Picking Up a Strand of Dragon Qi (Part 1)

Zhang Chen, carrying the wild chicken, immediately ducked into the hole he had dug. In just a moment, he reached the stone tablet.

After carefully cleaning the dirt off the stone tablet with a brush, Zhang Chen's eyes fixed on the mysterious runes on it. He took the wild chicken out of the basket, then pulled out the clay pot he often used to boil water in the mountains. Zhang Chen apologized to the wild chicken, "Brother Chicken, please don't blame me. It's all that damned fox spirit's fault. If she hadn't forced me, I wouldn't have resorted to this."

With a swift motion, Zhang Chen's knife fell. In an instant, chicken blood splattered. As the wild chicken struggled, the clay pot gradually filled with a bowl of blood.

Zhang Chen took out a brush he had prepared beforehand, dipped it in the chicken blood, and began tracing the characters on the tombstone. Zhang Chen knew that blood coagulated quickly and he didn't have much time. Fortunately, there weren't too many characters on the stone tablet. As Zhang Chen's brush moved, bloody characters appeared on the stone tablet one by one.

Fortunately, ever since he gained the Golden Light skill, Zhang Chen felt that his hand movements were very steady now. Every action seemed to possess a strange, calm power. Although his movements were urgent, he didn't make any mistakes.

After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Zhang Chen finished tracing the characters on the tombstone. Then, he took a piece of white paper and directly made a rubbing of the tombstone.

According to the normal rubbing process, the first stage is placing the paper, the second stage is pressing, the third stage is applying ink, and the fourth stage is removing the rubbing. These steps are extremely complicated, but Zhang Chen wasn't interested in studying calligraphy, nor was he concerned with how long the rubbed characters would last. He simply wanted to use the fox spirit's hand to read the characters on the stone tablet through Zhang Chen.

The rubbing went smoothly. After Zhang Chen peeled off the white paper from the stone tablet, there was no blurriness at all. Only the bloody characters looked particularly terrifying in the eerie cave.

"Now, I just have to wait for that fox spirit to take the bait." Zhang Chen picked up the Luoyang Shovel and resumed his great digging endeavor.

At this point, the underground had become frozen soil, making excavation incredibly difficult, like scraping ice directly on ice. Zhang Chen found that he could no longer dig with just the Luoyang Shovel; he needed to use a chisel and hammer together.

"I also need to prepare gunpowder. Then I can use the gunpowder to blast open this frozen soil, and the digging speed will be much faster." Zhang Chen muttered to himself while hammering the soil, "And those people from Blacksmith Cui's house, they don't look like good people. If they cause any trouble, I might have to kill them to silence them, or even slaughter the entire village. I've met those people several times. If they want to silence me, I definitely won't be able to escape. If I can make gunpowder..."

Zhang Chen dug for half an hour and felt an extreme coldness all over his body. The cold air not only froze the soil but also seemed to want to penetrate Zhang Chen's bones and freeze his blood.

Zhang Chen's hands and feet were numb as he quickly scrambled out of the ground. Standing in the sunlight, he greedily basked in the sun's rays, a hint of joy in his eyes. "What is in that underground cave? Why is it so cold? I'll come back to dig tomorrow, but I need to prepare a few cotton coats beforehand."

After warming up for a moment, Zhang Chen climbed back down into the cave, took out his chisel and shovel, and continued digging.

However, Zhang Chen didn't notice that the blood on the stone tablet nearby was gradually seeping into the stone tablet, disappearing completely, as if there had never been any blood on the stone tablet.

At this moment, Zhang Chen's mind was entirely focused on digging the hole and gaining experience points. How could he pay attention to the useless stone tablet beside him?

He dug in the cave for another two hours. Seeing that it was getting colder and colder, Zhang Chen's body was not only stiff with cold, but even his hair was covered in a layer of frost. Zhang Chen finally couldn't bear it anymore. He loaded all the soil into the basket and climbed out with the soil on his back.

"The digging speed is getting slower and slower now. I only dug ten baskets of soil today." Zhang Chen struggled to climb out of the hole, carefully scattering the soil around to avoid revealing any flaws or disturbing any wild animals.

Looking at his Golden Finger panel again:

[Name: Zhang Chen]

[Skill (Tier 2): Light of the Righteous God (0/5000)]

[Points: 1100]

"I gained three hundred points today, which is enough to make one thousand one hundred points. It seems I'm not far from five thousand points. It won't be long before my skill should be able to upgrade."

