That evening, the whole group gathered at Lan Xuanyu's villa. Fan Yue watched him carefully — there was a lightness about him, a barely contained energy.
"Leader, why did you call us all here?" Qian Lei asked.
Every eye turned to Lan Xuanyu. He smirked.
"It's about the final match against the sixth years. As you know, actually beating them is next to impossible… but—"
He let the pause stretch just long enough.
"We don't need a full victory. We just need to last one minute — and the win is ours."
The group came alive. They had all known a real victory was out of reach, but this — this was a different kind of hope.
"One minute! Boss, how did you pull that off?" Qian Lei asked, eyes wide.
"A magician never reveals his secrets." Lan Xuanyu smiled. He had quietly paid off one of the older students to make it happen, but that wasn't something he intended to share.
Fan Yue's eyes narrowed slightly. A face surfaced in his memory — a sharp-featured young man he had seen Lan Xuanyu speaking to.
He made some kind of deal with that guy, Fan Yue thought.
"Here's the plan—" Lan Xuanyu began, already moving toward the details of the final battle, when a voice came from above.
"If your plan is simply to scatter and stall for time, I'm afraid you won't last thirty seconds, let alone a minute."
Everyone looked up.
A silver-haired woman was descending the stairs.
"Teacher!" Dong Qianqiu exclaimed, visibly startled.
Nana was breathtaking. A pale violet dress fell gracefully around her, setting off silver hair that caught the light like moonlight on water. Her skin held a quiet luminance, and her violet eyes — deep and pellucid — seemed to gather every bit of warmth in the room and hold it. She came down the stairs with the unhurried grace of someone who had never needed to hurry in their life.
Lan Xuanyu, Dong Qianqiu, and Lan Mengqin kept their composure. The others found it considerably harder to look away. Lan Xuanyu noticed, and said nothing.
"Allow me to introduce her — this is my mentor, Nana. You can call her Teacher Nana. I asked her to come and help us."
The moment Fan Yue's eyes landed on Nana, his Battle Soul — the Three Saints Dragon — stirred. An instinctive weight pressed against him, something ancient and immovable.
Nana paused. She glanced at Fan Yue.
Then, without warning, she was standing directly in front of him — no one had seen her move. A single finger touched his forehead, and his Battle Soul erupted.
Dark-golden scales swept across his body. Broad draconic wings unfurled behind him, a sinuous tail trailed from his spine. His long hair bled into white and gold, his pupils narrowed into vertical slits — one eye blazing gold, the other a cold, glacial white. Five black rings rose and spun slowly in the air around him.
Fan Yue was already at the far edge of the room before anyone registered he had moved, his gaze fixed on Nana. Through the tension, he glimpsed her own silhouette — a silver dragon, magnificent and ancient, the embodiment of everything the dragon race had ever been.
"Teacher Nana, what's happening?" Dong Qianqiu asked, shaken.
Nana looked at the finger that had touched Fan Yue's forehead and gave a faint shake of her head.
Not him. But the auras are similar.
"My apologies," she said gently. "Your draconic aura felt familiar to me. I didn't expect such a strong reaction."
The tension in Fan Yue's body slowly unwound. He drew his Battle Soul back.
"Lan Xuanyu," he said, his voice measured, "you might have mentioned that your mentor carries such a pure draconic bloodline."
Lan Xuanyu dipped his head, the picture of apologetic guilt.
"Ha — I honestly didn't think it would go like this."
Fan Yue looked down at his ruined uniform, sighed quietly, and let it go.
"Never mind. It's a pleasure to meet you — I'm Fan Yue."
Nana nodded. A glint of curiosity passed through those violet eyes.
"Yue — what is your Battle Soul?"
"The Three Saints Dragon. A mutated Battle Soul," he answered, keeping his tone even.
Nana nodded again, as though filing it away somewhere.
"Very well. Let's begin. Xuanyu asked me here to help you — so let me say this first."
She looked at the group.
"Against absolute power, time is meaningless. If your plan is to split up and keep your distance, lasting a full minute will be almost impossible."
Lan Xuanyu asked, curious, "Teacher Nana, do you know how strong our opponent is?"
