Chapter Ten: The Kobold Pet

Jia Zhengjin climbed down from the tree, first casting a disdainful glance at the kobold tribe that had abandoned their companion and scattered in all directions, disappearing without a trace. Then, gripping his stone spear, he strode over to the pit trap and shouted at the kobold who had fallen in, “Raise your hands!”

The kobold in the trap didn’t understand a word of Jia Zhengjin’s speech, baring its teeth and growling threateningly at him. Despite their small stature, the sharp teeth they revealed as they snarled were quite intimidating!

One of the kobolds even desperately tried to leap out of the trap, viciously attempting to attack Jia Zhengjin.

It seemed that although kobolds walked upright, their intelligence was nowhere near that of humans; they were simply a peculiar kind of wild animal. All their actions were dictated by instinct—attack and defense.

With that realization, Jia Zhengjin cast aside his hesitation. He raised his stone spear and stabbed fiercely at the most active kobold—the one frantically trying to escape, a black-furred specimen.

“-11!” A blood-red number appeared above the kobold’s head, revealing its health: 89 out of 100.

As one kobold was injured, the others in the trap panicked. They immediately stopped their howling, turned around, and began digging frantically with their short legs, trying to tunnel their way out.

Jia Zhengjin was speechless at this behavior. How spineless could they be? He’d expected a desperate resistance.

No wonder the main group had vanished in an instant—they were nothing but a bunch of cowardly posers!

Since that was the case, he was more than happy to beat the dog while it was down.

The kobolds, trapped in a pit twice their own height, had no way to escape. Jia Zhengjin’s stone spear easily reached any of them from above.

Soon, the black-furred kobold was the first to fall.

[Notification] You have killed a kobold! You gained 30 experience points.

He hadn’t expected such timid creatures to give more experience than skeletons! Could these weak beings really be stronger than the undead?

Jia Zhengjin needed 200 experience points to advance from level 2 to level 3. He already had about 60, earned from killing skeletons and some mushrooms. That meant, with another 140 experience, he could level up directly!

There were five kobolds trapped in total, each worth 30 points—enough to reach level 3!

He wasn’t about to miss such a golden opportunity. Without hesitation, he began the slaughter, quickly dispatching all the kobolds in the traps.

Once he reached level 3, the requirement for level 4 jumped to 400 experience points. Each level demanded double the experience of the previous, and so on. The early stages were easy enough, but advancement would become increasingly difficult.

The five kobolds yielded a [Poor-quality Wooden Club] and a [Kobold Tooth Necklace].

Of these spoils, the wooden club was something Jia Zhengjin could easily craft himself, and its power was even lower than that of his stone spear, so he discarded it without a second thought. The kobold tooth necklace, however, granted +1 attack—slight, but useful. He promptly hung it around his neck.

Seeing how much experience kobolds gave and how easily they could be killed, Jia Zhengjin wanted to seize the chance to hunt more and level up quickly. But after giving chase, he found the rest had already vanished without a trace.

“They’ll definitely come back. Better reset the traps first!” He dragged the kobold corpses out, dug holes elsewhere to bury them, then re-camouflaged the traps. Dusting off his hands, he slipped into the tall grass and cautiously headed home.

Upon returning, he took out the ten iron ingots he had smelted the night before and used the precious skill point gained from his recent level-up to learn [Mastery of Ironworking]. Now he could craft tools sharper and more durable than stone—his start was looking quite promising.

With ten iron ingots and two wooden sticks, he successfully forged an iron pickaxe.

Fortune was on his side—the first iron tool he made in this world turned out to be of [Normal] quality.

To craft a normal-quality tool with only level 2 in toolmaking was largely luck. Jia Zhengjin was delighted, and took the iron pickaxe outside to mine some stone nearby. The efficiency was more than double that of his stone pickaxe, and iron ore yield was significantly higher. He couldn’t help but sing as he worked, his mining ringing out along the riverbank.

Once he’d gathered a batch of iron ore, he hurried home to toss it into the furnace, adding coal as fuel to smelt it. He stashed the stones from his backpack into a wooden chest, then went out again to work.

On his second trip back, the furnace had produced another ten iron ingots.

He used these to craft an iron axe, then tossed another batch of iron ore into the furnace.

This time, luck wasn’t on his side—the iron axe was only [Poor-quality], but it was still much better than the stone axe.

“I should have enough stone for now. Before nightfall, I can still collect plenty of wood and plant fibers. Tonight, I’ll focus on leveling my toolmaking skill to 3!” Jia Zhengjin planned his tasks. “But first, let’s go check if the traps have caught any animals. The more experience I can scrape together, the better!”

After a full day’s labor, he was quite exhausted. After all, he wasn’t a game character capable of endless work. In games, he could keep his character mining and grinding monsters around the clock, but in reality, he needed rest and sleep. It was a waste of time, so he wanted to maximize productivity while he could!

He hurried back to the traps, only to find that two had been crushed by some large animal—likely the triceratops he’d seen earlier.

Of the remaining two, one was untouched and untriggered.

Only one trap had successfully caught a creature, but to Jia Zhengjin’s disappointment, it held only a much smaller kobold.

The others were about a meter tall, but this one was less than half a meter. Its fur was visibly soft and pinkish. Unlike adult kobolds, who first bared their teeth and growled fiercely before fleeing in fear when attacked, this little kobold didn’t even require Jia Zhengjin to act—curled up in a ball, it whimpered pitifully.

“How am I supposed to hurt such a tiny kobold?” Jia Zhengjin couldn’t bring himself to strike with his stone spear, but he also didn’t want to let his hard-won catch escape.

Suddenly inspired, he grabbed some weeds and gathered plant fibers, fashioning them into a rope. He jumped down, scooped up the cowering kobold, tied the rope gently around its neck, and brought it home.

Since he had nothing better to do, keeping a pet sounded nice. Kobolds walked upright, but at heart, they were still dogs!