You fucking Soul Master world, get ready for me!

"Mm-hmm, I'm listening."

Tang Ya stood up with her arms folded, giving Bei Bei a lopsided glare and a cold sneer.

All she needed was to plaster the words "Guess whether I believe your bullshit" across her face.

But after Bei Bei pointed at Chen Ping's Insect Glaive and explained the whole story, Tang Ya was dumbfounded too. She even forgot about settling the score with Bei Bei.

"That can trigger Martial Soul Evolution too? Can I do the same thing to my Blue Silver Grass?"

Tang Ya immediately grew anxious and paced back and forth. "Too bad our Tang Sect has declined so far that we don't have any assets left. Buying a Soul Bone really would be..."

"There's no use getting impatient. Little Brother Chen's martial soul seems to have automatically drawn that Soul Bone onto itself."

"There are quite a few strange things about it. We'll probably have to visit Teacher Wang Yan to get any answers."

Bei Bei soothed Tang Ya, then continued, "There's something you don't know. Brother Chen Ping is a distant relative of Teacher Wang Yan. We'll be heading back to Shrek Academy together anyway, so that works out perfectly."

Only then did Chen Ping finally return to his senses after bargaining with the system.

With his pockets embarrassingly empty, he couldn't afford any staff techniques for now. He could only keep practicing with his Thrusting Staff.

"So, Senior Xiao Ya, how does that Thousand-Year Soul Ring feel?"

Chen Ping put away his martial soul for the moment and looked at Xiao Ya, who was now brimming with energy.

"Great. Absolutely amazing!"

Tang Ya excitedly clenched her right fist, held it against her chest, and pumped it downward. "After absorbing this Touch Dragon King's Soul Ring, I'm not far from rank thirty-two. I reckon I can reach it before this semester ends."

"I'd already prepared myself to come back to Star Dou Forest during the semester break if I couldn't find a Soul Beast I liked this time. Thank goodness we ran into you, Little Brother Chen."

Tang Ya's excitement practically spilled out of her words. Even Chen Ping was infected by her cheerful tone and smiled despite himself.

"I should be thanking you and Senior Bei Bei. If you two hadn't happened to be fighting that Greater Touch Dragon King, I wouldn't have had the chance to raid its nest, much less get a Soul Bone."

"If anyone should be saying thanks, it's me."

Bei Bei smiled at that. "Why draw such clear lines between us? Little Brother Chen, if you don't mind, just call us Big Brother Bei Bei and Sister Xiao Ya from now on."

"Calling us seniors sounds distant. Even after you enroll, with a bond like ours, it's not as though we'll suddenly lose touch."

Hearing that, Chen Ping hurriedly nodded. If he refused to cling to a powerful leg offered right to his doorstep or befriend people who could help him, all his years of living would have been wasted.

The three chatted for a while, growing increasingly animated. Along the way, they also discussed Tang Ya's third Soul Skill.

It was worth mentioning that, since the Soul Beast she absorbed had changed, Tang Ya's original third Soul Skill had naturally changed somewhat too.

It was no longer the original Shaluo Snake Net, but an instantaneous Soul Skill called Touch Dragon Strangle, which combined damage with control.

Its effect was roughly to make eight vines, far thicker and stronger than ordinary Blue Silver Grass, burst from the ground near a target and wrap around them to strangle them.

This Soul Skill had considerable destructive power.

Even a tree so thick that a person could barely wrap their arms around it was left with rings of indentations after Touch Dragon Strangle coiled around it and released its grip. That showed just how terrifying its strength was.

Aside from its somewhat high Soul Power consumption, which would leave Tang Ya drained after at most two uses, it had no other real drawbacks. It could be considered quite powerful.

At least, when Chen Ping imagined what would happen if he were bound by that thing, his lips flattened.

Yeah, once it tied me up, I could just wait to die. There's no escaping that.

Looking at it this way, the claim that Control System Soul Masters countered Power Attack System Soul Masters really wasn't empty talk.

But this immediately gave Chen Ping the idea of drawing up a plan to guard against Control System Soul Masters' control skills.

He was a Power Attack System Soul Master, after all. In the future, aside from other Power Attack System Soul Masters competing in the same arena as him, Control System Soul Masters would be his most difficult opponents.

If he put some thought into it beforehand and prepared a few contingency plans for avoiding common control-type Soul Skills, he figured he could stand out a little more after enrolling and leave a good impression on his teachers.

Perhaps Chen Ping's thinking was calculating, but his current circumstances left him no room not to be.

The reason Chen Ping had racked his brains for every possible way to enter Shrek Academy wasn't that he was following the crowd. There really were more opportunities there.

Never mind anything else, every last teacher at Shrek Academy was fucking loaded. The Freshman Competition awarded a Soul Bone, and when two homeroom teachers clashed and made a wager, another Soul Bone got added.

Only a resource pool that rich could let Chen Ping obtain as many resources as possible and develop his strength.

If he went to that Heaven Dou National Seventh Academy from before, which ranked among the top twenty within the Heaven Dou Empire alone, what good would it do even if he worked himself to the bone and became the best student in the entire school?

Would the school give him a Soul Bone?

What was the point of crowning himself king on a mountain with no tiger?

Once he actually entered the Continental Advanced Soul Master Tournament, he would be nothing but a stray dog by the roadside, kicked out of the competition with a single boot.

After chatting for a while and flattering one another about everything under the sun, the three grew considerably closer.

Bei Bei and Tang Ya, in particular, came to see Chen Ping in a whole new light.

Even setting aside the fact that Chen Ping had lived two lives, the experience he had gained traveling far and wide for over five years since transmigrating was far beyond anything Bei Bei or Tang Ya could compare with.

Even when Tang Ya's family fortunes had collapsed so badly that she lost her sect's home, she had at least still had Bei Bei to rely on.

Chen Ping had truly begun with his parents sacrificed to heaven, clawing his way out of a pile of corpses.

So most of the time, Chen Ping was the one telling them about the unusual things he had encountered on the Douluo Continent.

Every so often, Chen Ping subtly steered the conversation back toward Shrek Academy, gleaning information about it.

By the end of their chat, he had even learned which class Bei Bei and Tang Ya attended, who their homeroom teacher was, how many days remained until Shrek Academy's break, and how long that break would last.

It couldn't be helped. Those were the things students liked talking about most. Whether on Blue Star or in Douluo, the defining traits of students as a group never changed.

He watched the two chatter away, telling him which teachers were nicer and which had bad tempers.

As they bad-mouthed a few teachers along the way, a long-forgotten nostalgia rose in Chen Ping's heart.

Back in Chen Ping's hometown, a peaceful, relaxed life like this was within easy reach. On the Douluo Continent, it had almost become a privilege.

No matter how he looked at it, this was the life in another world he had wanted.

Those earlier days of doing any filthy job just to scrape together enough to live on for another day were finally over.

Chen Ping quietly clenched his fists, a faint smile appearing on his face.

You fucking Soul Master world, get ready for me!