Instead of closing the store and sleeping back at his own house, Jin decided to do something a little unconventional.
Jin went to the second floor and entered the Emerald Mountain Hot Springs Instance. The penguins who had all initially been lying around lazily throughout the hot spring mountain suddenly felt a presence entering and began to panic.
"Calm down guys, I am coming here to rest and cultivate." Jin tried to alleviate their anxiety and they immediately relaxed a little upon hearing his voice.
Mr Patsu, the penguin representative, came forward and greeted Jin. "Boss Jin, to what do we owe the honour of you coming in personally?"
"Whenever I cultivate, it seems a large amount of sludge will appear. Seeing how you all have experience in dealing with sludge courtesy of Mr Muddles, I figured this would be a good place to cultivate and rest." Jin explained his reasoning as he started to take his clothes off for a bath.
"Indeed, the penguins here are extremely professional and they can remove any stains. While it is not recommended for most cultivators under Grade 3 to stay long in the hot springs pool, I think it should be fine for Boss to cultivate within the pool since your current cultivation is at Grade 4. We will also add additional potent herbs to aid with your cultivation." Mr Patsu started to command the penguins to prepare the herbal solution for their Boss. He figured they would be restless if they could not do anything to serve the Boss of the store.
"What kind of herbal solution is it? Does it cost Dungeon Dollars to acquire them?" Jin was concerned that he needed to spend money on these herbs.
"It is a mix of the ingredients for the Elixir of Life. Jade Leaf, Cinnamon Branch and Flower of Gold are a few examples. The system stated that you would be given a free trial of the herbs. After which, each herbal solution will cost about 20 Dungeon Dollars. Boss, I can assure you that your cultivation will soar and you would be able to have a better rest than ever before." Mr Patsu bowed his head to show that he was sincere.
"Those herbs sound like...they are metals and not herbs." Jin expressed his suspicion.
"Indeed, there is a slight element of metal within all of those herbs, and they are primarily the reason why the last Qing Dynasty Emperor died from metal poisoning. Though that was because the herbal solution he took contained true metals rather than herbal metals." Mr Patsu gladly explained all of this to Jin.
"Will I faint in the pool if I cultivate for too long? My body might not be able to discern the time dilation here, especially when I have not been cultivating diligently recently." Jin expressed his concerns. He initially wanted to just cultivate near the pool beside the wondrous Maple Tree.
"Do not worry, we will wake you up when your body is close to reaching its limit. We cannot possibly let our boss faint in our pool." Mr Patsu assured Jin and clapped his hands. The penguins immediately rushed out while holding the herbal solution and started to diffuse it into the hot spring waters.
Jin slowly entered the hot spring pool and instantly felt the effects of the hot spring taking effect. The pores all over his body opened up to absorb the spiritual energy of the herbal solution and the hot spring water.
Gradually, Jin sat in his usual cultivation pose of the Nineteen Lazy Astral Pandas style and began to doze off.
As Jin was cultivating in his personal Emerald Mountain Hot Spring instance, Yun was actually in the Dungeon Maker. "How would you describe him at this current moment?" Yun asked the interface as she was fiddling with some stuff.
"Slow. Lazy. Inefficient. Hypocrite." The system replied.
"But within a day, it really seems that he has changed, or at least tried really hard to." Yun replied back.
"Not commendable but still a subject of interest. For now. Been a long time since the system's methods were defied. Will support solely for the sake of research." The system coldly acknowledged Yun and unlocked a certain screen on the Dungeon maker for her.
"Hahaha, I believe Jin should be very happy with this new upgrade." Yun smiled as she tinkered with the Dungeon Maker interface for a little while longer.
Jin sluggishly opened his eyes as he yawned a little. He tried to stretch his arms but he felt that they were extremely heavy, as if he was being pinned down when he tried to move around.
Only then did Jin realised that he was in a pool of deep, dark, black sludge. He could hear the penguins pacing furiously to try and solve or at least reduce the severity of the situation by throwing in hundreds of bars of soap into the hot springs pool.
"Ah, Boss, you are awake." Mr Patsu was panting and his fur was filled with patches of sludge. It was obvious that Mr Patsu had participated in the cleaning process too.
"How long was I out for?" Jin suddenly felt something furry grabbing his torso and he was being pulled out of the sludge. "Roughly 16 hours." The Panda Massage Therapist said as he gave Jin a towel to cover himself up.
"I caused this?" Jin was really curious. He knew that cultivating would cause waste to be expelled out of the body but this was ridiculous. The amount he expelled was definitely more than the amount of water he had in his entire body.
"When you started to cultivate, you absorbed almost the entire pool of hot spring water and the herbal solution along with it. It was not long after that a yellowish black substance began oozing out of your body, filling up the pool." The Panda Massage Therapist spoke.
"Not only that, we also invite Mr Muddles, our friendly dirt collector, to ingest the sludge but he was also overwhelmed by the amount you had expelled and needed to move down the mountain to digest what he had eaten." Mr Patsu sighed.
"Why did this happen?" Jin could not figure this part out at all but in that split second, he noticed a trace of bloodlust in the air and parried an incoming sword strike.
"Excellent use of the Perfectly Normal Slash." Zeru disengaged himself and stood before Jin. "If this was a day ago, you would not have been able to dodge that." Zeru hinted that the removal of waste substances had something to do with his improved agility.
"Display your cultivation and you will understand." Jin obeyed Zeru's command and called out his panda silhouettes. Previously, there was a simple silhouette of a panda along with three highly defined panda silhouettes to indicate that Jin had just reached Grade 4. However, right now, he saw four highly defined panda silhouette.
"It's only been 16 hours and I have already attained Grade 4 Peak?" Jin was in awe but it still did not make sense to him. He had been cultivating for nearly a month and the amount of time he needed to cultivate to get from the start Grade 3 to Grade 3 Peak was roughly three weeks or so.
"A culmination of factors I believed. The hot spring waters, the herbal solution, and your abrupt change in attitude can all be said to have contributed to the sudden increase. Not to mention, it seems your body's chi is very attuned to the Nineteen Lazy Astral Pandas style. However, it's also probably because it's the first dose of herbal solution you have ever received. which is why your body was very receptive to it. I doubt it will ever happen again." Zeru explained.
"Sorry, Mr Patsu and Penguins for the extra work." Jin apologised but the penguins and even the Panda Massage Therapist refused his apology.
"To see our Boss gain this much power means that we have helped a lot. Besides, the system will aid to clean the instance once you take your leave. It is just that we could not let you drown in your own sludge. Hahahaha!" Mr Patsu said out loud.
"Alright, if that's the case, I will be leaving this instance and return tonight for some more!" Jin returned back to the store from the service instance after he took a thorough bath and made his way to the 1st floor. It was then that Yun told him that Zhen Qing had used the caravan's enter the kitchen instance and had already started prepping her items for the morning.
"Then, it's about time we head to the zoo to complete the baby panda mission," Jin called for a taxi as he took out a few onigiris to serve as his breakfast. Jin felt that at Grade 4 Peak, he should be able to stay relatively safe in the zoo… it was just a zoo, right?
Well, it was a zoo...
The Shenzhen Provincial Zoo of the Cultivation Arts.