Chapter 39: The Ancestral Residence

Ironhammer and Butcher Knife!

Enzo followed Lin Qi and the other two into Lin Qi’s family Ancestral Residence. Enzo had been curious about Lin Qi for a full three years. What kind of family could raise someone like Lin Qi?

Enzo couldn’t help but recall the scene from three years ago when he first met Lin Qi—he was threatened by the Round Table Knight Society. Four members of the Round Table Knight Society surrounded Enzo, forcing him to join. Knowing that the leader of the Round Table Knight Society, Black Horse Haus, had a powerful background, and unwilling to turn against them, Enzo was beaten back step by step by four swordsmen whose skills were far inferior to his own. He was stabbed in more than ten places.

Just as Enzo was about to give up, Lin Qi suddenly appeared with several big, fierce-looking men. They came from behind and used bricks they had just pulled from the walls of the alley to hit the four swordsmen until their heads bled. Then, they used iron-tipped oak clubs to knock the four swordsmen unconscious. Finally, they used the clubs to cause hidden injuries to the swordsmen’s wrists and elbow joints.

After that, those four could never use swords again. They could barely manage ordinary work, but if they tried to use swords, the hidden injuries in their wrists and elbows would make their swordplay messy. However, for four Army Academy students who could no longer use swords, joining the army after graduation made them useless.

Lin Qi’s decisiveness, ruthlessness, and mercilessness left a deep impression on Enzo.

Today, he finally arrived at Lin Qi’s home. He was curious about what kind of family, what kind of parents, could raise someone like Lin Qi. A fifteen-year-old boy who formed a student gang like the Iron Fist Brotherhood in the Berelli University Town and developed it into something big, with over three hundred thugs and enforcers on the outside—was this something an ordinary person could or would do?

How could a child from an ordinary, law-abiding civilian family do such things?

Lin Qi’s Ancestral Residence gave off a feeling of deep mystery and stability. In front of the residence was a huge courtyard, almost forty to fifty acres in size. If Enzo wasn’t mistaken, the ground of the courtyard was paved with extremely hard black volcanic steel rock, formed from solidified lava.

Black volcanic steel rock referred to volcanic rock with a metal content of over seventy percent. This type of rock was extremely hard and had strong resistance to all kinds of spells except lightning spells. Mining this rock was incredibly difficult; even if ordinary workers risked their lives, they could only mine two or three cubic meters of black volcanic steel rock in a year.

Extremely hard and highly resilient, the black volcanic steel rock was cut into heavy square tiles, one meter on each side, and laid on the ground. The tiles were connected by complex interlocking joints, making the courtyard floor seamless. What shocked Enzo even more was that the gaps between the tiles faintly gleamed with a metallic shine, clearly indicating that molten metal had been poured between them to make the ground even stronger.

The cost of the courtyard’s ground was already astonishing, but the walls of the courtyard were equally terrifying.

To ordinary people, the walls of the residence looked like ordinary gable walls, just three meters higher than those of typical homes. But to Enzo, a top student at the Army Academy, the walls under the thick cover of ivy vines were like a small fortress. From the outside, the walls seemed plain, but their width was enough for four people to walk side by side. Moreover, there were arrow slits blocked by bricks, lookout holes, arrow-proof battlements, and various other defensive measures.

However, all these fortifications were hidden under the dense ivy vines, making the deadly military structures appear harmless.

The material of the walls was the same as the courtyard’s ground—black volcanic steel rock. Molten metal had been poured between the bricks, making the walls an indestructible metal block. Unless an Empire main field Legion brought heavy siege equipment to attack, even a ten-thousand-strong Legion would be unable to break through this wall.

Recalling what he had seen outside the residence, the thickness of the snow at the base of the wall seemed unusual. Enzo suddenly thought of the common defensive feature: a moat. There must be a moat outside Lin Qi’s Ancestral Residence, and it was likely at least five meters wide.

Then, there were the two rows of annex buildings far apart on the left and right sides of the residence, meant for servants and workers. The dark annex buildings were clearly made of the same material as the walls and courtyard ground. The two rows of annex buildings were crooked, as if the builders hadn’t aligned the walls properly. However, these long, jagged annex buildings, full of sharp angles, would serve as two spiky “bastions” if enemies broke into the courtyard.

Looking at the narrow windows of the annex buildings and the thick steel bars, as thick as a child’s arm, fixed inside the window frames, those windows were clearly arrow slits for archers.

What left Enzo speechless was that near the two annex buildings, there were stables, granaries, small mills, and various other facilities that a large family would need. However, all these were made of black volcanic steel rock and built strictly according to the rules of military fortresses.

Inside the courtyard, there was another wall, and within this inner wall stood Lin Qi’s family Main Keep. The tallest watchtower was nearly one hundred meters high, surrounded by over a dozen “decorative” spires that could easily serve as “Arrow Towers” during wartime.

This Main Keep covered a large area. Just from the outside, the main structure, which was six stories high, could accommodate two to three thousand people living inside. And in times of unrest, this Main Keep could certainly support two to three thousand people in a “prolonged battle.”

It had to be for prolonged battles because there were twenty-four deep wells dug around the Main Keep!

Enzo’s fingers went numb. Even in the Empire Army’s field manuals, a frontline defensive fortress only required three deep wells for water supply. Lin Qi’s ancestors had indeed planned ahead, digging twenty-four deep wells—eight times the requirement of the Empire Army’s manual!

Enzo instinctively glanced at Lin Qi, who was chattering away to Ironhammer and Butcher Knife about his exciting experiences over the past three years. Ironhammer and Butcher Knife listened to Lin Qi’s chatter with almost “innocent” smiles, their faces full of something like “affection” and “care”?

Such thugs, showing such “affection” and “care”? Enzo felt his scalp tingle again.

As the group approached Lin Qi’s family Main Keep, more people appeared around them. However, these people were all tough, muscular men with thick arms as big as ordinary people’s thighs. Even a few old men feeding horses had faces crisscrossed with scars, each looking fierce and ugly to the extreme.

Even several maids carrying milk buckets from the cowshed, wearing only short sleeves in the cold winter, had bulging muscles on their exposed arms! These muscular maids, judging by the calluses on their hands, were clearly skilled with weapons.

Enzo suddenly understood—only such a family could raise someone like Lin Qi!