Chapter 51: Sludge Fest

Turning off his epiphany phase and admiring Yinling's realm, Jun finally took notice of his surroundings.

"Damn, this room stinks" Jun exclaimed, pinching his nose.

Jun hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings since he himself had been too busy breaking through and helping Yinling as well which caused him to not pay much attention. So once out of it, he could hardly even breathe in this stench.

Yinling hearing this frowned.

"Jun... are you implying tha-" Yinling couldn't even continue her sentence when the horrible smell of their black sludge expelled from their bodies went into her nose.

She leaped up, her hand clasping her nose, eyes watering from the stench. With a swift extension of her divine sense, Yinling pinpointed the bathroom's location in their room and darted toward it, desperation in her step.

BOOM

A huge noise of wood breaking along with other things rang through their room. 

Jun whipped his head toward the commotion, eyes widening at the sight of a gaping hole in the once-pristine wooden wall. Through the jagged aperture, he could see Yinling, her figure emerging from the debris, a look of bewilderment painted across her face.

"Yinling!" he called out, urgency propelling him forward. Mimicking Yinling's earlier haste, he moved with such speed that the distance between them vanished in a heartbeat.

CRASH

The next moment, Jun found himself replicating Yinling's unintentional feat, barreling through the expensive wood, joining her in a baffled, dust-covered heap surrounded by wood chunks. 

"Damn," Jun whispered under his breath, pulling himself from the rubble that had momentarily buried him. He reasoned, half-amused and half-exasperated, that their newfound strength was the culprit behind this.

Extending his arm through the new makeshift doorway in their once intact room, Jun squinted, trying to locate Yinling through the dust in the air. There she was, hand clamped over her mouth, shoulders shaking in a futile attempt to suppress her laughter.

"Don't even start," Jun warned, his voice carrying a light-hearted edge despite the situation.

"Oh, is the mighty Jun actually flustered? What ever will I do?" Yinling teased back, her voice dancing with mirth.

Catching Yinling's laughter, Jun's smirk widened. In an instant, leveraging his newfound strength, he closed the distance between them. With playful retribution in mind, he scooped her up, deliberately smearing himself on her.

"Jun! Enough!" Yinling protested, wriggling in his grasp. The sensation of the sludge mixing between them added a whole new level of discomfort to the experience.

"You asked for it—"

CREAK

The sound of a door opening sounded in the ears of Jun and Yinling like a demon. They both slowly pivoted toward the source, their faces a mix of apprehension, only to find Zhao Yuling standing at the doorway, her eyes wide with a blend of revulsion and shock.

Before Jun could even attempt an explanation, Zhao Yuling crumpled to the ground in a faint. Glancing at Yinling, who mirrored his bewildered expression, Jun offered a weak attempt at humor. "Well, at least she won't remember this, right?"

Yinling, catching on to the urgency of the situation, directed, "Just drag her in and stash her somewhere out of sight. We've got to get this mess sorted, fast."

Nodding, Jun gently placed Yinling back down and rushed towards the door, dragging her inside, and closing the door behind him. Jun knew he didn't have much time before someone started asking questions about why she was not coming.

Jun ultimately decided to just put her in a random closet and closed the door gently as to not wake her. Once done, he rushed towards the bathroom where Yinling was washing herself.

"Are you almost done yet?" Jun called out, a note of impatience in his voice.

"Just use the other bathroom, will you? This room got plenty!" Yinling shot back, her voice echoing slightly against the tiled walls.

"Wait, there's more!?" Jun's surprise was evident, his tone shifting from annoyance to disbelief.

Jun in his previous life and this life had grown up poor so it never even once occurred to him that this place would have multiple bathrooms. It seemed so foreign but now it was the best news he had heard. Spreading his divine sense to just their room, Jun quickly located it.

Minutes passed of continuous scrubbing and Jun finally cleaned himself, but Jun knew they needed to clean the living room and get rid of the array, as for the hole in the wall... just put a painting over it.

Running over to the living room where Yinling was also staring at the mess, Jun quickly picked up the spiritual stones and stored them away. 

"I wonder..." Jun tried storing the new energy left over from removing the array and surprisingly, it worked!

Sighing in relief, he was relieved but also shocked at this new possibility. Looking at the filth on the ground, Jun grinned and quickly stored it away, even the stench in the air was not spared.

The bad thing about this was that Jun had to be actively touching it when storing it so he had to wash his hand again.

"Finally... but how do we explain this to her," Jun said pointing to a closet door.

"Just put her outside on the ground, it's not our fault she passed out before she could reach us" Yinling suggested.

Chuckling at her plan, Jun couldn't find any faults in it so he dragged her outside and left her on the flood face flat.

Afterward, Jun chucked the debris into the walls and covered them with some of the paintings scattered throughout the room.

Slumping on the couch with Yinling mirroring him, both of them took a moment of silence to calm their hearts.

Turning to look at Yinling who had her eyes closed, Jun's pupils dilated seeing Yinling "Is it me or did you get more beautiful" Jun whispered in awe.

Blushing at his comment, Yinling turned as well to face Jun, and just like him, she stared in awe wondering the same thing.

Was it possible this happened when they were tempering their bodies? It made sense since no one has really ever explored what lies beyond the 9th level of the body tempering realm.

Turning to his interface his interface, Jun read it.

[

 Name: Jun Xiayou

 Age: 15

 Bloodline: True Human (19% unlocked)

 Cultivation(Anomaly): Body Tempering 60th layer

 Talent: Emperor-Grade affinity (19 seconds)

 Energy Control: 30%

 Attributes: Fire, Light

 Skills: 

 XXXX Unknown cultivation technique(Mastered/king-high)

 Azure Soul Cultivation Technique (Mastered/yellow-middle), 

 Blue Wave Movement Technique (Mastered/yellow-high)

 Speed Slash (Mastered/yellow-top)

 Energy Spear Technique (elementary/Immortal level)

 Human harmonization healing technique(elementary/Eternal level) 

 Instant flash(high/heaven-top)

 Eternal Phoenix Rebirth (Mastered/Emperor-low)

 Blade of the Dancing Phoenix (Mastered/Emperor-middle)

Weapon: Everglade Star Sword (Yellow top-rank)

Inventory:

 Midnight Shadow Sword (low-level yellow)

 Corrupted spiritual energy(mutated) (7x)

 Horrible Black Sludge Stench (1342x)

Description: Disciple of the 12th peak in Scarlet Sect

]

"Anomaly? Why does it say that?" Jun thought. Looking further down, he noticed his true human bloodline had increased further, would he unlock another special ability once it hit 20%?

Jun should have been excited seeing how far his panel had improved, but some things just didn't seem to make sense. For starters, where in the world did he acquire corrupt spiritual energy? He never remembered stumbling across red energy or anything like that, or was it the black sludge he just picked up since this was the only reasonable explanation?

That being said, why was there corrupt spiritual energy within him?