Chapter 75: Exchanging Intel With Magical Saltpeter!

[Saltpeter (Excellent)]

Description: High-purity saltpeter refined by the entry-level craftsman ‘Su Mo’. Can be used for a wide range of purposes: to manufacture matches, fireworks, gunpowder, glass, food preservatives and more. For inexplicable reasons, it has had its level upgraded to Excellent.

Special ability:

When used to produce nitric acid (concentration (95%↑)

When used to produce gunpowder (Energy +50%)

When used to produce explosives (Energy +50%)

…

Comment: Multipurpose, has a wide range of uses, and is highly effective! How is this not considered a cheat? (Justice!)

The property panel that popped up from the System exceeded the screen display size for the first time as it detailed the special abilities of the saltpeter.

There were more than thirty different uses for it and it had even achieved a certain level of energy upgrade.

However, that was not what had astonished Su Mo the most.

“I had no idea that combining psychic energy water with this stuff could generate so many options.”

Su Mo fiddled around with the saltpeter in the beaker with astonishment. He still could not figure out it could possess so many characteristics.

“Although…”

“If it was as incredible as the System described, I think my technology tree’s level is about to shoot up rapidly!”

He stared at the saltpeter powder with bright, burning eyes. Su Mo’s thoughts had now turned to the motor-pumped oil well in shelter number two.

He had initially planned to combine the refined saltpeter and sulfur with charcoal to manufacture the widely renowned gunpowder, which would bring him closer toward the age of firearms.

Now though, an unexpected word had popped into Su Mo’s mind.

“Picric acid!”

The well-known ‘dynamite’ (TNP) was also known as ‘picric acid explosives’.

It was made up of ‘Trinitrophenol’ and often confused with Nobel’s ‘safe explosives’, ‘TNT’.

An Englishman, Peter Woulfe, had created a dye formula in 1771.

He had gone through a process of blending concentrated sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and phenol (this could have been the crude phenol from the refining of coal tar or indigo blue, as the people in that era were unaware of phenol), and he successfully created a yellow crystallized powder with a trace of strong bitterness, therefore giving it the name ‘picric acid’.

The people then only used picric acid to dye clothes and to create paints or coating materials.

The dye industry during that time called trinitrophenol ‘yellow’. People used picric acid for 100 years to dye clothes, and had never once given any thought about it being possibly explosive in nature.

In 1871, an employee from a dye shop in Paris, France, met with a dilemma. There was a compressed yellow dye can that had been covered in rust, and no matter what he did, he was unable to open the can. The employees then decided to use the most simple, but crude, way to open the can, which was to smash it!

They hired a blacksmith with a huge hammer for 80 francs, who proceeded to smash his hammer down with all of this might!

No one had expected the can to explode with a boom and the entire dye workshop was almost left in ruins, leaving just the brightly-colored survivors groaning on the ground.

After investigations from multiple parties, the idea of an unknown explosive being hidden in the can was dismissed and the core of the issue then focused on the picric acid in the can. People began to realize…

“The yellow dye ignited an explosion from the hammer smash!!!”

This created a great commotion in society. Everyone began to be worried about ‘the color yellow’.

However, the French army had, in turn, been inspired by it. This was the best military weapon the heavens had bestowed to them. ‘The color yellow’ had had its safety and stability proven from years of use and could even be utilized for large-scale manufacturing and preparation.

Following this, French chemist, Eugene Turpin. began to research and develop a way to ‘incorporate picric acid’ into cartridges and shells, giving it the name ‘melinite’.

This was an unfamiliar name to many but, if one were to talk about it, mention should be made to the more familiar 1897 model of the 75mm field artillery, which was also the ‘Italian field gun’ mentioned by Li Yunlong[1].

Now he had the saltpeter required to manufacture and prepare picric acid, in addition to the sulfuric acid that could be produced from the combined reaction of sulfur and saltpeter. All that was left was to extract toluene from a little petroleum…

“If this is possible, I think that bombs on my technology tree will immediately surpass gunpowder and nitrocellulose, and we will enter the age of TNT!”

