Chapter 970: Alternate Timeline: The Gunpowder Production

Name: Kiara (Kyra Phoenix)

Rank: 5

Strength: 1.5

Intelligence: 5.2 (+1.3)

Defense: 5

Agility: 1.6

Vitality: 2.1

Resistance: 1.1

Charisma: 9

Luck: 2+5

Bloodline: Frost Dragon

Attribute: Lightning, Ice, and Space (locked)

Spirit path: Summoner

Ether quality: High

Ether energy: 114,303

Equipped Items: Amulet of Magic (25% Int increase)

Special Skills: Ultimate Defense I, Ultimate Defense II, Thunderblast, Lightning Clone, Seal Breaker, and The Devil’s Hand

Bloodline skills: Absolute freezing, Ice bolt

Assistants: 2 (Zion Spencer, Noah Spencer)

Lifespan limit: 175 (150 years left)

Available credits: 1480

Available Credit limit: 35000 (out of 160,000)

Net worth: 92,115 gold coins, 18 silver coins

Total Debt: 185,586 gold coins; 1598 ether crystals (low)

Credit debt: 125,000 (+877) [Equivalent to 625000 gold coins (+4385 gold coins)]

SKILLS:

ACTIVE:

The Devil’s Hand: Dismantle any object that you can touch and exchange in equivalent credits. And in case the object has an owner (bound to one’s soul), then, you get 50% of equivalent credits as long as it is below Mythril grade (i.e. semi-divine and below). Cost: 0 ether points, CD: 0 seconds.

Sage eyes: Allows the user to inspect any non-living thing or living thing and find their details.

Thunderblast: Summon a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down the enemy with 150% attack power (10.9 max). Cost: 50% ether. CD: 60min.

Seal Breaker: Allows the user to remove any seal under ancient grade.

Lightning Clone: Create a clone made of lightning attribute and ether energy, controlling it like a puppet from a distance. Cost: 1% ether energy/second. Range: 500 meters. CD: 0 seconds. Effect: The strength of the clone will be one whole realm above the highest stat of the user during the time of unleashing the skill (Max stat: 10.9). The clone will release an enormous amount of energy upon being destroyed, causing serious damage to the enemies standing nearby. In that case, the user cannot resummon the clone for the next 12 hours.

PASSIVE:

Ultimate Defense I: By Default, the store is invincible under the heavens and cannot be damaged by anyone under the Demigod realm

Ultimate Defense II: Within the store, the host cannot be harmed by anyone under the demigod realm. The host cannot also be dragged outside against his will.

BLOODLINE SKILLS:

Absolute Freezing: Freeze your surroundings for 120 seconds. Range: 200m. Cost: 10000 EP. CD: 30min.

Ice bolt: Conjure any number of ice spears with your ether energy at any time to launch them at your enemies with 100% power. Anything that gets pierced will be frozen. Cost: 20% ether. CD: 0 sec. Note: The user can launch only one spear. Range: 200m

AVAILABLE WEAPONS FOR SALE:

Single-shot Pistol; Revolver; P365 (10 rounds); P226 (20 rounds); R.I.P. 9mm; Light tank – Sd.Kfz. (Panzer); Eight types of Grenade; Falling block rifle; Contender; M-99 Sniper Rifle; Rocket launcher- Pzf 3-IT600; Self-propelled Howitzer- Pzh 2000; Chimera-SMG; 12 models of assault rifle; 8 models of Lever action rifle; 8 models of bolt action rifle; Kidd-class Destroyer (warship); Ether pistol; C4 (basic); C4 (advanced); Chimera SGM; VTLM2-NEC (Light Multirole Vehicle); Yak 130 (Light combat aircraft);

UNLOCKED EXCLUSIVE WEAPONS:

Derringer; Shotgun; Grenade Launcher; Panzer-IV; Light Artillery Rocket System;

***

Kiara stared at the debt section for a long moment.

Then, finally, sighed.

"That interest is growing faster than weeds after rain. It’s only been one week and it has already crossed 4000 gold coins."

Even if all pending orders were completed...

Even if she emptied her current wealth...

The debt would still remain enormous.

Which meant only one thing.

She needed larger buyers.

Much larger.

Kiara leaned back slightly while thinking.

"I need to start selling stronger weapons. Besides... I still need to complete the quest requirement anyway."

She began analyzing potential customers carefully.

"Icarus Veyne owes me, but Western Phoenix is broke right now. Even if he reclaims the throne, expensive maintenance alone would bury him."

"That biological father of mine can surely afford it... But I don’t want to hand such weapons to him."

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Which leaves Caleb Crescent. He’s wealthy, desperate for protection, and already dependent on my support. He’ll definitely buy."

Then suddenly...

Another thought surfaced.

Ares Frost.

Or rather...

Solaria.

Kiara’s eyes blinked, and a smile appeared on her lips.

"That’s right... The Kingdom of Solaria sits on massive gold reserves. If their borders are under pressure from neighboring empires, they’ll naturally crave stronger deterrence."

"If I sell Howitzers to strengthen their defenses..."

"Then perhaps northern empires will start approaching me too."

The possibilities immediately expanded inside her head like unfolding maps.

"And Celestra has long coastlines and islands..."

"They need Destroyers."

"As for the Yak-130..."

