Chapter 9: The Alchemy Secret Room

Passing through the corridor beside the main hall, the two came to the courtyard behind the inn.

The courtyard had only one floor, with most of it being guest rooms and the rest serving as kitchen and storage. Lei En did not look around randomly but followed Zuoertan into a part of the courtyard; judging from the decor, this was likely Zuoertan's own quarters—tidied very neatly, though no other dwarves were to be seen.

Zuoertan used a key to open a room filled with many things piled up, looking like a storage room.

Lei En watched as Zuoertan pushed aside a cabinet against the wall, revealing a staircase leading downward behind it.

"Come down."

The dwarf offered no further explanation and took the lead down the stairs.

Lei En hesitated briefly, but still followed him in.

The staircase was not long and soon reached the end, where an empty basement appeared before them.

Several gas lamps lit up, and after seeing clearly, Lei En was quite surprised—this place was much larger than he had imagined, with an area of nearly one hundred square meters and a height of three meters, with no sense of being cramped or stuffy at all. It could no longer be called a basement.

However, Lei En's attention was entirely drawn to the mechanical equipment around him.

A machine resembling a lathe was placed in the middle of the basement, looking bulky and heavy, and somewhat old, but well maintained—various shafts, gears, and flywheels were polished to a glossy shine without a speck of rust. The lathe was connected to a tall boiler, clearly powered by steam.

"A steam lathe!"

Lei En recognized it at a glance, yet felt something was not quite right.

This machine was very complex, not just a single lathe; it seemed to combine functions such as cutting, forging, planing, milling, grinding, and extrusion, like a universal machine tool assembled from various parts. Besides the steam lathe, there were many other tools nearby, such as a forge furnace and grinding wheels, and various metal materials and components were piled up in the corner.

Zuoertan saw Lei En's expression and said proudly, "This is my private workshop."

Lei En asked curiously, "Boss, are you a mechanical craftsman?" Earlier he had guessed that Zuoertan was an alchemist, which was why he sold alchemical materials.

"I suppose you could say that."

Zuoertan shrugged. "I used to be a blacksmith among my people, but my skills were quite poor. Later I went to the Empire to study mechanical machining, but I had no interest in making swords and weapons. Now I'm a gunsmith."

Saying that, he pulled out the pistol at his waist and slapped it twice.

Lei En had never heard of a gunsmith, but could guess it was a craftsman who specialized in making Soul Guns—no wonder he had seen many components like barrels and springs among that pile of metal materials.

"Just when you're sleepy, someone hands you a pillow."

Lei En was pleasantly surprised. His plan was to first confirm whether gunpowder could be produced, and if so, then figure out a way to manufacture a gun.

Longshandecheng had many craftsman workshops under the "Steam and Mechanics Guild," selling various weapons and also accepting custom orders for metal parts, as long as you could afford it.

His earlier idea was to order gun components in batches from different craftsman workshops and then assemble them himself, but the overall cost would certainly be high, so he had to get some money first.

Now, seeing Zuoertan's workshop, Lei En immediately had a new idea.

If he could borrow this workshop and do it himself, with the mechanical structure diagrams on his phone as an aid, he could save a large sum of money and quickly produce a gun.

Zuoertan walked to a wall and raised his hand, pressing it against the surface.

Several silver lines appeared on the wall, forming a door, which then opened inward. As it opened, the door rubbed against the floor with a dull rumble, clearly extremely heavy, seemingly made from a single solid piece of stone—an ordinary person would not be able to push it open at all.

"This is a magic door!"

Lei En was stunned for a moment; it was his first time seeing a magic door, but what surprised him more was that Zuoertan seemed to trust him completely, not at all worried about the secret getting out.

This also put him on guard—

Could Zuoertan have other motives?

Zuoertan seemed to have guessed Lei En's thoughts and said dismissively, "I didn't make this magic door, including this basement—it was already here before I bought the inn. There's nothing particularly valuable inside; it's just where I store my alchemical materials. Many people who've traded with me have been in here."

"Stop dawdling—do you still want to buy alchemical materials or not?" Seeing Lei En still hesitating, the dwarf grew somewhat impatient.

Lei En did not think further and had no choice but to walk in.

The secret room behind the magic door was not large, only about twenty-odd square meters. The walls were all smooth stone, as if the entire room had been hollowed out from a single giant boulder, completely airtight. The only light source in the secret room was the gas lamp Zuoertan carried; because his hand was shaking, the illumination was very unstable.

Lei En discreetly activated the camera and increased the brightness in his field of view.

Several rows of wooden shelves stood in the room, divided into over a hundred small compartments, each containing various materials.

Zuoertan raised the gas lamp to illuminate the shelves and said, "All my alchemical materials are here. I've been using quite a lot lately and sold quite a bit too, so I haven't had time to restock. Take a look at what you want to buy and let me know."