Su Mo suddenly became excited at the memory of his father constantly talking about how to create explosives before he had arrived at this place.

No matter how one looked at it, gunpowder was only an ingredient used for launching and manufacturing explosives. It was only capable of two reaction processes, which were detonation and combustion.

Picric acid was different. It had a chemical reaction that, if ignited through a shockwave, would first create an explosion at its eruption point, which would later produce large volumes of high-speed airflow that are highly-heated and highly-pressurized, which would in turn create a shockwave within the explosives.

The highly-pressured shockwave would then create a reaction with the thin layer of explosives nearby, producing large volumes of gas and heat to complete the cycle of explosion, detonation, and shockwave.

If he could accumulate enough picric acid, he could go to the extent of manufacturing enough explosives to fling them into the kobold castle.

With the shockwave detonation, all he needed was one opportunity, and those kobolds would learn the meaning of justice raining from the sky!

“I’ll try repairing the motor-pumped oil well tomorrow!”

Su Mo repeatedly stood up and sat down again at his workbench, unable to calm the agitation in his heart.

He poured 500g of the saltpeter powder he had extracted into the wooden container and stored it in his guest bedroom before returning to his workbench.

“I know the formula for extracting TNT, and I’ve learned how to produce nitric acid and sulfuric acid back in senior high school. It shouldn’t pose a problem to me. The crucial part is extracting toluene from petroleum and the process of their mixed reactions in formulating picric acid…”

“Nobel had killed his younger brother in an explosion because of the explosives he created all those years ago. Even though picric acid isn’t as difficult to produce as nitroglycerin, it can still cause an explosion when exposed to high temperature, friction or impact. Moreover, it could react and turn into picrate salts when exposed to iron, much like how mercury fulminate would turn into mercury salts, which might result in a dangerous explosion.”

“Maybe I can negotiate an exchange for intel on the formula for picric acid… I’ll obtain a better and safer way to produce it through the system upgrade!”

Su Mo no longer hesitated after coming to this decision. He summoned the game panel and searched for the contact of the person he was looking for.

He scanned through his list of friends and Su Mo finally set his eyes on the highlighted line with Shen Ke’s name.

He focused mentally and turned on the personal message channel.

[Su Mo: Hello, Shen Ke. Do you have time to chat? I want to make a deal!]

Su Mo continued sitting at his workbench, waiting silently after sending out the message.

As expected, Shen Ke’s video screen popped up in less than five seconds.

He connected to the video and the screen buzzed for a moment before Shen Ke’s attractive, but slightly tired, face appeared.

“Woah, Mr. Su Mo, your shelter has developed really quickly. It does not look like it belongs in the wasteland at all, but looks rather like my old brick home!”

There was bright light.

A clean and tidy partition.

In the screen’s background, Big Spark, Little Spark, and Oreo can be seen playing about on the floor.

She looked back at her own situation.

It reflected a rundown wooden house with a self-made smoking torch that she had lit up. It was pitch-black outside her window.

Gusts of wind would blow past occasionally, carrying the black smoke into the room and causing her to cough a little.

“Well, it’s nothing too fancy. I just had better luck in being able to achieve something. It’s nothing worth mentioning when compared to all of you,” Su Mo quickly concluded the small talk by waving Shen Ke off with his hand and getting straight to the topic.

“I’d like to make a deal with you. You know what TNT is, right? It’s picric acid. I would think that one of your people would know the formula and manufacturing process for it, am I right?”

“Yes, someone does know. That’s not a problem. If there is enough raw materials, we are able to produce it. Do you have any raw materials nearby?” Shen Ke did not think much of it as she revealed the information.

After all, this was not something difficult. Comparing TNT to RDX, or even to thermobaric blast explosives, there was not much difficulty in creating TNT as long as one had the raw materials.

