortunately, what waited for the heyday was the Catastrophe .
Zhang Tie always thought that even the gods could not stand the unending greed of humans; therefore, it launched the Catastrophe and created the Star of God . As punishment, the gods beat human beings back from their peak into a simpler age . As a result, human beings lost all the magical powers brought by science and technology . They had neither electricity, nuclear power, explosives, nor those amazing weapons . According to the most accepted saying, there was some particle in the unknown rays carried by the Star of God that greatly changed all micro components of the substances on the celestial body . Take the original star as a pot of plain water . Once the almighty god or any celestial beings found human beings uncomfortable, they could spray a hand of salt or pepper powder onto it casually, and as a result, the plain water was no longer plain . Likewise, the star was not the very same either .
After the catastrophe, what people felt was fortunate might be that steel and iron were still as hard as before; they could be used to cast into cutleries, swords, and armors for the army . Black coal was still combustible; they could still bring light, heat, and energy to human beings . In other words, everything made from the above two such as cutleries, swords, armor, thermal energy, and steam engines would be the last dependence of human beings in this age…
It was more than a 40 minutes walk distance between home and school . Zhang Tie had to go through the slums in the western parts of Blackhot city and the barren region at the margin of the urban mill district before he arrived at school . The name of Blackhot City originated from the Blackhot Mountain next to the city . It was said that Blackhot Mountain was one of the longest mountain ranges on Kun’ang Continent before the Catastrophe . Back then, people created an aircraft that could fly faster than sound; however, it still took the aircraft several months to fly across the range from one end to the other . Take Blackhot City for instance . It was actually a fine branch south of the Blackhot Mountain Range . It stretched over 20,000km, a length that many people would not traverse in their whole lives .
When the Catastrophe arrived, the Kun’ang Continent, which covered hundreds of millions of square miles, was divided into pieces due to the tremendous geological and plate movements, akin to a loaf of bread being split by kids . Numerous parts formed, while the others directly disappeared . Through vicissitudes, people today could not imagine the magnificence of Blackhot Mountain and the grandeur of this vast continent . Even now, the world was still too large for everyone . The location 800km west and north of Blackhot City has yet to be explored; it was still an unknown . However, the area where Blackhot City was located, south of the Blackhot Mountain Range, covered more than 400 million square km . More than 9 billion lived here . It was a gathering of numerous countries, city-states, and clan forces; however, it was merely a slim and narrow belt on the map of the whole continent . With lofty mountains on the northernmost and westernmost regions and vast oceans on the southernmost and easternmost regions, it was the area with high population density . On the map, it was named the Corridor of Blackson Human Clan .
After the Catastrophe, it took human beings about 100 years to find out what happened to the planet when the Catastrophe fell . It then took the remaining people almost 100 years to recover slightly . Unexpectedly, they found that human beings were no longer the only ruler of the planet . Those eccentric demons and dark clans from underground took human beings as delicious dim sum and slaves . They made the planet dangerous and posed several challenges to the survival of human beings .
Today marked the 889th year on the Black Iron Calendar after the Catastrophe . Human survivors continued to multiply and now stood firm on the Kun’ang Continent once again . Furthermore, driven by countless steel, iron, and steaming machines, they became ambitious to further explore the planet and convince the world that they were the rightful rulers once more .
Blackhot City was younger than 40 years; it was the symbol of humankind's rejuvenation and re-ignition of ambition . It was young compared to the numerous human countries and city-states in the southern area of the Blackhot Mountain Range . Blackhot City was founded by businessmen and mill owners . As an industrial city, it occupied a seat in the Andaman City-State Alliance Parliament . Same as most emerging cities in this age, the city relied on rich resources, which included rich coal and mineral resources . The entire city and its 3 million inhabitants were depending on the rich resources from underground the city . It was ruled by the Coal, Steel, and Iron Federation of Blackhot City (CSIF) . Numerous steam locomotives would carry coal, steel, iron, cutleries, swords, and armors, as well as other weapons and equipment, out of this city from factories . Meanwhile, they also transported in goods from outside the city .
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