In truth, Chen Ping had always suspected that this might not be an Academic Genius System at all, but some kind of Workaholic System-or even a pure Beast of Burden System.
After all, he had never heard of an Academic Genius System that urged its host to exercise every day and awarded Academic Genius Points for it.
Saddled with a system like this, Chen Ping had once entertained the idea of simply giving up and coasting leisurely through life.
Chen Ping had carefully considered how feasible that would be. With his current earning ability, he could make over twenty Gold Soul Coins a month.
And that was while he was still getting started and building his clientele. Once he established a reputation, a monthly income of fifty or even a hundred Gold Soul Coins was entirely possible.
Since Dai Yueheng had been a reserve team member in the previous Continental Advanced Soul Master Tournament, and Tang Ya was also at Shrek Academy, the current point in time was most likely the year Huo Yuhao enrolled at Shrek.
During the year and a half or so before Huo Yuhao competed in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Tournament, saving a few hundred Gold Soul Coins would not be difficult, provided Chen Ping ignored the system's recommendations to spend money buying ingredients to make Might Pills and Mind-Clearing Pills for his own use.
It was not as though Chen Ping knew nothing about how the story unfolded in the Douluo World. He still remembered the decisive factors in several key events fairly clearly.
Two Continental Advanced Soul Master Tournaments, plus the underground Soul Engineer tournament Huo Yuhao entered in the Sun Moon Empire-going all in on those three major competitions would earn enough to multiply Chen Ping's assets a thousandfold, or even more.
That money would be enough to keep Chen Ping comfortably fed and clothed for life.
Back on Blue Star, he had earned three or four thousand a month and still had to put up with his boss chewing him out. Chen Ping had long since had enough of that life.
If he could become a wealthy man of leisure, Chen Ping thought life on the Douluo Continent might not be so bad. Even if the lack of modern amenities took some getting used to, he could always head to the Sun Moon Empire.
He had already spent over five years as a vagrant on the Douluo Continent. Why would he care about that?
But with just a few words, the system completely banished Chen Ping's plans to lie flat and give up.
[Reporting in, boss: Tang San has had his eye on you for quite a while. After all, you came to the Douluo Continent through the same soul transmigration and possession method as Tang San. One possessed a baby, the other a corpse-there's essentially no difference.]
Tang San had noticed him!
The system's words left Chen Ping's scalp tingling.
Who was Tang San?
A battle-tested champion of feudalism!
The one and only Buddha of the Elysium Douluo Buddha Kingdom!
A bizarre designer who loved turning the Douluo Continent, and even the Divine Realm, into his family's private amusement park.
Could anything good come of attracting that venerable Buddha's attention?
Chen Ping's thoughts twisted and turned as he searched for a way out. He had even considered becoming Tang San's dog.
After all, little Huo had indeed been trained into a dog, but if Chen Ping volunteered to be one, wouldn't that spare him the possibility of Tang San personally training him into a dog?
Just as Chen Ping was admiring this stroke of genius, the system doused him with another bucket of cold water.
Little Huo had the chance to become a dog because he was a native of the Douluo Continent and a child of destiny. That was what made him worth training personally.
An outsider like Chen Ping, on the other hand, had neither luck nor talent, yet his head was full of ideas that were sources of instability.
According to the system's analysis, Tang San believed Chen Ping would interfere with his efforts to drive history backward, so the probability that he would find an opportunity to casually swat Chen Ping dead was as high as 99%.
To become someone's dog, you first needed the potential to be a dog. You had to be able to pounce on people and bite, drawing blood with every bite. Only then were you worth training.
As for termites and cockroaches that could only cause damage in the corners of the house, nobody would bother training them. They would simply kill them.
He wasn't even qualified to be someone's dog!
That might have been the most hurtful thing Chen Ping had heard all year. Fortunately, his Academic Genius Training System was not entirely coldhearted, and it did offer him a gentle word of comfort.
[Look on the bright side, boss. Although we're little different from tiny ants in Tang San's eyes right now, that means Tang San, far away in the Divine Realm, can't actually pinpoint our presence immediately.] [He knows another soul similar to his own has arrived on the Douluo Continent. At some point, he'll make a special effort to look for it, then crush it underfoot once he finds it. That's about the most Tang San can do. Nothing more.]
The system's "nothing more" left Chen Ping silent. If he remembered correctly, that phrase was not supposed to be used like this...
"I'll grind. I'll grind, all right?"
Chen Ping sighed, ignoring the chatter of the system, which would pop up and nag endlessly whenever he slacked off even a little, since its life was tied to his.
He first went to the pharmacy to collect the medicinal ingredients he had ordered yesterday. Then, steeling himself, he spent three silver coins on a superior room and had the inn's attendant prepare a bathing tub and hot water.
He scattered all sorts of strange medicinal ingredients, already ground into powder, into the tub. An intensely pungent, nose-stinging medicinal odor immediately forced its way into Chen Ping's nostrils.
It smelled as though onions, garlic, chilies, scallions, and every other pungent ingredient had been mixed with assorted fermentation starters aged for years, then stuffed straight into his nostrils. One whiff nearly knocked Chen Ping unconscious.
Given a choice, Chen Ping really would not have taken this bath. But what could he do when he had no money?
The Mystic Water Pills sold by Xu Sanshi's family could improve his aptitude painlessly and even increase his soul power, but could he afford them?
Each one cost over ten thousand Gold Soul Coins, and they were fucking unavailable even at that price. By the time he could afford a Mystic Water Pill, the daylilies would have gone stone cold.
Back when Chen Ping read the novel, he had thought a thousand Gold Soul Coins was nothing.
The Ice Jade Scorpion Arm Bone Huo Gua obtained had started at over ten million Gold Soul Coins. In the end, Xu Jiujiu had raised the bid straight to thirty million Gold Soul Coins, then turned around and given it to Huo Gua.
But once Chen Ping actually had to earn money, he discovered that money on the Douluo Continent was just as fucking hard to earn as it had been in his previous life.
With the system's help, he could at least sell knowledge and make some easy money.
Those ordinary people who toiled in the fields all year, earning barely enough to fill their bellies, were the real reason the upper classes of the Douluo Continent possessed such dazzling, mesmerizing wealth.
"Let's fucking go! Do it!"
Shouting in the tightly enclosed superior room to bolster his courage, Chen Ping hastily stripped off his clothes and jumped into the tub.
The next instant, Chen Ping felt as though he had jumped into a vat of boiling oil. The skin all over his body seemed to crackle and burst, while the medicinal liquid in the tub felt like countless razor-sharp little knives slicing every inch of his skin.
Chen Ping trembled uncontrollably for several seconds before finally managing a few rapid, ragged breaths. Shaking, he took a pill resembling a ball of mud from his Storage Ring, which held only 0.1 cubic meters.
The first beat of the drum roused courage, the second weakened it, and the third exhausted it. He was already in the tub. Today, he had to swallow this pill whether he wanted to or not!
Squeezing his eyes shut, he stuffed the pill into his mouth. A bizarre taste that seemed ready to explode rampaged through Chen Ping's mouth.
The agonizing taste even contorted Chen Ping's face as though he had put on a mask of suffering.
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