Kobold Den

Although Sean had obtained the Portal of Time and Space, what he had actually received was a "crippled" version. It was only an illusory portal of light, with no physical form. To build a one-use space portal, he had to pay Garrison Resources.

Only after the Space Garrison had been upgraded to a higher level could he build a true Portal of Time and Space.

At that moment, there was only one dim point of light on the illusory portal.

As Sean watched, a blurry image appeared on the point of light, along with a line of text.

"Kobold Den."

There were also two options.

Enter?

Yes/No.

That was what the Portal of Time and Space did: it could transport Sean to an isolated space.

Then Sean began gathering Garrison Resources.

Building a Portal of Time and Space to travel to the "Kobold Den" cost 10 Garrison Resources. It could be paid in lumber, stone, or leather—any one of those would do.

Sean spent a week preparing, and at last he had enough.

He sprang up from the wicker chair and returned to his room. He poured a cup of hot water and set it on the table, then picked up a package he had been preparing for a long time. Sean chose to enter.

The world around him went dark. By the time Sean came to, he was no longer in his little room. He was standing in a dry, filthy mine tunnel. Not far away, an opaque, rippling barrier blocked his view.

"Was that really a space-time teleport? Where am I? The Kobold Den? A cave? A mine?"

Sean stared around in amazement and saw that quite a few candles had been lit in the mine. Their flames flickered in the moving air, giving the place a rather eerie, frightening feel.

Then he spotted a chest.

Unlike the mine, which was steeped in an ancient atmosphere, the chest looked conspicuously new, like a red-crowned crane among a flock of ducks. When Sean stepped closer to look, his expression instantly turned into one of amused exasperation.

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

After that brief complaint, Sean opened the unlocked Novice Chest.

There wasn't much inside: a scroll, a dagger, a potion, and a palm-sized cloth pouch.

As he picked up each item, information automatically surfaced in Sean's mind.

The dagger was forged from refined iron. It was a common piece of white-quality equipment, but very sharp. A light slash was enough to cut through Sean's linen clothes. It would probably work well for stabbing someone.

Drinking the potion would rapidly heal injuries, both internal and external. It was called a "Lesser Healing Potion," an alchemical product that any novice alchemist could make.

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

Its value went without saying!

But when Sean saw the scroll, he was even more unsettled.

"Town Portal Scroll. Effect: Binds a location. When used, it returns you to that location. Bound to this dungeon's spawn point. Disappears after use."

So it was basically a one-use Hearthstone?

And there was a dungeon spawn point? This was looking more and more like a game.

Sean gathered his things and cautiously stepped through the rippling barrier.

The next moment, the view opened up before him.

It really was a network of mine tunnels. Rusty pickaxes lay scattered everywhere, along with candles burned down to stubs and a few battered mine carts. Small chunks of ore remained in the carts, but it was impossible to tell what kind they were.

Sean knew nothing about mining and couldn't tell what kind of ore the place contained, but that didn't matter.

He picked up a chunk of ore, and a message immediately appeared in his mind.

"Barren Gold Ore. Contains a small amount of gold and can be exchanged for Garrison Resources. Collect?"

"Notice: Exchanging items for Garrison Resources inside a dungeon does not consume spirit."

Sean's eyes lit up.

It didn't consume spirit? He was going to make a fortune!

For Sean, wasn't spirit the biggest obstacle to gathering Garrison Resources?

If it didn't consume spirit, then couldn't he gather Garrison Resources to his heart's content in this mine?

Thinking of the desolation inside the Space Garrison, then imagining piles of Garrison Resources and all kinds of wondrous buildings, Sean was so excited that tears welled in his eyes. He wished he had eight hands.

Sean immediately chose to collect the ore.

The next moment, the gold ore vanished, but the resource panel didn't change at all.

"Was there too little gold ore? That makes sense. One cubic meter of rock only counts as one point of stone. How many palm-sized chunks of gold ore would it take to make a cubic meter? Besides, the gold content is low."

Sean hurried off to search.

It had to be said that the Kobolds took their great mining enterprise very seriously. They were so thorough that they seemed determined to lick every last fleck of gold out of the ground.

If their terrible eyesight hadn't affected their handiwork, perhaps not even a speck of dust would have remained. Sean searched for a long time and only found a dozen or so scattered chunks of gold ore.

When he had collected all of them, the resource panel finally changed.

"Gold 1."

A dozen or so chunks of gold ore had yielded one point of gold resources, which wasn't bad at all. The amount of stone, however, hadn't changed. Gold was clearly exchanged differently from stone. One cubic meter of stone counted as one point, but perhaps a tiny pinch of gold was enough for one point.

Sean had found the first benefit of this dungeon.

And so his cheerful mining career began.

But this was the "Kobold Den." What kind of Kobold Den would it be without any Kobolds?

When Sean reached the first bend, he saw a Kobold with a candle perched on its head.

It wore red-and-orange clothing and had a tail like a rat. A candle sat atop its head. It was short and filthy, and its cries sounded like a little dog barking.

This was a Kobold.

Kobolds were an enormous race, with at least a dozen subspecies, or so it was said.

These short races lived underground. They stood less than a meter tall and were filthy and wretched. To adapt to the dim conditions below ground, they wore candles on their heads, and didn't seem to mind the dripping wax burning their scalps.

The weakest, ordinary Kobolds had a Challenge Level of only 1. The strongest, Kobold Shaman, might even exceed 10—that was already the level of a High-Rank Professionist.

Far away in the Stoneclaw Mountains, one of the Kobolds' most famous groups, the Withered Whisker Kobolds, had even accomplished a great feat: they allied with giants and sealed away the Earth Princess. For Kobolds, it was practically the stuff of legend!

But the Kobold before him was short and scrawny, with a sallow complexion from malnutrition. Aside from the candle atop its head, it had no weapons—unless the candle counted as one. Calling its Challenge Level 1 was already giving it too much credit.

That meant an ordinary adult human armed with an ordinary wooden club could challenge it and have at least a 90 percent chance of winning.