Only after Chen Ping disappeared from view did Mu En turn his wrist and take the jar of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, which was clearly still piping hot, into his palm.
"What an impressive family medicinal recipe. It replenishes the blood and nurtures vital essence. Even these old bones of mine get something out of it. Remarkable..."
Mu En gazed in the direction Chen Ping had left and murmured to himself.
At his age, he naturally would not take offense just because Chen Ping had grumbled about him a little or poked fun at him.
He had only done this because he was interested in a boy who had just one ring yet could handle two Soul Grandmasters with ease. He wanted to see how far the boy could go.
Give Chen Ping a little pressure, and that pressure would naturally become motivation.
If Chen Ping really took first place in the Freshman Competition, he would not mind giving him a small reward.
Many ingredients obtained from Soul Beasts could not be prepared by ordinary means.
That was why many of the cooks at Shrek's Window Eight were themselves Soul Masters of considerable strength.
Mu En had eaten Chen Ping's Premium Buddha Jumps Over the Wall several times, so he could naturally taste how effectively its ingredients replenished a young Soul Master's blood and nurtured physical strength.
Besides the effects of doping, dietary supplementation had undoubtedly played an important role in allowing Chen Ping to match Wu Feng, a Soul Grandmaster above rank twenty, in speed and strength.
If Chen Ping could prepare a few higher-grade medicinal dishes once he had grown stronger, Mu En would ask for nothing more.
Even if eating them merely eased the suffering of his battered, failing body, it would be worthwhile.
He had been tormented by the Dragon Core's baleful energy for far too long.
So much so that even the faint but continuous nourishment Chen Ping's medicinal food provided his body gave Mu En a rare sense of comfort.
"Your talent isn't much, but you're every bit a slippery little rascal fresh out of the backstreets. Just how far can you grow?"
After muttering to himself, Mu En suddenly turned toward the empty air beside him and said, "Look into this child's background. There's no rush, but make it thorough."
Meanwhile, Chen Ping, who had just left Mu En, wore a troubled expression.
Although Core Disciple spots were hard to secure, the students who ultimately received Core Disciple treatment, including those who received it temporarily, numbered more than fifteen-the equivalent of five three-person teams.
The freshmen were divided into ten classes, meaning that, on average, only one team out of every two classes could earn Core Disciple status.
Competing for one of those five team spots would be difficult, but Chen Ping was still fairly confident.
As long as his two teammates were not complete disasters, securing Core Disciple status would not be hard.
That would also fulfill the bold declaration he had made before Xuan Zi.
But the first place he had mentioned in front of Mu En really would not be so easy to secure.
There were more than three Martial Soul Fusion Skills in this Freshman Competition that Chen Ping could remember alone.
Of those, the Blue Sisters' Martial Soul Fusion Skill posed the least threat.
The sisters' Martial Soul Fusion Skill had a powerful control effect, but using it to restrain one person was a crushing loss, and restraining two only broke even.
Only by restraining three opponents at once while their teammate attacked with everything they had could they potentially end the battle in a single move.
After all, although the sisters had body martial souls, they fought with their hair.
Once they activated their Martial Soul Fusion Skill, two people on their own side would be tied down first. It was pure Seven Injuries Fist: to hurt others, first hurt yourself.
There was a reason those two girls had only managed to receive temporary Core Disciple treatment in the original story.
Besides that, there was Golden Road, activated by Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong'er, which had most likely been forcibly cobbled together by the Tang God King using his power of embracing all rivers.
A Spirit Eyes martial soul and a Light Goddess Butterfly martial soul having a Martial Soul Fusion Skill was one thing, but a hundred-percent compatibility rate too?
Chen Ping wanted to laugh just hearing it. Do you fucking hear what you're saying?
Other than that divine power of embracing all rivers, which could blend anything together, Chen Ping truly could not find a second reasonable explanation.
This Martial Soul Fusion Skill was slow to activate, but it could work in tandem with Xiao Xiao's Three-Life Soul-Suppressing Cauldron martial soul.
With all three working together, they could slow the enemy first, then unleash a golden torrent of blended soul power and spiritual power thirty meters long and roughly half a meter wide.
Its destructive power could probably reach the level of a Five-Ring Soul King.
After all, only destructive power at that level could have given Wang Dong and Huo Yuhao an advantage against Hell White Tiger and led Du Weilun to declare them the victors.
As for the most troublesome Martial Soul Fusion Skill, Chen Ping personally still thought it had to be Hell White Tiger.
For no other reason than that this Martial Soul Fusion Skill had the greatest margin for error.
Whether Heavenly Net or Golden Road, both Martial Soul Fusion Skills could, frankly, only put on one good show. With a few tricks, Chen Ping was confident he could bait them into using it.
But Hell White Tiger really was difficult to handle. Even if he baited out its first swipe, a second and third would probably still be waiting for him.
At that point, it really would be a case of saving the monkey's head to go with the drinks and leaving the rest to the king.
Now, after Chen Ping's rigorous, meticulous, and logical deductions, the easiest plan for taking first place in the tournament had taken shape.
He simply needed the luck to be assigned to Freshman Class Five, shove Cui Yajie and her Nine-Tailed Fox Martial Soul out of the way with his backside, and team up with Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu.
Following the principle of "if you can't beat them, join them," Chen Ping believed this plan gave him the best chance of taking first place.
With Hell White Tiger going from opponent to teammate, Chen Ping could not even imagine how he would lose.
Besides that, if he could be assigned to the same class as Huo Gua or the Blue Sisters, his chances of taking first place would not be too low either.
But if he ended up in another class, with neither explosive damage nor powerful control, taking first place would be hard!
As for which class he would actually be assigned to, Chen Ping had no idea, and he could hardly go to Wang Yan over something like this.
As long as his thinking did not slide downhill, there would always be more solutions than difficulties. Whatever class he ended up in, his chance of taking first place certainly would not be zero.
At that thought, the miserable expression gradually faded from Chen Ping's face, replaced by anticipation for the academy life ahead.
After all, the Freshman Competition was still three months away.
Who knew? By then, he might have saved enough to unlock one of the formulas for Recovery Dragon, Qunbo Dragon, Oxyandrolone, Sustanon, Clostebol, Metenolone, Stenbolone...?
These were all tonic formulas marked as gold quality in the system shop. They had the same effects as their counterparts on Blue Star, but none of the side effects.
Compared with the Mighty Tonic and Mind-Clearing Pill Chen Ping had used at the beginning, they were on an entirely different level.
Of course, the Academic Genius Points required for the system to fully work out these supplement formulas were astronomical too.
Besides, since this was the Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin Supplement Set, one thing was quite obvious: making these supplements required dragon blood-and all sorts of dragon blood at that!
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