“Eh System…why are you not absorbing the sludge? I thought it is important for your research?” Jin asked as he saw a vast amount of sludge swirling above him.
“The System has already accumulated more than 600 litres of sludge from the User’s body. It could be considered a miracle that User is still alive and well. What puzzles the System is your ability to produce sludge. Generally, Cultivation removes impurities from the body, but the User’s ability to do so is somehow fundamentally different. The exact reason for this is still being investigated.” The System stated as Yun entered with a Grade 8 Reward Box at the command the System, only to be frightened by the swirling sludge above her.
“System why are you not sucking this sludge away?” Yun asked in a slightly disgusted tone. She still vividly remembered how much trouble this sludge gave her back when Jin cultivated in his house before it was controlled by the System. Even the plumbers she had called, was overwhelmed by the massive amount of sludge which clogged the house’s utilities. They had to return to their workshop to bring some heavy duty equipment in order to remove the sludge.
“System is unable to. System tried to vacuum the sludge but it continues to swirl above User ever since User had achieved Grade 8.” The System replied promptly and thanked Yun for coming quickly. “A likely reason based on what the System had analysed was due to the excessively high amount of User’s chi stored in the sludge. Previous samples did not have such property.” The System added which made Jin curious.
“Chi in the sludge?” Jin reiterated. If what the System was telling is true, there should be a way for him to interact with the sludge. He promptly tried out if he could command the swirling sludge in front of him. True enough, at his behest, the black sludge turned into a rotating sphere around Jin’s fingertips.
…Just a very big…massive, vastly large sphere.
“Huh, I did not think this would actually work. It somehow feels like it’s reacting to me naturally.” Jin remarked and the System stated that it was not mentioned within Jin’s cultivation manual. There was no explanation for why Jin seemed to be able to control his sludge. It was something out of the norm, and at this point, both the System and Jin could only suspect that the spiritual union had something to do with it.
“But wait, he had been producing this sludge thing ever since he started cultivating the Nineteen Astral Lazy Panda form. I honestly do not think it has something to do with the spiritual union part… Well, maybe not entirely.” Yun commented and the System paused for a while before concurring.
“Well there is nothing to gain from wondering where it came from, we should focus more and what it is able to do. Shouldn’t we start with some experiments to find out more about it?” Colonel Ayse appeared out of the blue and closely watched Jin holding onto the sphere.
Without a proper place to run the labs, Jin and Qiu Yue had temporarily placed Ayse and the Humanoid Researchers in one of the rooms of the Dungeon Maker instead of the World of Sanctum instance. There were experiments and sensitive equipment that required the interference of the System to prevent anything from going awry. Her knowledge for the past war operations was much appreciated and the results encouraged Jin to value her highly. Even the Cultivation room had received some minor input from Ayse allowing the System to improve the suction of the sludge.
“Erm…that sounds reasonable. I hope you don’t plan to try anything life threatening.” Jin replied as he subconsciously thought of the White Tiger of the West when he mentioned ‘life threatening’. Suddenly the sludge sphere at the tips of his fingers started to restructure themselves and in the blink of an eye turned into the shape of tiger. The sludge even had a step further and changed its colour from black to white in order to portray Jin’s image of the White Tiger of the West.
“Woah woah woah?! What was that? HOW did you do that? Quick, tell me everything you just did, so that we can record and investigate this properly.” Ayse’s desire to study Jin’s new ability flared up.
Meanwhile, Yun continued to be surprised to see a live white tiger appear out of nowhere. Not caring for all the eyes on it, the tiger started licking its paws. When it turned its head towards Jin, it quietly lowered its stance and seemingly bowed towards him. Jin was also shocked as the tiger did all of these actions by its own volition. He slowly tried to touch the fur.
“The fur…the menacing blue eyes… even its size…it’s all the same,” Jin whispered to himself, and the girls looked at him curiously as they also tried to touch the docile white tiger that was in front of them. Unlike its affection to Jin, the White Tiger did not seem to enjoy the ladies’ touch a single bit. After it tolerating for a few strokes, the White Tiger got up and distanced itself from the girls.
“What do you mean ‘the same’? Have you seen this Tiger before?” Yun had caught what he said and asked Jin about it.
“Yeah, fiction books hahaha. I guess I accidentally thought about it.” Jin replied with a half truth as he decided to try something else. Just as before, the white tiger’s silhouette began to change, turning into a human. The figure was none other than Yun. But in contrast with the beast, the details on the Yun look alike sludge were not as implicit as the White Tiger.
“Hmmm…from what I can deduce, just a mere inference.” Ayse looked as she began to touch the Yun look alike sludge form. “This sludge bends at the will of the user and is probably using the user…erm I’m starting to sound like the System. Jin, I mean. Anyways. It seems to use Jin’s memories to replicate what Jin had seen. From what I deduced from his answer, it also seems to have the same ‘feel’. That’s two of the five senses down. We do not know if the sludge could replicate what Jin had heard, tasted or smelled before. Maybe, it’s not just the five senses and perhaps a sixth sense could be at play too? Who knows? “
“That is why this Yun although imperfect, looks more or less like her but …you see here Jin? It’s too hard.” Ayse demonstrated while squeezing the shoulders of the sludge in Yun form. Ayse then picked Jin’s hand, pushed it towards Yun’s shoulders and later guided his hand down to her waist. She even assisted him to squeeze it. “Feel, how soft and flabby is it?” Ayse teased Yun.
