Kobold Den

Although he had obtained the Portal of Time and Space, in reality, he had only received a "castrated" version—it was merely an illusory gate of light without a physical form. Therefore, he needed to expend garrison resources to construct a one-time-use portal.

Unless he waited until the Space Garrison was upgraded to a higher level, he would be unable to build a true Portal of Time and Space.

At this moment, there was only a single dim point of light on the illusory gate.

As Shawn focused his gaze, a blurry image appeared over the light point, accompanied by a line of text.

"Kobold Den".

At the same time, two options appeared.

Enter?

Yes/No.

This was the function of the Portal of Time and Space: it could transport Shawn into an independent space.

Shawn then began to collect garrison resources.

Constructing the portal to transport him to the "Kobold Den" required 10 points of garrison resources—wood, stone, or leather; any of these would suffice.

Shawn spent a week preparing, and finally, he was ready.

He leaped up from his rattan chair, returned to his room, poured a cup of hot water, set it on the table, picked up the pack he had prepared long ago, and chose to enter.

The next moment, the world around him turned black. By the time Shawn regained his senses, he was no longer in his small room, but standing in a dry, filthy mine shaft. Not far from Shawn, an opaque ripple of water blocked his line of sight.

"Is this really spatial teleportation? Where is this? A Kobold Den? A cave? A mine?"

Shawn observed his surroundings in surprise, discovering that many candles were lit throughout the mine. The candlelight flickered in the moving air, giving the place a rather eerie and terrifying atmosphere.

Then, there was a chest.

Unlike the ancient-looking mine, this chest appeared significantly newer; it stood out as starkly as a red-crowned crane among a flock of ducks. When Shawn stepped closer to take a look, his face instantly twisted into a look of wry amusement.

"A Novice Chest? So this really is a dungeon!"

After muttering this complaint, Shawn opened the unlocked Novice Chest.

There were not many items inside: a scroll, a dagger, a potion, and a pouch the size of a palm.

As he picked up each item, information automatically appeared in Shawn's mind.

The dagger was forged from refined iron, white quality, a common piece of equipment. It was extremely sharp; a light swipe was enough to cut through Shawn's linen clothes. If used to stab someone, the effect would likely be quite good.

After drinking the potion, one could recover from injuries very rapidly, including both internal and external wounds. The name of this potion was "Lesser Healing Potion," a product of alchemy that any novice alchemist could concoct.

The pouch was a most ordinary six-slot Spatial Pouch, with each slot equivalent to one cubic meter—wasn't this just an inventory bag from a game? A spatial storage item?

The value of such an item was self-evident!

However, when he saw the scroll, Shawn became even more unsettled.

"Town Portal Scroll. Effect: Binds to a location; using it allows you to return to that location. Currently bound to this Dungeon Spawn Point. Disappears after use."

So, this thing was basically a one-time-use Hearthstone?

And a Dungeon Spawn Point? It was becoming more and more like a game.

Shawn organized his gear and tentatively stepped through the water ripple.

The next moment, his field of vision widened.

This was indeed a sprawling mine, littered everywhere with discarded, rusted pickaxes, candle stubs, and scattered, dilapidated mine carts. There were small, residual chunks of ore in the carts, though he couldn't identify the type.

Shawn knew nothing about mining and couldn't tell what kind of ore was contained here, but that didn't matter.

He picked up a piece of ore at random, and a piece of information instantly appeared in Shawn's mind.

"Barren Gold Ore. Contains a small amount of gold; can be used to exchange for garrison resources. Collect?"

"Hint: Exchanging for garrison resources within a dungeon does not consume mental energy."

Shawn's eyes lit up instantly.

No mental energy consumption? He was going to strike it rich!

For Shawn, wasn't the biggest obstacle limiting his collection of garrison resources his mental energy?

Since it didn't consume mental energy, couldn't he collect garrison resources in this mine without any restraint?

Thinking of the desolation within his Space Garrison, then imagining piles of garrison resources and all sorts of magical buildings, Shawn was moved to tears, wishing he had eight hands.

Shawn immediately chose to collect.

The next moment, the gold ore vanished, yet the resource panel remained unchanged.

"Could it be that there's too little gold ore? That makes sense; it takes a cubic meter of rock to count as 1 point of stone. How many palm-sized pieces of gold ore would it take to make a cubic meter? Especially since the gold content isn't high."

Shawn hurriedly searched everywhere.

It had to be said that the Kobolds were very diligent and thorough in their great mining enterprise, as if they wanted to lick every grain of gold clean.

If not for their abysmal eyesight hindering their ability to work, perhaps not even a speck of dust would have been left behind. Shawn searched for a long time before finding a dozen or so scattered pieces of gold ore.

And when all these pieces of gold ore were collected, the resource panel finally changed.

"Gold 1."

A dozen or so gold ore chunks yielded 1 point of gold resources, which was already quite a decent amount. The stone resources, however, showed no change at all. The exchange rate for gold was clearly different from that of stone. A cubic meter of stone counted as 1 point, but perhaps a small handful of gold was enough for 1 point.

Shawn had discovered the first benefit of this dungeon.

A joyous mining career began right then and there.

However, this was the "Kobold Den" after all; what kind of Kobold Den would it be without any kobolds?

Upon reaching the first corner, Shawn spotted a kobold with a candle perched on its head.

Clad in red and orange rags, sporting a rat-like tail, a candle on its head, and looking short and wretched, it yapped like a puppy when it called out.

This was a kobold.

Kobolds were an incredibly vast race, rumored to have at least a dozen subspecies.

These short, filthy creatures lived in subterranean caverns, standing less than a meter tall. To adapt to the dim underground environment, they wore candles on their heads, seemingly unbothered by the risk of hot wax dripping down and scalding their scalps.

The weakest common kobolds had a challenge rating of only level 1. The most powerful Kobold Shaman could even exceed level 10—that was already the tier of a high-level professional.

In the distant Stoneclaw Mountains, the most famous kobold tribe—the Withered Whisker Kobolds—had even achieved a legendary feat: they had formed an alliance with a giant to seal away the Earth Princess. For kobolds, that was nothing short of legendary!

However, the kobold before him was short and frail, its complexion sallow from malnutrition, and it carried no weapons other than the candle on its head—if one could even call the candle a weapon. Calling it a level 1 challenge was already being generous.

This meant that an average adult human, armed with nothing but a common wooden stick, could challenge it with at least a 90 percent success rate.