"Alright," Lei En nodded.

There were over a hundred kinds of materials here, and the types were complex—mainly various ores and powders, along with some processed plant branches and leaves, as well as certain oddly shaped materials that might have come from living creatures.

Lei En was immediately somewhat stumped; he did not recognize most of these materials.

He remembered the formula for black gunpowder, but did not know how to say those three ingredients in the Aurelien Language, and for the moment could not identify whether they were present here.

But there were also some things that were very easy to recognize, such as alcohol and graphite, both of which might come in handy. Lei En took them down and placed them on the table. He continued searching, and his gaze fell on a glass jar containing a kind of black granule—dark and heavy, very familiar.

"Is this black gunpowder?"

Lei En stepped forward and opened the lid, catching a whiff of gunpowder, and was overjoyed. He had been thinking of mixing it himself, never expecting that a finished product already existed.

"Boss, what's in this jar?" He pretended not to recognize the black gunpowder and asked casually.

Zuoertan came over, took a look, and replied, "This is fire sand. A long time ago, we dwarves used it to make musket bullets, but its power was too low, it was hard to store, and firing produced a lot of smoke, so it was long ago replaced by phlogiston. It has very little use now."

Lei En was now completely certain—this was black gunpowder, without a doubt.

So the dwarves had discovered black gunpowder long ago, but never used it on a large scale; it had been eliminated by phlogiston.

Lei En had heard of phlogiston before—the main material used to make Soul Gun Bullets, which could ignite and explode like gunpowder but required soul power to trigger. He immediately understood: it was precisely because of the existence of phlogiston that the world of Ai Lun E Si had not continued researching more powerful gunpowder.

In truth, the power of black gunpowder was not insignificant; it was just that the dwarves had never worked out the most precise formula, so they quickly gave up on it.

However, this jar of fire sand was probably unusable too—insufficient power.

Lei En deliberated for a moment and decided not to hide it from Zuoertan, saying, "Boss, I'd like to buy some fire sand for research, along with its preparation method and enough raw materials. Do you have those?"

"Let me look."

Zuoertan did not ask Lei En what he wanted the fire sand for. He walked back and forth in front of the wooden shelves a few times and soon took down three or four materials, introducing them: "Fire sand is made from volcanic yellow earth, charcoal powder, and bitter ice. I'll write down the preparation method for you later."

Lei En recognized at once that volcanic yellow earth was sulfur and bitter ice was saltpeter, and he memorized the names of these materials.

After that, he did not buy anything else and had Zuoertan calculate the price.

Since these materials were all fairly common and not particularly precious, and the quantities were not large, Lei En only paid 100 copper coins to purchase them.

Before leaving the secret room, Lei En's gaze happened to sweep across the floor, and he noticed strange markings beneath some of the wooden shelves, forming complex patterns. They were filled with dust and not very obvious—if he had not increased the brightness in his field of view, it would have been very difficult to see these markings at all.

However, he didn't pay too much attention and followed Zuo Er Tan out of the secret room.

After closing the magic door, Zuo Er Tan glanced at Lei En, who was holding alchemy materials, and said, "If you want to do alchemy research, you can borrow my alchemy table for a few days, so you won't burn down my inn with fire sand upstairs."

As he spoke, he pointed to a table in the corner of the basement, on which many glass vessels were placed.

Lei En was naturally willing.

He not only wanted to borrow the alchemy table, but also the whole workshop, to use that steam lathe.

"Thanks, boss." Lei En smiled somewhat embarrassedly and said, "I also want to borrow that lathe, if possible."

Upon hearing this, Zuo Er Tan immediately widened his eyes, and his beard bristled up.

Lei En quickly added, "I can pay."

Zuo Er Tan's expression softened, he pondered for a moment, then said somewhat reluctantly, "Paying is fine." He thrust out five thick fingers and said sternly, "Fifty copper lis per day, with coal and materials consumed extra; if you damage the tools, you must compensate at full value."

Lei En calculated his remaining money, which could last more than ten days, and with his skill he should be able to craft a gun.

If he failed, he would have to find another way.

For revenge, he gritted his teeth and nodded in agreement.

Zuo Er Tan walked around the workshop, took stock of the available materials, and then left.

Lei En did not want to waste time; he immediately went to the alchemy table, familiarized himself with the set of glass vessels, and began to prepare black powder.

He had previously read a treatise on weapons and ammunition in the library, which not only covered the development history of gunpowder but also the manufacturing methods of various ammunition.

The simplest of these was black powder; he remembered it vividly, so he clearly recalled the optimal proportion formula.

In fact, black powder was not his first choice; Lei En also recalled a solvent-based method for making smokeless powder that was more powerful and not difficult, but lacking the ingredients here, he had to settle for second best.

After several attempts, Lei En successfully produced gunpowder in just half a day.