Zhang Chen looked at his Golden Finger panel and felt that the future was promising, and the day his skill would upgrade again was not far off. He looked up at the sky. The sun had already passed noon. Zhang Chen was exhausted, feeling cold to the bone. He didn't plan to continue digging and instead carried the basket to prepare for making gunpowder.

That fox spirit was terrifying, but the outsiders weren't easy to deal with either, were they? He didn't want to kill the fox spirit himself, only to be killed by a group of ordinary people. How frustrating would that death be?

Zhang Chen put the rubbed paper into a bamboo tube, then carried the basket and walked towards the mountains.

If it were an ordinary person, they might know how to make gunpowder, after all, the formula of one part saltpeter, two parts sulfur, and three parts charcoal is taught in junior high chemistry. But that's just theory, it doesn't mean they can actually make it. But Zhang Chen actually knew the formula and process for making high-purity explosives! After all, in his previous life, after watching wilderness survival techniques, he followed his second uncle up the mountain to blast wild boars and fish. This skill wasn't learned for nothing!

"To make explosives, I need to make two types of explosives: a small amount of highly sensitive explosive as the ignition point, and a large amount of insensitive explosive as the main charge." Zhang Chen thought to himself.

He was currently living in a remote mountain village and had no shortage of materials for making explosives. However, he still needed to be cautious and not let the fox spirit discover any clues, nor let the villagers discover any clues.

Fortunately, he often went hunting in the mountains, so the process of making explosives could be done in the deep mountains and old forests. The fox wouldn't leave Zhang Chen's side, making it difficult for her to discover his actions.

"Why not just make the explosives directly in that tomb... No, if an explosion occurs, I'm afraid I'll be buried alive in there. I still need to find an open space."

Soon, Zhang Chen selected a location: a natural cave, rarely visited by people on a normal day.

(PS: I won't go into the detailed tutorial for making explosives, I'm afraid of the River Crab God. In short, it's not difficult, and the raw materials are easy to find in the countryside.)

Zhang Chen didn't dare let anyone know about making an explosive that could change an era, not even Wang Wu.

Zhang Chen tinkered in the mountains for half a day, then emerged from the mountains covered in dirt. His eyes gleamed with golden light. He didn't sense the fox spirit's presence and knew that the fox spirit hadn't followed him, so he felt relieved and went to check the traps in the mountains.

Today, Zhang Chen's harvest was still a great one. He caught two more wild chickens and a rabbit. Zhang Chen roasted a wild chicken and a rabbit directly in the mountains to fill his stomach. Then, seeing that it was getting dark, he carried the wild chicken and the prey he had caught in the morning and leisurely headed home.

When he reached his doorstep, Zhang Chen indeed saw the white-furred fox standing at the door, eagerly waiting. At this moment, the fox spirit seemed to have smelled the wild chicken and immediately cheered up, bouncing happily on the ground, then rushed into the house with a joyful face, waiting to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

"This damned fox spirit, she's practically a spirit!" Zhang Chen looked at the cheering fox, but he couldn't smile. He was so angry that he stomped his feet on the spot.

PS: Let me explain, I originally planned to post a large chapter of four to five thousand words, but then someone told me that splitting it up would be better during the new book period, so I temporarily split one chapter into two.

The thank-you message from yesterday was deleted because the editor said it involved PK. I will now post the thank-you message below.

In addition, I would like to especially thank the first Alliance Leader of this book, thank you to the great 'Feng Junzi Haoran' for becoming an Alliance Leader. Since it's the new book period, I will temporarily record the extra chapters and make them up after the book is put on the shelves.

The humble author thanks the following great contributors for their rewards:

Great contributor Feng Junzi Haoran: 100000 points. Tang Youyou: 1000 points, book friend 20230102230047014: 100 points, Ni Shui Han Jiang Jing: 100 points, 20210906100024851: 100 points, Originally Uncle is a Male God: 100 points, 20220509151614285: 158 points, Don't Steal Loli: 500 points, Not Speaking Anymore: 5000 points, Leisurely and Contented Heaven: 100 points, Brother Li 10086: 100 points. Thank you to the great contributor "Benefactor" for the reward of three hundred points.

Thank you to all the great contributors above for your feeding.

The author can only see these few great contributors in the backend. There are also some that the author has to look for on the book friend list. I will post them in the next chapter after I find them. Please don't worry.