The secret training sessions continued as usual but not it has become more intense.
Every midnight, Robin and Norman met in their hidden clearing, three miles deep where Academy patrols never ventured.
Their styles were complete opposites.
Robin fought with military precision inherited from Commander Justin's lifetime. Every movement economical.
Every strike calculated. He exploited weaknesses with surgical accuracy, turning an opponent's strength into their downfall.
Norman was the opposite, raw, feral power channeled through instinct. His attacks were explosive and overwhelming, driven by the beast blood coursing through his veins.
No wasted thought, just pure predatory aggression.
On the surface, they shouldn't have worked together at all.
But their synergy was immediate and devastatingly potent.
"Again," Robin commanded, breathing hard.
They'd been sparring for an hour. Norman lunged forward with another wild strike, his golden eyes blazing with barely contained fury. The attack was powerful enough to shatter bone.
Robin didn't retreat. "Stop."
Norman froze mid-strike, blade inches from Robin's face.
"Look at your stance," Robin said calmly. "You're committing everything to that attack. What happens if I dodge?"
Norman frowned, looking down at his extended position. "I'd be exposed."
"Completely." Robin walked around him, analyzing. "Your instinct tells you to overwhelm the enemy with power. But against a skilled opponent, that's suicide. You need to channel that strength more efficiently."
He demonstrated. "Strike with the same force, but keep your weight centered. Maintain your guard even during aggression. You can be powerful and protected simultaneously."
Norman tried it. His next strike had the same devastating force but his stance remained balanced.
"Better," Robin acknowledged. "Now counter me."
Robin attacked with a precise thrust aimed at Norman's exposed side. Norman blocked it, then his enhanced reflexes kicked in, he flowed into a counterattack that forced Robin backward.
"Good. Your speed gives you the opening. My precision shows you where to target. Together, they create something neither of us has alone."
Norman's eyes gleamed with understanding.
"Exactly."
The next night, Norman taught Robin.
"You're too rigid," Norman said, circling him. "Your technique is perfect, but you're predictable because of it. Every movement follows the same pattern like a textbook."
"Technique exists for a reason....."
"Technique gets you killed when facing something that doesn't follow rules." Norman's voice carried the weight of painful experience.
"The beast inside me doesn't care about proper form. It sees openings you don't teach in books."
He demonstrated, attacking Robin with a combination that defied logic. High feint into a low sweep, then a strike from an angle that required impossible flexibility.
Robin defended, barely. "That's inefficient."
"That's unexpected." Norman grinned, his teeth slightly too sharp. "Efficiency means nothing if your opponent can't predict you. Against the Void beasts, unpredictability is survival."
Robin absorbed this. His entire lifetime as Justin had been built on mastery of established techniques. But Norman was right, the evolving Void creatures didn't fight by human rules.
"Show me."
Norman spent the next hour teaching Robin to incorporate chaos into precision. How to feint not just with blade position but with body language.
How to use unexpected angles. How to make instinct work alongside calculation.
By dawn, Robin's movements had changed. Still precise, but with an unpredictable edge that made him exponentially more dangerous.
Their partnership evolved beyond simple sparring.
Norman's beast-enhanced senses made him the perfect early warning system. He could detect approaching threats from hundreds of yards away, changes in wind patterns, the scent of predators, the vibration of footsteps through earth.
"Something's coming," Norman would say, his golden eyes scanning the darkness. "Southeast. Large. Moving slowly."
Robin's mind would immediately process the information, formulating strategy before the threat even arrived.
"Terrain advantage. Use the ridge to our east. Force it into the ravine where mobility is limited."
They moved as one unit. Norman's raw speed getting them into position. Robin's strategic placement turning geography into a weapon.
When the creature arrived, a corrupted bear, twice normal size, they executed flawlessly.
Norman drew its attention with aggressive strikes, his feral presence making him the obvious threat.
The beast focused entirely on him, its corrupted mind seeing only the challenging predator.
Robin struck from the blind spot with precision. The blade found the gap between armored plates that Norman's assault had exposed.
The bear fell. They stood over it, breathing hard.
"Your aggression creates the opening," Robin said.
"Your precision exploits it." Norman nodded. "Neither works alone. Together, nothing survives."
The training intensified. They pushed each other to absolute limits.
Norman would attack for hours, forcing Robin to defend until his arms trembled with exhaustion.
Teaching him endurance. Training his body to respond even when his mind was foggy with fatigue.
Robin would create impossible scenarios. "Three enemies. One behind, two flanking. You have two seconds. What do you do?"
Norman's instinct would react, and Robin would immediately point out the flaw. "That kills one but exposes you to the others. Again."
They repeated scenarios until Norman's instinct and Robin's tactics merged into seamless execution.
The improvement was exponential.
Robin's stats climbed faster than daily quests alone could achieve. Real combat against a superior physical opponent forced adaptation that controlled sparring never could.
[COMBAT TRAINING BONUS:
+5 STR,
+3 AGI,
+4 END]
Norman gained something more valuable control. The beast inside him had always been a barely contained explosion. Robin's tactical guidance gave it direction, purpose. The feral rage became focused aggression.
"I can feel the difference," Norman admitted one night, his golden eyes clearer than before. "The beast used to be something I fought against. Now... it's becoming part of me. A tool I can use."
"That's the goal," Robin said. "Power without control is just destruction. Control without power is weakness. Master both, and you're unstoppable."
Their partnership developed an almost telepathic quality.
In combat, Norman would lunge at an enemy from one direction. Without verbal communication, Robin would already be moving to cut off the retreat, knowing instinctively where Norman's attack would drive their opponent.
When Robin executed a complex feint, Norman's enhanced reflexes would spot the real attack pattern and position himself to follow up, turning a single strike into an inescapable combination.
They spoke through movement. Through the rhythm of combat. Through shared understanding of how the other thought and fought.
"This is what real warrior partnerships look like," Robin thought during one particularly fluid exchange. "Not Academy team exercises. Not formal squad tactics. This is two fighters who've become one weapon."
By the end of their third week of secret training, they'd hunted and killed sixteen corrupted creatures in the deep forest. Beasts that would've torn through entire Academy squads.
They stood in their clearing as dawn approached, both battered and bloody but grinning with savage satisfaction.
"The Academy would expel us if they knew," Norman observed.
"The Academy trains obedient soldiers," Robin countered. "We're training to be something else entirely."
"What's that?"
Robin's eyes held the cold certainty of someone who'd already lived through a lifetime of war. "Survivors. Hunters. The kind of warriors who don't just follow orders, they change battlefields."
Norman nodded slowly. Understanding and accepting.
They'd started as outcasts. The cursed child and the half-beast. Two students the Academy had relegated to Class F because they didn't fit the established molds.
Now they were forging themselves into something the Academy's rigid system could never create.
Two warriors whose combined strength exceeded the sum of their parts.
Their synergy wasn't just about complementary skills. It was about shared understanding. They both knew what it meant to be dismissed, underestimated, pushed aside.
And they were both determined to prove everyone wrong.
"Same time tomorrow?" Norman asked as they prepared to return.
"Always." Robin paused. "We're going to need bigger challenges soon. The forest creatures are becoming routine."
Norman's grin was feral. "I know a place. Deeper in. Where the Void corruption is stronger. Things there would make these beasts look like puppies."
"Perfect."
They parted ways as the first light touched the horizon. Both heading back to their dormitory. Both ready to pretend to be normal students for another day.
But they'd stopped being students weeks ago.
They were weapons now. Honed in secret. Tempered by real danger.
And getting sharper every single night.