Kiara paused thoughtfully.

"Maybe I should renegotiate with Alexander Phoenix. After all... I still don’t have attack helicopters, and honestly, neither do I have a way to procure them at the moment. I only made that false deal because in five years, I can accomplish and two, I highly doubt the Empire will still exist by then, and even if they do, they might not have enough funds to procure them from me, later."

After organizing her thoughts, she immediately reopened the factory.

"Open Kiara’s Factory."

Her consciousness returned inside the mechanical mindscape.

This time, massive wooden crates filled with finished gunpowder occupied one corner while remaining saltpeter and charcoal sat piled separately nearby.

The giant robot turned toward her immediately.

"The work has been completed."

Then system notifications appeared.

[Ding! You successfully created gunpowder.]

[Ding! You earned 100 experience points.]

[Ding! Do you wish to sell the formula to the system and make it available for mass production in exchange for 100 credits?]

Kiara blinked.

"Even this can be sold?"

The system immediately replied.

[Ding! Ignite it in a confined space and see for yourself whether it does nothing.]

Kiara snorted.

The system’s sarcasm somehow sounded increasingly human lately.

"No thanks."

Then, after thinking briefly, she asked another question.

"If I sell the prototype formula now, how much would it cost to buy later for production?"

The system answered instantly.

[Ding! 6 silver coins per 100 gm.]

Kiara rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"Oh... That’s actually not bad."

There were roughly eight hundred and thirty kilograms of gunpowder stacked before Kiara.

All of them were packed tightly inside thick wooden crates whose rough surfaces carried the dry scent of timber dust and sulfur.

And when she silently calculated the cost in her mind while staring at those boxes lined one after another, she realized that, excluding the remaining goods, merely purchasing these three materials alone had already swallowed nearly 1500 gold coins from her pocket, yet the strange thing was that if she acquired the same thing through the system itself, the cost would drop to nearly one-third of that amount.

It was as though the system was quietly mocking the markets of the world and telling her that the merchants outside were merely frogs staring at the sky from the bottom of a well.

For perhaps the first time since obtaining the system, Kiara truly understood that the system was not always greedy beyond reason.

Because according to its usual rules, the rarer an item became, the higher its price rose like a dragon climbing storm clouds, but gunpowder clearly did not fall into that category, and after thinking about it carefully for a while, she found the answer naturally unfolding inside her mind.

The ingredients she used were not sacred treasures hidden beneath ancient ruins or divine ores buried in forbidden lands, but ordinary materials already spread throughout the world in great quantities and used for various purposes by craftsmen, alchemists, and traders alike, which meant that even if nobody understood firearms yet, eventually someone would begin dismantling her weapons piece by piece.

At the very least, Kiara knew with certainty that someone would eventually uncover the process behind creating bullets because curiosity was a fire more dangerous than greed. And once people witnessed the destructive power of firearms, they would not rest peacefully without attempting to imitate them, though smokeless powder itself would remain difficult to replicate, forcing many alchemists to stumble through failed experiments while trying to create substitutes from other materials.

And that reality only proved one thing to her: that sooner or later, classic gunpowder would inevitably appear in this world, no matter how tightly secrets were guarded, because knowledge was like water flowing downhill, finding cracks even inside mountains.

And once the kingdoms, clans, noble houses, and merchants understood the true value of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, the prices of those materials would climb like starving hawks diving toward meat, which would naturally increase the cost of manufacturing ammunition across the world.

Because of that, Kiara decided she might as well rely on the system itself to procure classic gunpowder at a far lower price and use it for lower-grade bullets, while reserving the better materials for more advanced weapons later in the future.

With purchases from the system, every 9mm bullet required only around five grains, roughly 0.32 grams, of gunpowder, which meant 100 grams alone would be enough for nearly 300 bullets. After finishing those calculations, her attention shifted toward the remaining three components required for ammunition production, namely the bullet itself, the casing, and the primer.

Unfortunately, she did not possess enough industrial machines for rapid mass production, and because of that limitation, the order of 200,000 bullets placed earlier by Icarus Veyne would take considerable time to complete. So after weighing her options carefully, she assigned only one robot to continuously manufacture bullets in large quantities while the remaining two robots focused entirely on bringing her weapon designs into reality so she could fulfill one of the conditions required for unlocking the second Spirit Path.

Kiara then handed over detailed blueprints containing the specifications for the remaining Tigon-series weapons, excluding only the rocket launcher and the howitzer, along with precise instructions and nearly all the materials needed for construction, including 100kg each of lead, tin, and brass, a full ton of copper, and another 100kg of Herculean steel, while deliberately withholding the Damascus tungsten stored inside her inventory, because although the material possessed terrifying density and strength, it served little purpose in ordinary firearm manufacturing.

In truth, she wanted to preserve that rare metal for future missile construction, but such ambitions required equipment and manufacturing capabilities far beyond what her current Factory could provide, so she could only suppress those thoughts for now and leave them sleeping quietly within the future like seeds buried beneath winter soil.

After storing all the wooden crates of gunpowder inside her inventory one by one, hearing the dull scraping sounds of wood shifting against the floor while faint traces of sulfur lingered in the air around her, Kiara finally exited the Factory and returned to the real world before allowing exhaustion to drag her body toward sleep.