It really is their money

According to the explanation in Douluo III, all martial souls were born from being suffused with the aura left behind after the Dragon God's death.

As the highest-ranking and most noble existence in the entire Douluo universe, dragons' blood being capable of producing gold-grade supplements was perfectly reasonable.

It was just that dragon blood was truly not easy to obtain. The first ones Chen Ping thought of were the Golden Eyed Black Dragon King Di Tian and the Hell Demon Dragon King Zi Ji.

But Chen Ping immediately shook his head and threw those thoughts out of his mind.

What kind of nonsense was that? Zhen Yuanzi's Ginseng Fruits could grant immortality too, but had he ever seen any demon along Journey to the West coveting them?

Still, the remains of the Water Dragon King and Fire Dragon King were soaking in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. Could the spring water in there count as dragon blood?

If it did, that would be dragon blood from Dragon King-level beings. Wouldn't using it send him soaring?

Other than those, Chen Ping seemed to remember some lesser dragons as well.

But even lesser dragons, as long as they had "dragon" in their names, would ultimately still be difficult Soul Beasts to deal with.

The path to attaining the realm of Nine Dragon Protection was long and arduous!

The night passed without incident.

The next day, Chen Ping eagerly sprang out of bed early in the morning, got dressed, and headed straight for the entrance of Shrek Academy.

At that moment, Bei Bei and Tang Ya were already wearing the yellow school uniforms of second- and third-year students, handling freshman reception at the entrance. The moment they saw Chen Ping, they cheerfully greeted him.

"Big Brother Bei Bei, Sister Xiao Ya, here to farm credits?"

Chen Ping raised a hand in greeting and asked with an amused smile.

"Yeah, pretty much. These past two years, whenever we had free time, we were too busy going to the Soul Arena with that guy San Shi. We didn't earn any Quality Development Points at all. Freshman reception gives plenty of points, so we came out to farm some."

Bei Bei chatted with Chen Ping for a few moments with a smile. Freshman reception was one of the easiest ways to earn credits.

Of course, it was not the fastest way to farm credits.

As everyone knew, things like the Soul Guidance Fist Strength Tester were specialties of Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.

But one thing was certain: Shrek also had a need to test its students' punching strength.

Thus, having Senior Students serve as training tools for younger students and roughly judging a soul master's punching strength based on the force of the blows they took was also one of Shrek's unique ways of earning credits.

After a brief exchange, Chen Ping entered Shrek and, familiar with the process, collected the one Gold Soul Coin he could receive every month after registering as a soul master.

Although he had already earned a few Gold Soul Coins, Chen Ping naturally had no intention of turning down free money.

The only thing Chen Ping found regrettable was that this payment system differed somewhat from Spirit Hall's.

Simply put, Chen Ping was currently a soul master and received one Gold Soul Coin per month.

After Chen Ping became a Soul Grandmaster or a Soul Elder, he would still receive one Gold Soul Coin per month.

Emmmmm.

But it wasn't as though the soul master salaries offered by the Three Great Empires were entirely different from Spirit Hall's benefits.

Spirit Hall stopped paying soul masters once their cultivation reached Soul Ancestor.

After all, soul masters of that level were already considered the backbone of smaller cities and Sect forces.

At that point, the Three Great Empires' salary distribution became consistent with Spirit Hall's.

Soul Ancestors were already the backbone of the soul master world, so we won't be distributing Gold Soul Coins anymore!

Chen Ping was only too poor right now, and one could hardly criticize someone after eating their food. Otherwise, he would definitely have condemned this sort of arrangement properly.

How many people admitted to Shrek were truly poor?

In the eyes of most Shrek students, that one Gold Soul Coin every month was purely a joke. They had to save for ten months before they could even open a single match at the Soul Arena.

Rather than that, it would be better to pool the funds and provide targeted aid to the few impoverished students at Shrek. That would be the kind of financial assistance that soul masters who received it would truly remember.

But upon further thought, perhaps this was deliberately arranged by certain people within the Three Great Empires, gambling that most Shrek students would be too lazy to collect the money.

If impoverished students received targeted aid, then all those gleaming Gold Soul Coins would go to the poor. What a sin!

Doing so benefited the Three Great Empires as a whole, but not necessarily the officials responsible for distributing the money.

On the other hand, when soul masters could take the money or leave it, the officials handling the matter could truly line their pockets.

For a moment, Chen Ping suddenly understood.

No wonder the fellow in charge of distributing the money had looked so uncomfortable when Chen Ping went to collect it, as if Chen Ping had taken his own money.

So the money Chen Ping collected really had been his!

Following the standard registration process, Chen Ping paid ten Gold Soul Coins and soon received his dormitory key and freshman school uniform.

Without another word, he changed into the freshman uniform, instantly feeling refreshed.

He was even willing to change into new clothes now. Who wouldn't give him a thumbs-up and praise his formidable strength?

Holding his dormitory key, he once again arrived at the entrance to the Dormitory Building. Mu En was still slowly rocking in his rocking chair, his eyes half-closed. It was impossible to tell whether he was actually asleep.

This time, Chen Ping did not dare say any more cheeky remarks in front of Mu En. A setback made one wiser—he understood that most basic principle.

He honestly greeted Mu En. Seeing that Chen Ping was clearly much more well-behaved, Mu En smiled faintly and waved him inside.

The student dormitories were arranged like corridor-style apartments, with dorm room doors lining both sides of a long hallway. Each door had a number plate.

The Dormitory Building was clearly rather old inside; who knew how many years it had been in use.

There was a communal restroom at each end of the hallway.

When Chen Ping discovered that his dorm was located right in the middle, he silently cursed his luck.

Marula.

There was no way he would ever make it to the restroom in time!

From where he was, the toilets were nowhere in sight, and neither were the stalls. Thinking of the hardships of answering nature's call, he shed tears of sorrow all alone.

Setting aside the daunting challenge of using the restroom for now, Chen Ping unlocked the door with his key, and a slightly stale gust of air wafted out.

No one had stayed in this room during Shrek Academy's month-long break, so a buildup of dust was only natural.

After opening the window to air the place out, Chen Ping got a clear look at the dorm's layout.

The dorm was tiny, only around ten square meters. The two beds took up most of the space.

Other than that, there was only a desk, two metal wardrobes, a lamp on the ceiling, and several metal protrusions on the walls.

Chen Ping was quite familiar with those. Wang Yan's walls had them too; they were used to connect those ungraded Soul Guidance Lamps.

Chen Ping had long expected that the dorm would need a thorough cleaning. It took little effort for him to scrub it spotless.

Now, he was only curious about one thing: would his roommate be unable to stand the dorm environment and spend money to live elsewhere?

After all, if Chen Ping remembered correctly, Shrek Academy had no such thing as bathhouses. Even Wang Dong had hung up a curtain and bathed inside this tiny ten-square-meter dorm.