Building a New World - Chapter 10

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Chapter 10: Kobold Pet

Jia Zhengjin climbed down from the tree, first scoffing at the kobold tribe that had abandoned their comrades and scattered, disappearing in an instant. Then, gripping his stone spear, he approached the edge of the trap and shouted at the kobolds who had fallen in: "Hands up!"

"Awooo~ Awooo~" The trapped kobolds couldn't understand Jia Zhengjin's Mandarin at all. They bared their teeth and snarled in warning at him. Despite their small size, when they opened their mouths to reveal rows of sharp teeth, they were quite intimidating!

One of the kobolds even desperately tried to jump out of the trap, ferociously attempting to lunge at Jia Zhengjin.

It seemed that although kobolds walked upright, they didn't possess human-level intelligence. They were simply a special kind of wild animal. All their behaviors were driven by the animal instincts of attack and defense!

Realizing this, Jia Zhengjin discarded his hesitation. He immediately raised his stone spear and thrust it forcefully at the most active kobold—the black-furred one trying desperately to jump out.

"-11!" A blood-red number popped up above the kobold's head, and Jia Zhengjin also saw its health: 89/100.

With one kobold injured, the others in the trap panicked. They immediately stopped snarling and turned to dig at the earth with their short legs, trying to burrow their way out.

Jia Zhengjin was dumbfounded by this situation. How spineless could they be? He had expected them to put up some resistance at least.

No wonder the main group had fled without a trace; they were just a bunch of cowards putting on a brave face!

Since that was the case, he was more than happy to beat these cowards while they were down.

The kobolds, trapped in a pit twice their height, had no way to jump out. Meanwhile, Jia Zhengjin's stone spear could easily reach any of them from above.

Soon, the black kobold was the first to fall.

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

Unexpectedly, these cowardly kobolds yielded even more experience than skeletons! Could these weak creatures actually be stronger than undead skeletons?

Jia Zhengjin needed 200 experience points to level up from level 2 to 3. He already had about 60 points remaining after his last level-up from killing skeletons and destroying the mushrooms. In other words, another 140 experience points would be enough to level him up!

There were five kobolds trapped in total. At 30 points per kobold, it was enough for him to reach level 3!

He couldn't miss such a good opportunity, so he immediately went on a killing spree, quickly eliminating all the kobolds in the traps.

After successfully reaching level 3, he would need 400 experience points to get to level 4. Essentially, each level up required double the experience of the previous one, and so on. It was easy in the early stages, but leveling up would become increasingly difficult in the later stages!

The five kobolds yielded one [Poor Quality Wooden Club] and one [Dog Tooth Necklace].

Of the two spoils, Jia Zhengjin could actually craft the wooden club himself, and the poor quality club had even lower attack power than the stone spear, so he discarded it. The dog tooth necklace, however, had a +1 attack attribute, which was somewhat helpful to him, so he immediately hung it around his neck.

With kobolds providing such high experience and being so easy to kill, Jia Zhengjin wanted to seize the opportunity to eliminate more and level up rapidly. However, after chasing them for a while, he discovered that the rest had long since vanished without a trace.

"They'll definitely come back. I'll reset the traps first!" Jia Zhengjin dragged the kobold corpses out of the traps and buried them in a hole he dug elsewhere. Then he re-camouflaged the traps before carefully making his way back home through the bushes.

Once home, he immediately took out the ten iron ingots he had smelted yesterday and used the precious skill point he had just gained from leveling up to learn [Iron Tool Crafting Mastery]. This allowed him to craft iron tools that were sharper and more durable than the current stone tools.

Using ten iron ingots and two wooden sticks, he successfully crafted an iron pickaxe.

He was incredibly lucky! The first iron tool he crafted in this world turned out to be of [Normal] quality.

Being able to create normal quality items with just the level 2 crafting skill involved a significant element of luck.

Jia Zhengjin was overjoyed. He took the iron pickaxe out and began mining the nearby stones. The efficiency was indeed more than twice that of a stone pickaxe, and the iron ore yield was higher too. This made him so happy, he started singing as he worked, with the clinking sounds of mining echoing by the riverside.

After gathering some iron ore, he immediately returned home and threw it into the furnace, adding charcoal as fuel to start smelting the ore. He put all the stone blocks from his inventory into the wooden chest, then went out to work again.

When he returned for the second time, there were ten more iron ingots in the furnace.

Jia Zhengjin used these ten ingots to craft an iron axe, then threw the iron ore he mined this time into the furnace.

This time his luck wasn't as good; the iron axe he crafted was only a [Poor] quality axe, but it was still considerably better than a stone axe.

"This many stones should be enough for now. Before dark, I can still collect plenty of logs and plant fibers. Tonight, I'll work hard to level up my tool crafting skill to level 3!" Jia Zhengjin made his plan. "But before that, I'll go back and check if the traps caught any animals. I might as well gain as much experience as possible!"

A day of labor was quite tiring, after all, He wasn't a true game character who could work indefinitely. When playing games, Jia Zhengjin would control his character to mine and kill monsters non-stop for 24 hours to level up. But in reality, he needed rest and sleep, which was already quite time-consuming. If he could do more, he'd rather not sit around!

Quickly returning to the trap site, he found that two of the traps had unfortunately been crushed by some large animal. It was probably the triceratops he had seen earlier.

Of the other two traps, one remained intact and untriggered.

Only one trap had successfully caught prey, but to Jia Zhengjin's disappointment, it contained just a single, smaller kobold!

While the other kobolds were about a meter tall, this kobold was less than 0.5 meters, and its fur looked soft and tender. Unlike adult kobolds who initially showed fierce expressions and aggressive growls when facing enemies, only to flee in fear after being attacked, this little kobold had already curled up into a ball and was whimpering pitifully before Jia Zhengjin even made a move.

"How could I bring myself to harm such a small kobold?" Jia Zhengjin couldn't lower his raised stone spear, but he was also reluctant to simply release an animal he had worked so hard to capture.

A sudden idea struck him. He looked for some grass on the spot to collect plant fibers and crafted the collected plant fibers into a rope. He jumped down into the pit and picked up the little kobold, which didn't even dare to resist. He tied the rope around its neck and took it home.

After all, he had nothing better to do, so having a pet wouldn't be bad! Although kobolds walked upright, they were essentially dogs, weren't they?

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