Three Months Later, the Grouping Uproar!

The dawn redwoods outside the window had shed their tender spring green and taken on a deep, luxuriant dark hue.

Three months at Shrek Academy had slipped quietly away amid the daily cicada songs and morning dew.

For the two residents of Dorm 109, those ninety-odd days had been a process woven from sweat and Soul Power.

Whenever night fell silent, golden halos of Soul Power would light up the dormitory.

Yun Yi and Wang Dong sat cross-legged facing each other, their four palms pressed tightly together.

Yun Dong Power surged and roared through the bridge formed by their connected meridians, each great circulation accompanied by faint tremors in their muscles and bones.

With the mountain that was Yun Yi pressing down on her, Wang Dong's competitive spirit had been thoroughly awakened.

The lazy, playful disposition she had once indulged in at the Clear Sky Sect had long vanished during these three months of hellish pursuit.

During the day, Yun Yi served as the harshest possible sparring partner in the practical combat classes arranged by Du Weilun.

He often restrained his Soul Power, relying solely on physical strength and combat techniques to tear apart Wang Dong's prized butterfly-wing attacks.

She was thrown onto the Diamond Rock floor countless times and gritted her teeth as she clawed her way out of the mud countless more.

Hard work did not disappoint those who put their hearts into it.

Three months of intense dual cultivation and combat training, combined with the terrifying enhancement of Yun Dong Power, brought about an explosive surge in Wang Dong's cultivation.

Breaking through three levels in a row, she firmly entered the realm of a level twenty-seven Soul Grandmaster!

By her own calculations, if she kept up this momentum, breaking through the level-thirty barrier before the end of the term would be no fantasy.

Then, she could return to the sect during the holidays and have First Father and Second Father help her hunt her third soul ring, giving them a real shock.

As for Yun Yi, his progress was equally astonishing.

At the Soul Ancestor stage, an ordinary soul master would need years of accumulation just to advance a single level.

Within Yun Yi's body lurked the four ultimate attributes: ultimate light, ultimate fire, ultimate ice, and ultimate water.

These four great origins had demands for Soul Power purity so harsh they were practically inhuman.

They relentlessly squeezed and refined the energy within Yun Yi's meridians, compressing it into an exceedingly viscous liquid state.

Even under such stringent restrictions, Yun Yi's Soul Power level still steadily climbed to the peak of level forty-nine.

The solid barrier leading to the Soul King realm was already on the verge of collapse under the impact of his Vastness reserves, ready to shatter at any moment.

Morning, the tiered classroom of Freshman Class One.

After three months of scrambling through practical combat classes, these freshmen, who had arrived with childish faces, now carried a little more sharpness and composure between their brows.

Du Weilun stood behind the podium, holding a thick stack of assessment files.

His gaze swept across the room, and the classroom's clamor immediately died down.

"The three-month basic adaptation period has officially ended." Du Weilun slapped the files onto the desk, producing a dull thud.

"Tomorrow, the freshman assessment will officially begin. This is Shrek Academy's ironclad rule throughout the years. Those who fail the assessment can pack their bags and leave. Shrek does not keep useless people."

The room fell silent, and the air instantly became thick and oppressive.

Everyone understood the cruelty of Shrek Academy's elimination system. They had worked so hard to get in; if they stumbled at this first hurdle and had to slink home in disgrace, it was the last thing any of them wanted.

Du Weilun took in their anxiety, then abruptly changed course. "Over these three months, I arranged intensive practical combat sessions. What each of you excels at, where your weaknesses lie, and what your classmates are capable of—you already know all of it inside out. Therefore, I do not intend to assign your groups for this freshman assessment."

He raised three fingers, his tone rising. "Instead, you will form your own teams, with three people per team. You have today to find the partners who suit you best, then submit your team lists to me."

The moment they heard the words "form your own teams," the classroom atmosphere ignited.

Quite a few students secretly breathed sighs of relief, their eyes darting back and forth among classmates they knew well.

Finding a powerful teammate whose abilities they understood would undoubtedly send their chances of passing soaring.

Strong allies joining forces always made people feel more secure.

Du Weilun watched the freshmen below light up at the prospect of choosing their own teams and quietly nodded to himself.

But his next words poured a bucket of cold water over the entire room.

"Don't celebrate too soon. There are conditions for forming your own teams." Du Weilun curled his knuckles and tapped the desk, producing a crisp warning sound.

"To prevent certain clever little people from putting three pure offensive combat soul masters together and disrupting the tactical balance of the assessment, the rules are fixed: each three-person team may have only one strong attack-type combat soul master!"

"Any violation will result in immediate disqualification and be treated as elimination. Understood?"

