Chapter 154: The Saltpeter Mine

Directing the kobolds to decorate the stage and set up the bonfire, Jia Zhengjin still felt like something was missing.
What was a grand party really lacking?
An inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind—fireworks!
He immediately ran to the grocery store and found the proprietress, asking, "Do you sell fireworks here?"
"What are fireworks?" Winni, the proprietress of the grocery store, shook her head and said, "The goods we receive every day are different; I can't even keep track of them myself!"
Jia Zhengjin carefully inspected all the merchandise, and indeed, there were no fireworks to be found. However, he did spend 5 gold coins to buy a blueprint for crafting leather sofa furniture.
Since they weren't for sale, he would just have to figure out how to make them himself.
Having killed the Iron-scaled Python previously, Jia Zhengjin had already learned the gunpowder recipe.
The materials required to synthesize gunpowder were saltpeter ore and coal.
There was plenty of coal; Jia Zhengjin could harvest a significant amount every day just from cooking in his own residential building. Not to mention, the coal left over from the daily lives of the town's more than one thousand villagers and town guards was all stored in the warehouse.
So now, the only thing needed was saltpeter ore!
He rode out of the city to the mining site and brought out the doppelgänger stationed there.
There was no saltpeter at this mine; he needed to search further away.
Mounting the doppelgänger, he flapped its wings, soared high into the sky, and began circling above the forest.
There were flocks of strangely shaped giant birds overhead, as well as species resembling pterosaurs soaring through the air. At the same time, a kind of winged fox was hunting the pterosaurs.
Naturally, these otherworldly creatures actively avoided the doppelgänger, completely convinced of its "dragon" identity.
Jia Zhengjin activated his vein-searching skill and carefully scoured every inch of land he flew over. There were iron and copper mines everywhere in the forest, and while gold and silver mines were relatively scarcer, they could still be spotted.
Other types of veins, however, were extremely rare.
After searching for a long time, just when he thought there was little hope, a faint trace of saltpeter ore finally appeared in his field of vision.
Filled with excitement, he hurriedly urged the doppelgänger to descend.

This place was extremely far from the city; looking up into the sky, the city walls were only faintly visible.
The surroundings were also teeming with numerous bizarre and dangerous creatures, but in front of the fake dragon, these beasts kept their distance, staying as far away as possible!
Yet right beside the saltpeter deposit, there was actually a wild kobold nest.
Faced with the fake dragon transformed by the doppelgänger, all the kobolds huddled inside their nest, trembling and not daring to come out at all.
Mining was important, but kobolds were essentially walking experience points!
Seeing them all hiding inside the cave without the courage to emerge, Jia Zhengjin took some stone bricks from his inventory and blocked most of the entrances to the kobold nest, leaving only a single opening.
Since the interior of the nest was interconnected, he instructed the doppelgänger to breathe fire directly into this remaining entrance.
"Whoosh~~" Receiving the command, the doppelgänger immediately walked up to the nest and opened its mouth to spew a column of scorching flames.
As a result, the entire kobold nest was swallowed by the fire, turning into something resembling a furnace.
Unbearably baked inside their nest, the kobolds scrambled in panic to escape, only to find that the vast majority of the exits were blocked by stone bricks. They could only fumble their way one by one toward the sole remaining exit.
However, the doppelgänger was waiting right at the exit; the moment any kobold appeared, another breath of fire was unleashed.
Smothered and burned to death inside, or scorched upon running outside—these kobolds, facing a doppelgänger that had learned to breathe fire, had zero ability to fight back!
Jia Zhengjin continuously received system notifications, and countless blocks of 30 experience points scrolled across his screen. His experience bar surged upward rapidly. This novel method of blocking doorways to farm monsters and level up was simply too exhilarating!
There were actually one to two thousand wild kobolds inside the nest, and before he knew it, Jia Zhengjin leveled up to 11. This was truly a pleasant surprise!
When the final notification of a 500-experience-point bonus appeared, he knew that all the kobolds within the nest had been wiped out. However, he couldn't enter the interior to loot just yet; he had no choice but to leave it alone and wait for it to cool down!
He stationed the doppelgänger to keep watch nearby. Jia Zhengjin allocated a skill point to unlock the alchemy laboratory, then pulled a common-grade iron pickaxe from his inventory and hurried over to mine the saltpeter ore.
The saltpeter vein was located in a cave terrain beneath a cliff.
Inside the cave, it was pitch black and impossible to see a thing. Therefore, Jia Zhengjin took out a torch for illumination.
Locating the saltpeter deposit, he placed the torch to one side and immediately raised his pickaxe to begin mining.
[Message] You have acquired saltpeter ore!
[Message] You have acquired saltpeter ore...
Saltpeter ore was much easier to harvest than other minerals; basically, every swing of the pickaxe yielded a chunk.
Before long, all 300-plus chunks of saltpeter ore near the cave entrance had been mined out by him.
Still feeling unsatisfied, Jia Zhengjin picked up the torch, intending to venture deeper into the cavern. Right at that moment, however, a pitch-black shadow suddenly emerged and lunged straight at him.
"Flash Retreat!!" Sensing danger, Jia Zhengjin immediately activated his life-saving skill and darted backward at high speed.
The shadow missed its target and quickly melted into the darkness, disappearing from sight.
Although it lasted for just a split second, Jia Zhengjin managed to catch a glimpse of the shadow's general outline. If he had to describe it, it resembled a black slime? Moreover, its size was massive, and its movements were extremely agile.
Unaware of the enemy's true strength, he decided to retreat from the cave for safety's sake.
The doppelgänger was too huge; even its head couldn't fit into the cave entrance. Otherwise, why would he need to worry about any black slime?
"To make fireworks, this should be enough, right?" Glancing at the 300-plus saltpeter ores in his virtual inventory, Jia Zhengjin decided to give up mining more minerals for now. When he came back next time, he would bring Doma, Buddy, Wolf, and Karl along with the kobold troop to charge right in—he refused to believe this black slime wouldn't die!
Before heading back to the city, however, he needed to plunder the spoils within the kobold nest!
Having finally waited for the temperature inside the kobold nest to drop, Jia Zhengjin bent down and crawled through the sole entrance.
The interior was densely packed with charred kobold corpses, and he searched through them one by one.
The low-level kobolds only dropped inferior wooden clubs of the lowest quality, alongside a few basic materials such as iron ore, wood, rope, and stones. Every little bit counts, and he didn't miss a single thing.
Among the several thousand kobolds, he did manage to dig up a flawless wooden club, though it was completely useless!
Winding his way through the maze-like cave, he finally managed to locate the corpse of the kobold chieftain deep in the innermost chamber. Right beside the chieftain's remains sat a glittering golden treasure chest!
Just like the first kobold nest, the primary loot was concentrated on the chieftain or inside the treasure chest!