Zhen Hua watched with eager eyes as Arthur pocketed the Heavenly forged metal, and his face instantly broke into a wide grin, as though his earlier fit of exasperation had been nothing but an illusion.
Good, at least the boy knows to keep it safe.
Beside him, Mu Ye shook his head slowly. This shameless old man, fawning like that. How was he any different from a lapdog?
He had completely forgotten that he himself hadn't been much better at the start.
The trip to Glorybound came to an end, and Arthur returned home with plenty to show for it.
Before they parted, Mu Ye had made a point of reminding Arthur not to rush his breakthrough to Spirit Ancestor once he reached level thirty-nine, and to come find him first.
The one-month break drew to a close. The new semester began.
Arthur returned to his beloved Eastsea City.
Inside the Zero Class classroom, everyone had gathered. While they waited for Wu Zhangkong to arrive, nearly every student was sneaking glances at Gu Yue.
Arthur was different from the rest. He walked straight up and stared at her openly. After a long moment, he asked with genuine uncertainty, "Hey... did you wander into the wrong classroom?"
"Hmph." Gu Yue rolled her eyes and turned away, giving him her profile as always.
But this time, that profile was breathtaking.
The features were the same features, yet somehow entirely different from before the break. There was a new liveliness about her now, something nimble and alive between her brows.
The corners of her eyes tilted up ever so slightly, carrying an effortless air of pride. Her nose was delicate and well-defined, and the lines of her profile were like finely polished jade. Features that had once seemed ordinary now lent her face a kind of striking, arresting beauty.
Gu Yue seemed like a completely different person. She was so beautiful that Arthur drew a sharp breath, then said aloud what everyone in the room was thinking: "Gu Yue... did you get plastic surgery?"
A burst of laughter escaped from Xie Xie beside him before he could stop it.
One cold look from Gu Yue was enough. He snapped his mouth shut and immediately dropped his gaze, studying his desk with great interest.
Gu Yue turned to face Arthur properly and blinked those clear, luminous eyes. "Haven't you heard the saying? A girl can change completely over the years."
"But..." Arthur wasn't convinced. "It's only been a month."
She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
There really was something different about being that beautiful.
Even the simple arc of Gu Yue's fingertips now carried a certain grace. "Maybe my change just happened to fall within this particular month," she said lightly.
"Does that make sense?"
"It does, it does," Na'er chimed in from nearby, unable to watch any longer and deciding to come to Gu Yue's rescue.
She still couldn't figure out what had come over Gu Yue. She had thrown out her original plan of letting things change gradually and simply restored her appearance all at once. Na'er couldn't make sense of it.
On the night she had arrived, she had mocked Gu Yue pretty mercilessly, and Gu Yue had held firm then. Yet now, out of nowhere, she had decided to change back.
"Quiet."
At that moment, Wu Zhangkong stepped into the classroom, drawing everyone's attention.
After a month apart, the sound of Wu Zhangkong's cold, level voice felt oddly familiar and almost welcome.
Yes. That was the one.
"We have a new student joining our class today."
A blue-haired girl with twin pigtails walked in through the door.
"Introduce yourself." Same as ever, Wu Zhangkong cut straight to it.
Xu Xiaoyan faced the class and gave a small bow, looking a little shy. "H-hello everyone. My name is Xu Xiaoyan. I'm nine years old. My martial soul is the Star Staff, and my spirit power is at level seventeen."
Everyone had spent time together during the Spirit Ascension Platform trials, so they already knew Xu Xiaoyan.
And precisely because of that shared experience, they had all seen firsthand how timid she could be. Based on what they had observed back then, she really shouldn't have made it into Zero Class.
This was naturally where Xie Xie stepped in. He was always the first to speak up whenever a question was on everyone's mind.
"Teacher, Xu Xiaoyan is so weak. How did she get into Zero Class?" he asked with blunt, unfiltered curiosity.
Weak?