However, what everyone lacked was exactly those raw materials!

In the olden days, Huaxia had not been able to develop this due the difficulty in extracting petroleum.

Materials such as petroleum were not just available everywhere. As a top-level strategic material, it was clear that there was none detected anywhere near Shen Ke’s shelter.

“Ahem, well, with regard to the raw materials, I did get them by opening up a treasure chest. I’m actually looking to manufacture some explosives for self-defense purposes since I have some accumulated.”

Su Mo maintained a normal expression as he blatantly lied.

There was no reason to explain things in detail. They were just making a deal and it was better to keep things simple.

Shen Ke nodded her head from the opposing screen. “What would you like to make an exchange with? Psychic energy water again?”

“Nope. This time, I’ll make the exchange with intel. Intel about alien creatures!” Su Mo waved his hand and smiled confidently.

“About this… I’m afraid I can’t make the decision. I’ll need to wait for instructions from above,” Shen Ke looked like she had been put in a difficult position and hung up the call after Su Mo expressed he was okay with it.

It was not long before a call connected. Two stern-looking, middle-aged men were sitting opposite Su Mo with four stenographers sitting behind them, who were looking anxiously at the screen.

“How are you, Su Mo? We’ve approved your proposed deal. Please feel free to share the intel on the alien creatures. Regardless of whether we’re already aware of the information, we’ll provide you with the complete formula and manufacturing process after this.”

Su Mo nodded. He was not worried about these people opposite him reneging on their deal. He cut to the chase and carefully told them about the Kobold Warrior, Kobold Mage, and the white-robed kobold whom he had no idea about.

During the process, Su Mo hid some details about the fight. All he shared was how the Kobold Mage cast spells, the Kobold Warrior’s combat abilities, and intel on the supplies brought along by the kobolds when they arrived, and so on.

The four stenographers recorded this furiously and Su Mo could tell from the screens that their expressions looked increasingly shocked as he provided more details on his intel.

Even the stern-looking middle-aged man sitting on the left asked for more details quite a few times during the process.

“Alright, Su Mo. Thank you for your contribution to humankind. Your intel has been very useful. This intel will eventually be shared by the Huaxia shelter. I believe you won’t object to this?”

“No, no, that’s fine…” With that, those people quickly stood up while Shen Ke returned to her seat.

While waiting for the people on the opposite side to finish preparing the picric acid formula and manufacturing, the two of them began their small talk as they chatted.

“By the way, Shen Ke, who was the person sitting on the right side. There’s something strange about the guy,” Su Mo changed the topic after going through a few random conversation topics. This was something that had been on his mind just now.

The man on the left was swift to conduct business and sat in a proper upright position. The man on the right was initially proper, but it only took him a few minutes before he let himself loose and relaxed in his seat.

“The biggest question I have about him was that, while I was providing intel on the kobolds, he had a shocked look on his face. However, his microexpressions are telling me that he had known about this issue much earlier on…”

“Oh? Are you referring to President Ying? Ying Tianlong is the president of the Civil Self-Rescue Association. Their association is quite large and when they first arrived, over twenty of them were placed together. They are the main people behind our ‘Tundra’ shelter!” Shen Ke gave a silly laugh as she gave out that information without holding anything back.

“Tundra?”

“Yup! That’s the name of our shelter. Of course, the next time we achieve first place in Disaster Resistance rankings, we will continue using Huaxia’s name. This designated name can only be used by the number one shelters. Other times, we would refer to ourselves as Tundra…”

“Oh, is that so…” Su Mo immediately changed the topic once he received the information he wanted, and began to chat about their daily lives.

It was not long before Shen Ke’s request for the deal popped up.

Su Mo smiled as he looked at the complete record and flowchart of the TNT explosives that was given to him as part of this deal.

A bright light flashed and two pieces of paper filled with words appeared on his workbench!

[1] Li Yunlong was a high-ranking officer in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in the 1930s