"I don't need to." Her voice was unhurried. "I can reason it out. The gap between fourth and fifth year tells us something about the gap between fifth and sixth. Your sixth-year opponent will certainly be a two-word Battle Armor Master — at minimum a seven-ring Douluo, quite possibly eight. If he's eight rings, he will end any one of you instantly. No amount of clever footwork will change that."
Fan Yue's brow furrowed slightly.
Battle Armor… Without it, if he didn't fight at full strength, I could probably hold on for fifteen, maybe thirty seconds with my Battle Soul.
"Then what do we do, Teacher Nana?" Lan Mengqin asked.
"When you face someone whose power towers over yours, the only path is perfect unity. One person cannot absorb his attack — they simply die. But six people moving as a single organism? That changes everything."
Her gaze shifted to Tang Yuge.
"Can you use that final ability again — the one from today's match? Without activating Battle Armor?"
Tang Yuge shook her head quietly.
"I don't think so," she said. "Without sufficient energy, my Five Elements Technique can't synchronize with the incoming attack. What made it work that day was the Yin-Yang fruit Xuanyu gave me — it brought all five elements into harmony, and only then could I merge with the attack and redirect it. Any elemental technique — wood, fire, earth, metal, water — I can merge with, as long as it's weaker than my Divine Five Element Light. If it's stronger…" She paused. "It would be extraordinarily difficult."
Fan Yue nodded slowly, turning the shape of the coming battle over in his mind. He scanned his companions' faces. Every one of them understood: this was no ordinary fight. It was a test of everything they had.
"That does make it harder," Nana conceded, her gaze moving across the group thoughtfully. "You'll need to choose your participants carefully." She turned to Qian Lei. "Release the Golden Fatty — let me see him. Xuanyu told me that after your fusion, your strength and defense increased substantially."
"Me?" Qian Lei blinked, pointing at himself.
Nana smiled and nodded. "Let me see your partner."
"Of course, Teacher Nana." Qian Lei reached inward and sent the command. A burst of golden light tore from his chest, and a large creature materialized before him.
The Golden Fatty had grown considerably since anyone had last seen him properly — half a head taller than Qian Lei, his body thick with dense golden fur. Pudgy arms and a barrel chest lent him a quietly menacing presence, and two large fangs jutted from his lower jaw. He looked at Nana.
Then his ferocity simply collapsed.
His jaw dropped. His eyes went wide. His nostrils flared. With a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a shriek, he spun around and launched himself onto Qian Lei — thick legs locking around his waist, arms crushing his neck, the entire creature trembling violently as it pinned him to the floor.
"Golden Fatty, what are you doing?!" Qian Lei wailed.
"I think he's frightened of Teacher Nana," Dong Qianqiu observed, looking genuinely surprised.
Nana regarded the Golden Fatty with a flicker of mild astonishment.
"He's… a descendant of an ancient Divine Beast lineage."
Every head in the room turned toward the creature still clinging to a suffocating Qian Lei.
"Teacher Nana — he's descended from a Divine Beast?" Qian Lei managed, finally prying himself free.
Nana's brows drew together as she searched her memory. A faint look of distaste passed across her features.
"If I'm not mistaken… he comes from the ancient Bi-Beast bloodline. That golden fur is the mark of the royal golden line. In the age before humanity, when dragons held dominion over the entire continent, there was another race that met them as equals — that challenged them, age after age." She paused. "The Bi-Beasts. When Spirit Beasts emerged in later eons, some carried traces of that bloodline forward. Your Fatty is one of them. He is no ordinary spirit companion — he is bound to your life and fate. If he dies, you die. The reverse is equally true."
"A Golden Bi-Beast?" Qian Lei blinked. "That sounds terrifying."
Nana's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "If this truly is a Golden Bi-Beast, then you have a real chance. It's a shame Xuanyu can't amplify him — your bloodlines are in conflict."
"Actually, Teacher Nana, he can," Qian Lei protested. "Xuanyu has amplified me before."
"That's because the Golden Bi-Beast hasn't fully awakened yet," she said. "Once his bloodline comes into its own, it will naturally repel any draconic aura. The awakening demands a great deal of power and energy — but it's worth it. His rate of growth will accelerate sharply, and you'll benefit enormously from the bond you share." She paused. "That said — for roughly a hundred days afterward, you'll be weakened. You should keep to yourself, rest, and let your life energy recover."
