Foul stench and a morning discovery

'Ugh…'

Theo woke up with a groan.

He didn't feel bad. His body wasn't in pain either. In fact, he couldn't even recall when was the last time that he felt so good. And yet…

'What's this damn smell?!'

Theo opened his eyes, bothered by the putrid smell to an awful extent. Yet, even as he quickly cast the glance across the room… He failed to see anything that could be the potential source of the foul stench.

'Am I imagining things…?' he thought, bringing his hands up to wipe the drowsiness from his eyes.

The smell intensified. Theo blinked a few times… and looked at his hands.

There was a layer of a dry, dark liquid of some sort sticking right to his skin. And without a question, it was the source of the awful stench that woke the young man up!

'What the hell is this?' Theo asked himself, reaching out with his other hand to scrap the strange dirt from his skin… Only for the smell to intensify even more. And as his eyes jumped to his other hand, the realization struck him.

His other hand was covered in the same, dark slime. And presumably, the rest of his body was laced with whatever it was as well!

'Oh right, I advanced to the third stage…' Theo thought, his sleepy brain taking a little longer to process things than usual.

Thankfully, the recipe for ridding himself of the slime was simple. All Theo had to do… was take a damn bath. And so, he quickly stood up from the bed, only giving it a single glance as he approached the door. 'I will have to wash…'

Theo hesitated for a bit. He then shook his head and released a short sigh right as he pulled the doors open and walked out of his room.

'No, there is no use washing those sheets. I will have to buy a new set instead.'

Theo walked out of his room and then down the stairs to the main room of the inn. Thankfully, he somehow woke up earlier than any of his disciples, saving them the excruciating torture of inhaling the stench that came out from the dried-out filth covering his body. He then directed his steps toward the small bath that he organized in one of the rooms.

In the ensuing session of intense, almost violent scrubbing of his entire body, Theo could finally figure out what the hell happened to him.

'Reaching the third stage of cultivation is all about purifying one's body. I guess that explains where this shit came from,' he thought, looking at the layer of brown, oily water that formed at the very top of the basin he was using to wash himself off.

The slime that covered Theo's skin was nothing else but a concentrated essence formed by the impurities of his body. Even though he was born in a family of cultivators and spent his early years properly practicing, even though his later years were spent on intense bea… intense training for his endurance, his flesh still contained a fair amount of impurities and flaws, most of which his body repelled and squeezed out through his skin as he slept.

In the end, Theo's bath took him well over an hour of scrubbing, splashing water on the slime to make it easier to get rid of, and then scrubbing again. By the time he finally brought his body to a state he was comfortable in, Theo put on some spare clothes before walking out of the bath.

"Good morning, tea…" all five of his disciples spoke up, only for their words to end up stuck in their throats.

In the time Theo spent cleaning himself, they all woke up and started their morning training routines. And as it was mostly focused on conditioning their bodies for the proper training later on, they were simply swinging their weights around instead of chanting and thus losing most of their ability to perceive their surroundings.

And yet…

With the five sets of eyes staring right at him, Theo couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable. He cast a quick glance at his pupils, eager to find out what was going on.

The male part of his student body appeared to be simply taken by surprise. Yet, it was the two girls under him that had their eyes dancing all over his skin, their cheeks turning red and their hands trembling.

"Is there something wrong?" Theo asked, baffled by the reaction of his disciples.

Theo turned his eyes towards Tiana. She was the first one to advance to the second stage of cultivation and thus silently assumed the role of an unofficial leader of the group. Coupled with what happened the night before, he hoped that she could provide him with the answer…

But as soon as the girl felt Theo's eyes on her face, her cheeks turned redder and her own eyes escaped to the side.

'What the hell is going on?' Theo asked himself, turning his eyes over to the younger of the two girls.

"Kaya, what happened?" Theo asked, his voice this time turning a little bit sterner than before.

"T-teacher…" the girl muttered, stunned beyond any reason. She then gulped down and took a deep breath. "Y-you've changed, teacher…" she muttered.

"Did I?" Theo looked down at himself, his curiosity stroked by the girl's words.

And there it was, a set of details that was right before his eyes this entire time but one that Theo failed to notice.

His skin was somewhat fairer, while at the same time turning slightly darker.

Theo pulled his eyebrows together and reached down, to the bottom of his simple shirt. And as he pulled it up, he ended up staring at his own stomach, enchanted by the sight.

His new body wasn't fat. Even though there was a time when no delicacy was safe from his hands, the years of being bullied and deprived of any real resources effectively removed most of the useless fat from his flesh. Still, Theo wasn't exactly athletic either, never having the energy to properly train after all the daily beatings he would receive.

No, if Theo were to describe his old self, then there was only one word that he could use.

'I used to be… average,' Theo thought, staring at the light but clearly visible hints of his muscles brimming with power right beneath his skin.

'A six-pack…' the young man thought, gulping his own saliva down. 'I never thought I would get one, even as faint as this one…'

Theo shook his head and raised his eyes… Only to see that both of his female disciples were now too nervous to even raise their eyes. On the other hand, Luo and Hugo were grinning…

'Wait, what?'

Rather than paying attention to the blushing girls, Theo's eyes wandered over to the only one of his disciples that was doing something Theo didn't expect.

It was Narid. And instead of swinging weights… he was kneeling down on the floor with a set of nails, a simple chisel, and… a broken stool of Theo's making in his hands.

Judging by the number of wooden splinters surrounding him, he was in the process of fixing the broken piece of furniture. Yet, it wasn't that fact alone that drew Theo's eyes. After all, he wasn't an expert craftsman himself. Rather than being angry that one of his disciples broke the stool that he made… he was actually astonished that the others lasted for so long without breaking.

No, it wasn't the fact that one of the stools broke that drew Theo's attention to Narid.

It was the fact that even though he was still in the process of fixing it, Theo could tell that whatever he was in the middle of doing… turned the simple, crude stool into a practical piece of a damn art!