The strong attack-type students who had planned to join forces and steamroll their way through were instantly dumbfounded.

Everyone turned their heads, staring directly at the support-type, control-type, and defense-type students who usually drew little attention.

"Fatty Li, that Mysterious Water Shield of yours is pretty reliable. Team up with me! I guarantee you'll advance!"

"Get lost! Fatty Li already promised to cover for me! Zhang San, your vine Entanglement control is pretty good. The two of us can pair up, then find a support, and we'll be perfect!"

With their futures on the line, the team-forming process turned the classroom into a noisy marketplace.

Choosing the wrong teammate meant packing up and leaving, and no one dared treat their future as a joke.

In the back corner by the window, Wang Dong sat frozen in her chair, feeling as if the sky had collapsed.

Just minutes ago, when she first heard about the freshman assessment, she had been so excited she had nearly jumped out of her seat.

She had even mapped out a scenario in her head where she and Yun Yi formed a team, stepped onto the arena, and instantly activated Yun Dong Power.

Not only would that elevate her combat strength across the board, it would also provide the perfect stage for the two of them to use their still-incomplete Martial Soul Fusion Skill in public for the first time.

She wanted so badly to prove herself in this assessment.

She had originally thought that as long as she clung tightly to Yun Yi's unimaginably thick thigh, winning first place in the freshman assessment with the Martial Soul Fusion Skill born from Yun Dong Power would be as easy as taking something from her pocket.

Then she could slap the first-place certificate in front of First Father and Second Father and see who still dared call her a little devil who only knew how to skip class and cause trouble.

She wanted everyone in the outer academy to see that the sweat she had shed during this period had not been wasted.

But Du Weilun's words, "only one strong attack-type," precisely crushed all her fantasies.

The Academic Affairs Office had sawed off her thigh by force.

Wang Dong lowered her head and stared blankly at her hands.

The Light Goddess Butterfly possessed astonishing explosive power. It was unquestionably a top-tier strong attack-type martial soul.

Then she stiffly turned her neck and looked at Yun Yi beside her, who was propping up his chin with one hand and gazing out the window.

That Crimson-Gold Longbow could fire the True Fire of the Sun and blast the Black Tortoise Shield apart with one arrow. Its destructive power was simply inhuman.

No matter how one looked at it, that thing was absolutely a dominant existence among strong attack-types.

It was even more of a pure strong attack-type than she was!

She was a strong attack-type, and so was he.

Putting two strong attack-types on the same team would directly trigger the disqualification line.

That meant the Yun Dong Power she had happily planned for days, intending to use to stun everyone during the assessment, had been stillborn.

She simply could not team up with Yun Yi!

Wang Dong's mind raced as she tried to forcibly classify Yun Yi's martial soul into another category.

Control-type? Did using firepower to lock down movement count as control?

Agility attack-type? Did firing arrows quickly count as agility?

Those far-fetched excuses could not even fool herself.

The teachers at the Academic Affairs Office were not blind. How could they believe that such a one-hit-kill martial soul was control-type?

She even began entertaining the absurd idea of running to the Academic Affairs Office, throwing a tantrum, and insisting that the Light Goddess Butterfly was actually a support-type martial soul that used its wings to fan cool air onto teammates.

But the moment she thought of Du Weilun's stern, impartial face, she immediately gave up on that suicidal idea.

A powerful sense of frustration and disappointment swept through her.

The color around Wang Dong instantly drained away, leaving her entire person utterly gloomy.

She slumped weakly over her desk, her chin resting against its surface.

"How could this happen..." she muttered softly, irritably picking at the grain of the wooden desk with her fingers.

Filled with unwillingness and grievance, Wang Dong turned her head.

Her beautiful pink-blue eyes were watery now, carrying the air of someone who had lost all desire to live.

She stared pitifully at Yun Yi, trying to find some hope of breaking the deadlock on the face of the roommate who always came up with all sorts of tricky ideas.

Yun Yi had just turned his face toward her. Noticing her devastated expression, he raised an eyebrow, a trace of teasing at the corner of his lips.

Wang Dong dragged out his name, her voice clearly filled with ingratiation and a plea for help as she leaned eagerly closer.

"Yun Yi... Isn't this stupid rule way too unfair? We're perfectly compatible partners. If we can't team up, won't Yun Dong Power just become decoration?" She pouted, clasping her hands together, her eyes full of expectation.

"You've got plenty of tricks, so hurry up and think of something. You even managed to straighten out Xu Sanshi before. Though I heard something happened to him afterward, there has to be some loophole we can exploit this time, right? Tell me already, what good idea do you have!"