From Arthur's perspective, having the knowledge he did, Xu Xiaoyan was anything but weak. She might well be the most powerful control-type spirit master in history.
Setting aside the future, even at this stage, Xu Xiaoyan possessed an absolute and unconditional certainty to her abilities. No matter the circumstances, she could forcibly lock down an enemy for at least one full second.
For Xie Xie and the others at their current level, one second might not sound like much.
But for Arthur, one second was an eternity.
He could take a nap in that time.
Before Wu Zhangkong could answer, Xu Xiaoyan tilted her head and replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world: "Through the back door, of course."
That phrase rang uncomfortably familiar.
The words landed, and the classroom fell dead silent. As one, everyone turned to look at Arthur.
Right. This girl had the same energy as Arthur. When Arthur had first joined Zero Class and faced the doubt of the other students on the field, he had said much the same thing, and had done so without a shred of embarrassment, even taking the lead and charging right in.
Under the weight of so many stares, Arthur felt a prickling unease crawl across his skin. He slapped his hand on his desk. "So what if Xu Xiaoyan came in through the back door? Why is everyone looking at me?"
Why are we looking at you? Do you really not know?
Xu Xiaoyan sensed the odd atmosphere and felt a flicker of confusion. Arthur came through the back door too? But with his strength, that didn't make sense.
Still, she quickly decided this was an opportunity.
She bounded over and dropped into the empty seat behind Arthur, twin pigtails swinging, and said in a bright, ingratiating tone, "You came through the back door too? What a coincidence."
For the record: Arthur sat in front of Gu Yue, with Na'er to his right, a window to his left that never changed, and now Xu Xiaoyan at his back.
"More or less?" Thinking back on it, Arthur realized with mild alarm that he actually had come through the back door, in a manner of speaking.
He had the ability, yes, but he hadn't been admitted to Zero Class because of that. He had gotten in through his connections. He had not even been required to sign the contract that every other Zero Class student had to.
Beside him, Na'er's expression turned sharp. She fixed a pointed stare on Xu Xiaoyan, having spotted the girl's intentions the moment she made her move.
Wu Zhangkong's gaze passed over Na'er's taut profile, then settled on Xu Xiaoyan.
He was thoroughly entertained by this little drama.
When Na'er had first arrived, she and Gu Yue had been at each other every single day. Unlike the other students, who were still young enough to get caught up in it, Wu Zhangkong had quietly observed the whole thing as a spectator, and enjoyed every moment of it.
Now there was Xu Xiaoyan as well.
Three women, one stage. The possibilities were frankly beyond imagining.
Arthur really is someone I could call a true friend, Wu Zhangkong thought to himself. Where else would you find someone who could spar with you seriously and provide this caliber of entertainment at the same time?
Still, he had an image to maintain. Time to cut this short.
Wu Zhangkong's voice remained perfectly flat: "Quiet. And Xu Xiaoyan, sit properly. Class is about to begin."
Xu Xiaoyan, a little unnerved by Na'er's relentless stare, quickly straightened up and fixed her eyes on the blackboard. Even so, she couldn't help sneaking glances at Arthur, quietly working out how to close the distance between them.
Wu Zhangkong rapped the lectern, and his cold voice immediately cut through the restless murmur of the classroom: "It's the first day of the new semester. We're doing live combat simulations.
I want to see how much progress you've all made this past month and whether any of you have been slacking on your training. Everyone, assemble on the field in five minutes."
"What? Combat drills on the very first day back?" Xie Xie wailed.
"Save it." Wu Zhangkong gave him a cool look. "If you'd rather not, you're welcome to say so."
"No, no, absolutely not. I'm training, full throttle, no question." Xie Xie immediately switched to a grinning, chest-pounding display of enthusiasm, while privately cataloguing every last grievance he had with Wu Zhangkong's methods of instruction.
Five minutes later, the Zero Class students were lined up on the field without exception.
Wu Zhangkong swept his gaze across them and let it come to rest on Arthur, one eyebrow shifting almost imperceptibly.