Two months.
That was the time they'd been given.
Sixty days of early mornings, grueling drills, evening battles, and night training sessions so harrowing that even Qiang Ming, the stoic hammer-wielder, had learned to flinch when Wu Zhangkong's shadow darkened a doorway past sundown.
But in those two months, something else happened—something slower, quieter.
Something more powerful than combat readiness.
They became a team.
It began with proximity.
They had no choice but to spend hours together every day. Wu Zhangkong demanded synergy, and that meant cooperation in drills, tandem runs, elemental sparring, and even meal times.
At first, there was silence. Cold, distant, practical silence.
Qiang Ming didn't speak unless spoken to.
Gu Yue rarely offered more than necessary.
Xie Xie never stopped talking—but usually just to himself.
Tang Wulin… tried his best to hold things together.
The tension was constant.
Until it wasn't.
The first shift came during a lunch break.
Xie Xie, bored and chewing a bun like it had offended him personally, pointed a finger at Gu Yue.
"I bet you can't hit that training dummy from here."
Gu Yue didn't look up from her soup. "You're right."
Tang Wulin blinked. "Wait—really?"
She raised her hand, flicked her fingers once—and the dummy exploded into a cloud of water, dust, and humiliation.
Xie Xie nearly choked. "You were serious?!"
Gu Yue shrugged. "I didn't say I couldn't destroy it. Just that I wouldn't hit it."
Qiang Ming, eating quietly across from them, let out a very small breath.
Tang Wulin stared.
"…Was that a laugh?"
"I sneezed," Qiang Ming said flatly.
But it was too late. Something had cracked.
After that, things accelerated.
Xie Xie and Gu Yue became rivals in the most explosive, infuriating, and hilarious way possible.
He taunted. She ignored him.
He challenged. She defeated him.
He made clever comebacks. She made him trip over vines and fall into puddles—accidentally, of course.
But every time Xie Xie fell, he got up stronger, faster, more driven.
And Gu Yue began to smirk when he did.
Tang Wulin, meanwhile, found himself watching Gu Yue more than he intended to.
Not just because of her skill.
But because of her stillness.
Her control.
Her strange quiet that only occasionally broke into sardonic humor or subtle acts of kindness.
Once, after a late training session, he noticed his canteen had been refilled. She was the only one nearby.
She never said anything.
And neither did he.
But the next day, he brought her a spare dumpling wrapped in cloth and left it beside her bag.
She didn't comment.
But she ate it.
Qiang Ming remained the hardest to reach.
He trained with them. He responded to questions. He offered feedback when asked.
But his walls were thick.
It wasn't arrogance.
It was focus.
Discipline.
There were nights he didn't sleep—just meditated with the hammer hovering behind him like a silent guardian. Even among friends, he never truly relaxed.
Still, even he couldn't avoid change.
Not when Gu Yue began mimicking his footwork in drills.
Not when Xie Xie tried to copy his hammer stance with a pair of dumbbells and almost dislocated his shoulder.
Not when Tang Wulin asked, quietly, if he could practice breathing cycles beside him.
And especially not when Wu Zhangkong, during one of the many night training sessions, told him plainly:
"You're learning to hold back. Good. But restraint is not fear. If you don't trust your team, you'll never grow with them."
That stuck.
It burrowed into his chest and remained there.
Night training became their collective trauma.
It always began the same:
The sky turned black. The stars came out. And Wu Zhangkong would appear, like a ghost conjured by dread.
No words.
Just battle.
One against four.
Even while suppressing his cultivation, he overwhelmed them.
They failed.
Again and again.
And they rose.
Again and again.
Until the first time they lasted ten minutes.
Then fifteen.
Then twenty.
Two months passed.
And by the end:
Gu Yue had reached Rank 17. Her elemental transitions became nearly instant. She could shift between wind, water, fire, and earth mid-motion, weaving layers of suppression and evasion in a breath.
Xie Xie had climbed to Rank 19, feeling the bottleneck looming in the distance. He was faster, sharper, and more fluid in using his twin daggers in tandem with the team's tempo.
Tang Wulin, the slowest, reached Rank 12—but he had refined his stamina, learned to endure, and had grown most in cohesion. He didn't lead with power. He led with presence.
And Qiang Ming, still the strongest, remained at Rank 21, but his soul power pulsed at the brink of breakthrough.
They weren't four students anymore.
They were one unit.
The morning of the Class Promotion Tournament arrived beneath overcast skies, heavy with the promise of rain—but it didn't matter.
Inside the Arena Hall, the crowd stirred.
Students and instructors gathered across the stands. Class 4 watched from one side with smug interest. Class 5 stood from the other, hope and nerves clinging to them like sweat.
And at the gate—
The four of them stood side by side.
Xie Xie adjusted his sleeves.
Gu Yue tied her braid a little tighter.
Tang Wulin cracked his knuckles and exhaled slowly.
Qiang Ming looked straight ahead.
No words passed between them.
There was no need.
The gate rumbled open.
And together—
They walked into the arena.