When they saw that Nan Zhuliu and his two companions were all wearing white freshman uniforms, the inner court teachers froze for a moment, their expressions turning somewhat strange.
The old man leading them said mildly, "Since you're all unharmed, that's all for the best."
"The academy will compensate you accordingly. We hope you can forget what you just saw. Otherwise, you will be expelled from the academy."
The moment the old man finished speaking, a middle-aged male teacher beside him seized the opening and tossed each of the three something green.
"Go back to class. Remember what I just said."
A gust of wind swept past, leaving only Nan Zhuliu and his two companions beside Sea God Lake.
Wang Dong stamped her foot. "What kind of people are they? If Nan Zhuliu hadn't been here, we would've practically died at that lunatic's hands!"
Huo Lingtong clenched her fists, something seeming to churn in her eyes.
The old man's lofty, condescending manner had reminded her of those dark days at the White Tiger Duke's Estate.
Whenever she thought of the injustice she had suffered at the White Tiger Duke's Estate, Huo Lingtong felt a fire blazing in her heart.
Treating human lives like weeds-is this the so-called number one Soul Master academy on the continent? How is it any different from those villains at the White Tiger Duke's Estate?
Knowing full well what Shrek Academy was like, Nan Zhuliu was not as indignant as the other two. He had come for this in the first place.
He opened his hand and looked. Resting quietly in his palm was a bright jade-green pill the size of a pigeon's egg, with three purple markings stretching across it like drifting clouds.
He glanced at the Soul Ascension Pills in Huo Lingtong's and Wang Dong's hands, which were completely different from his own.
Then he sensed that the Soul Power contained within his pill was much richer than that in their Soul Ascension Pills. Presumably, it was suitable for a Soul Elder. Only then did Nan Zhuliu feel reassured.
When Wang Dong discovered that what those people had given her was actually a Soul Ascension Pill, her anger immediately vanished. She said happily, "It's actually a Soul Ascension Pill! We hit the jackpot!"
Huo Lingtong said irritably, "Which is worth more, your life or this Soul Ascension Pill? If Zhuliu hadn't been here, we'd have died at that lunatic's hands long ago."
"We only got these Soul Ascension Pills because we survived. If we hadn't survived, we couldn't have received them even if they gave them to us. These Soul Ascension Pills were ours by right, not something we earned by gambling with our lives."
"Uh... you've got a point."
Hearing her words, Nan Zhuliu looked at Huo Lingtong in surprise, the corners of his lips rising involuntarily.
Things had just become interesting.
Putting away her Soul Ascension Pill, Wang Dong could not help asking, "Nan Zhuliu, just what is your Martial Soul?"
Her Radiant Butterfly Goddess Martial Soul was already one of the very finest Beast Martial Souls on the Douluo Continent, so why did she always feel suppressed when facing Nan Zhuliu's Martial Soul?
"Prison-Subduing Dragon."
"Prison-Subduing Dragon?" Wang Dong searched her memory carefully, but could not recall such a Martial Soul ever appearing on the Douluo Continent.
Unable to remember, Wang Dong simply stopped trying. "How did you do that just now? And that day in the Soul Dueling Arena, you defeated your opponent so easily without even using a Soul Skill."
Without looking aside, Nan Zhuliu raised his hand and knocked her on the head. "You'd better not ask questions you shouldn't."
Meanwhile, on Sea God Island.
The old man who had just told Nan Zhuliu and his companions to forget the incident carefully examined the unconscious Ma Xiaotao's condition. He could not help marveling, "Such pure lightning power. Even a Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Soul Master doesn't possess such a pure lightning attribute. I'm afraid it's already close to ultimate."
"Yet I've never heard of anyone on the Douluo Continent possessing such a pure lightning attribute. I wonder which of those three youngsters that person is protecting."
After those few interludes, Nan Zhuliu's life at Shrek Academy largely settled down.
As time passed, he also made a few good friends at Shrek Academy.
His homeroom teacher, Mu Jin, even unhesitatingly appointed him class monitor of Freshman Class Nine.
Although a few students with two-ring cultivation refused to accept it and challenged him, after he sent them flying with a slap, no one in Freshman Class Nine had any further objections to Nan Zhuliu serving as class monitor.
From then on, Ning Tian often came with Wu Feng to talk with him.
Ning Tian was fine, but Wu Feng's eyes always looked as though they might spew fire at any moment.
Nan Zhuliu soon understood the reason, feeling rather like an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire.
One day afterward, Nan Zhuliu remembered that most spiritual attacks had no effect on dragons, and that he had not been affected by the Skydream Iceworm's Spiritual Shock when he encountered Huo Lingtong in the Star Dou Great Forest.
So Nan Zhuliu found an opportunity to have Huo Lingtong use Soul Shock and Spiritual Interference on him in succession.
Sure enough, neither of those two spiritual-attribute Soul Skills had any effect on him.
This unexpected windfall left Nan Zhuliu wild with joy.
In an era when spiritual power had yet to be studied in depth, spiritual attacks were the hardest to guard against.
The only defensive measure currently available was to concentrate Soul Power in the head and endure the attack through the sheer strength of one's own spiritual power.
Having a passive ability that granted pseudo-spiritual immunity was simply adding flowers to brocade for Nan Zhuliu.
After taking that pill, Nan Zhuliu's Soul Power successfully broke through to rank thirty-four, and on his eleventh birthday not long afterward, it reached rank thirty-five.
After rank thirty, the power of the Golden Dragon King bloodline accelerated Nan Zhuliu's cultivation considerably. At this rate, he was fully confident he could break through to rank forty today.
Huo Lingtong took the Mysterious Water Pill and Soul Ascension Pill in succession. With the effects of both pills, one month after arriving at Shrek Academy, she also successfully reached the admission requirement of rank-fifteen Soul Power.
To celebrate this happy occasion, Huo Lingtong paid out of her own pocket and first treated Nan Zhuliu to a lavish meal.
Then she treated the people she knew and got along reasonably well with to grilled fish, including Wang Dong, Bei Bei, Tang Ya, and her roommate Xiao Xiao.
Apart from Nan Zhuliu, the others, who had originally wondered just how Huo Lingtong had entered Shrek Academy at rank eleven, only then learned that she had entered through the back door.
Tang Ya told the others with a smile, "Originally, we were thinking that if Lingtong didn't have any plans, we could recruit her into the Tang Sect and then have her study at the academy through the free admission quota the Tang Sect receives every year. Unfortunately, there are no ifs. Lingtong had already joined the academy first."
"The Tang Sect?" A sharp gleam flashed in Wang Dong's eyes. "Senior Tang Ya, is the Tang Sect you're talking about the one I know?"
"That's right." Tang Ya proudly puffed out her chest. "My Tang Sect is the Tang Sect founded ten thousand years ago by the legendary Thousand-Handed Asura, Tang San..."
"May I join your sect?"
Tang Ya was stunned for a moment. She had never expected that someone would actually volunteer to join their Tang Sect. That was truly a rarity.
"Of course. Welcome aboard."