Qian Lei's expression fell. "Is it really that serious? If we win — can I still go to the Elven Planet?"
Nana shook her head.
"No. Every movement will cost you. You'll have to be deliberate about everything. Those hundred days are for two things: restoring your life energy completely, and giving the Golden Bi-Beast the time he needs to fully awaken his bloodline. He'll require an enormous amount of life energy for that awakening."
She looked at the group again, a faint smile touching her lips.
"There is no better place for that than Shrek Academy. And when he does awaken — you'll feel it too. You are one. Even in your weakened state, your life won't be in danger — the Bi-Beast will sustain it. All you need to do is support him and follow his lead, and your future will be without limit."
Qian Lei glanced at Lan Xuanyu — an unspoken question. Lan Xuanyu nodded without hesitation, his trust in Nana absolute.
"All right." Qian Lei set his jaw. "I'll do it. Please — teach me."
Nana nodded.
"Don't worry. You'll need to step onto the battlefield to trigger the awakening. The Golden Bi-Beast will be stronger for a short window afterward — then he'll fall into a deep sleep. Don't try to wake him before then."
She looked at the others.
"Qianqiu, and the other two — you can work together. Xuanyu will amplify you."
And then she began.
As the instruction unfolded, something quietly remarkable became apparent to each of them. The cultivation pathways Nana was pointing out differed only slightly from the Mysterious Heaven Skill most of them already practiced — but those small differences mattered enormously. The flow of spirit power became smoother, more natural. More than that: when they worked alongside one another, their energy no longer ran in parallel. It resonated. Something shifted — subtle, difficult to name, but unmistakably real.
At first, the group had kept a quiet guardedness toward Nana. They trusted her only because she was Lan Xuanyu and Dong Qianqiu's mentor. But as the hour wore on, that guardedness dissolved. In its place rose something genuine — admiration, clear and unforced, for a woman who appeared to be barely past twenty and was very obviously something else entirely.
Eventually Nana turned to Tang Yuge and Fan Yue, and gave a small shake of her head.
"There isn't enough time for you to learn the full fusion technique," she said plainly. "But spirit power exchange — that I can teach you. In a real fight, it will give you a meaningful edge."
Fan Yue and Tang Yuge exchanged a glance and nodded, falling into step with her instructions without question.
The thirty minutes that followed moved like a single breath. Spirit power rippled through the air. Everyone trained with everything they had.
When the first real pause came, Nana stepped toward Fan Yue and studied him.
"Your cultivation technique is already flawless," she said quietly. "There's little I can offer you there."
Then, after a brief silence: "Yue — do you truly want to win?"
The question caught him off guard. He had the odd, unsettling feeling that she could see straight through him.
He thought about it honestly. The trip to the Elven Planet might help his development — but it wasn't essential. Seeing a real Spirit Beast in the wild was interesting — but it wasn't what drove him.
What he actually wanted was to test himself.
"Yes," he said. "I want to win."
Nana was quiet for a moment.
"Then you'll use your bloodline?"
Fan Yue held her gaze and let out a slow breath. In so short a time, one thing had become unmistakably clear: nothing could be hidden from this woman. She was far beyond Teacher Shu. She felt older, too — far older than she looked.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "My teacher told me not to use the bloodline unless there was no other choice. But if it comes to that — I'll use it."
Nana regarded him for a long moment, as though weighing not just his words, but the person behind them. Then, quietly:
"Understood."
She turned.
"Xuanyu — come here."
Lan Xuanyu crossed the room in a few quick strides.
"Yes, Mentor."
Nana looked between the two of them.
"Xuanyu, you've already learned several techniques that draw on dragon aura and power. I'm going to teach Fan Yue those same techniques."
She paused, then said, with careful deliberateness:
"Fan Yue's Three Saints Dragon is without precedent. Given time, he has every capacity to reach the level of your Dragon God bloodline, Xuanyu."
Lan Xuanyu's composure slipped — just slightly. He had known Fan Yue was powerful, but this was something else entirely. The Dragon God's level.
"What exactly are you saying, Mentor?"
"I'm saying that the two of you together will decide this battle." She let that settle. "You have one day. A true silent understanding between you isn't something that can be built in a day — but I can teach you to fuse self-created spirit skills. That, you can learn."