Almost immediately, the chest and waist of the sludge in Yun form took shape and Ayse nodded her head with glee. Her deductions were correct but it left Jin very embarrassed though Yun was indifferent to his actions. “You just had to let her do that?” Yun glared at him momentarily and Jin quickly apologised, which made Ayse laugh hysterically.
“Now, I wonder how resistant this particular sludge is. Looks will not matter if it does not prove to be durable in a fight. Let’s test it out!” Ayse asked the System for a blunt club and it obliged. She swiftly gave a good swing towards the sludge and it blocked almost instantly. From its hands, it formed a large cleaver and proceeded to attack the unprepared Ayse …until Jin controlled it to stop without any words or actions but by involuntarily wishing for her to stay unharmed. Picking up on this, the Yun Sludge Clone redirected her attack to avoid fatal injury.
“Ow ow ow. Guess that’s another mystery solved. You can control it without the need for words or hand signals. It should be like a perfect servant for you.” Ayse concluded as Yun walked towards her and healed her abdominal wounds inflicted by the sludge.
“Even the fighting style is exactly what I saw Yun executed,” Jin said out loud as he walked closer to the sludge. It turned back to a rotary sphere but he also noticed that the chi within it had reduced. “I wonder if I can produce more of this?” Jin went into half of his cultivation stance, a standing posture to recover his chi even faster from his main dantian.
True enough, his upper chest began to sweat out a small amount of sludge and it joined the rotary sphere. Jin was amazed by it and tried to keep it in his storage ring, which worked perfectly. “Do you mind giving me a part of it to study later, Master?” Ayse now all fit from Yun’s healing asked Jin.
“No, I don’t mind. Whether it listens to you or not is another thing. But I believe there is a lot of potential in this new power. I hope you don’t mind coming up with a list of experiments or questions so I can try to learn more about it based on your possible theories?” Jin asked as he gave Ayse the first official task for the researchers of the ‘Dungeon Lab’. He also provided her with a sample after filling some in a container.
“It will definitely keep me and my team a little occupied. Besides we are getting a little frustrated from only having to redesign the Sandroku Golems. This will be a good brainteaser for the team. I will study your sludge later, to see if I can find other uses.” Ayse explained. A sudden thought occurred to Jin. Something very important too.
“Do you mind spending some time looking at Mechataur, too? Maybe find some way to collaborate with Niu Lang, the pilot, and get Mechataur up and running again.” Jin ordered Ayse.
“More mechs? You think I am what? A Mech designer?” Ayse asked reluctantly as she folded her hands. She seemed way more interested in researching the sludge compared to the robots.
“Mech designer? With your explicit knowledge of lost tech, it would be more accurate to refer to you as an inventor of mass killing weapons. I can only safely entrust the task to such a genius as yourself to accomplish this crucially vital task!” Jin tried to praise her and though it seemed a bit over the top towards the end, Ayse surprisingly took the hook, line and sinker. She happily went off and told Jin not to forget about building a proper lab for her and her ‘slaves’. (Jin did make sure that the Elves received equal treatment as Ayse although she always seemed to ‘conveniently’ forget that they were now standing on the same platform together.)
“Anyways…it seems we dragged the topic a little, here is your reward box for Grade 8.” Yun presented it to him as she had already removed the Griffin seal from the box. Jin opened it up and became flabbergasted from the revelation of the box’s contents.
“These are…” Jin picked them up and held them in his hands. It was the exact colour and design of what he had used in his state of subconsciousness. The Origin Ruby Fire bullets. There was no revolver but rather a Colt 1911 pistol with the very same Ying Yang sign. Jin noticed that a manual was in it too, along with a few maps.
“…Your grandfather was a Monster Slayer, but to be more particularly, a demon exorcist.” Yun elaborated as she knelt down and looked over the contents. Jin promptly looked at Yun at dismay. Did she suddenly regain her memories?
“Oh…card.” Jin got all worked up for nothing when he realised she was reading it from a card which came from none other than Grandma Yuan. Yun passed the card to him and informed him that he should contact Grandma Yuan soon as stated on the card when Yun consolidated the contents of this box for Jin.
“But aren’t monsters more or less controlled in the wild by the army??” Jin asked and the System stated that monsters and demons were different.
“How are they different? Aren’t demons just a sub category of monsters? Like the demon rats that we are going to fight against.” Jin asked as he looked at the manuals and maps.
“I think it is best to look for Grandma Yuan for the answers. She would provide you in the right direction. Besides, you need to look for her for a few things regarding the Rats too right?” Yun intervened and Jin remembered.
“But before you get going, Xiong Da arrived not too long ago. I passed him the stuff but he thinks it would be better if you meet him for some clarification about the police contract. He is currently in the redemption store and It looks like he isn’t running away anytime soon.” Yun said as she reminded him to upgrade the monster’s equipment now that he is of a higher Grade.
“Come to think of it… Fighting the White Tiger of the West is a stress reliever compared to the piling amount of work that I have!” Jin thought to himself as he asked Yun to notify Xiong Da that he would meet up with him soon.
But first Jin was dying to get into the shower.
