Chapter 310: Guardian Griffin

The colossal iron doors of the secret mountain vault ground to a heavy, shuddering halt, sealing Tony Clark inside an absolute fortress of primordial wealth.

Deep within the core of the jagged western ridge, the cavern air was so densely saturated with ancient spiritual aura that a visible, glowing white fog snaked across the floor, curling around the thousands of stone shelves that stretched into the shadows.

Tony walked straight to the absolute center of the treasure cave, his steps slow, deliberate, and radiating the unyielding confidence of a true supreme villain.

He glanced back toward the massive iron entrance, his dark eyes locking onto Julie Faith with a sharp, predatory intensity. "Julie," Tony commanded smoothly, his deep baritone voice echoing clearly off the cavern walls.

"Take the griffin and station yourself directly outside the main threshold of this ravine. Activate the pavilion's defensive runes and ensure that absolutely no one—not even an envoy from the inner peaks—dares to disturb my perimeter. If any insect tries to force their way into this valley, use the griffin's spatial void claws to slaughter them on the spot."

"Your will is my absolute law, Master Tony," Julie replied softly, her voice entirely stripped of any past familial pride or hesitation.

She offered a profound, permanent bow of total submission, her violet eyes swirling with the serene, brainwashed devotion anchored deep within her soul by the system's contract. Turning on her heel with fluid, martial grace, she strode out into the freezing mountain gale.

Beside her, the massive Crimson Shadow Griffin violently expanded its thirty-foot blood-red wings, its purple galaxy eyes flashing with a murderous, ancient glare as it took up a majestic guardian position right before the iron gates, perfectly ready to turn the narrow ravine into a literal graveyard for anyone who approached.

Once the heavy doors sealed completely, plunging the inner cavern into a deep, protected silence, Tony casually sat down cross-legged right in the center of the granite platform. He reached into his dark hunting cloak and pulled out the legendary Sun-Devouring Core Fragment he had claimed from his tournament victory.

The ancient artifact hovered just above his palms, its crystalline structure gleaming with a dense, blinding solar law energy that caused the surrounding white fog to crackle with miniature heat waves.

Tony didn't waste a single fraction of his time on standard, slow meditation. He knew his duplicate body's original talentless baseline required an absolute, catastrophic catalyst to permanently re-engineer its spiritual sea. With a brief thought, he immediately accessed his fully synchronized interface, calling out to the entity in his mind.

'System Spirit, activate the manual core refinement protocol right now! Consume whatever Fate Points are necessary to safely combine this Sun-Devouring Fragment with the plundered ancient medicines inside this vault!'

[Ding! System protocol initiated. Analyzing high-tier resources... Found: 500× Century-Old Spiritual Ginseng, 200× Fire-Beast Core Essences, and 1× Sun-Devouring Core Fragment.]

[System Warning: Forcing an instant fusion of solar laws into a 7th Class Elder Disciple foundation will generate a cataclysmic internal heat wave. Cost to deploy the "Heavenly Meridian Anchor" to prevent spontaneous body combustion: 500 Fate Points. Current Fate Points Pool: 3,740.]

'Consume the points immediately and execute the fusion without a single millisecond of delay,' Tony ordered ruthlessly, his jaw tightening into an iron-like lock as he unauthorized any hesitation.

[Ding! Consuming 500 Fate Points. Deploying "Heavenly Meridian Anchor"... Success! Remaining Fate Points: 3,240.]

[Ding! Absolute Core Fusion sequence activated. Forcing breakthrough protocol.]

An instantaneous, reality-shattering flash of blinding gold and crimson light violently erupted from Tony's physical body, completely vaporizing the surrounding white fog into nothingness.

The three hundred shelves of hoarded ancient medicines, fire-beast essences, and high-grade Aura crystals violently shattered under the system's vacuum, their internal energy pools turning into a massive, roaring tidal wave of liquid silver-and-gold aura that rushed straight into Tony's open pores.

The sheer, unprecedented volume of the incoming primordial energy was so immensely thick that his internal channels instantly felt as though they were being filled with rushing, molten lava. A sharp, bone-crushing wave of absolute agony tore through his chest, and his muscles groaned under the terrifying physical compression as the solar law energy tried to tear his mortal soul signature out of his physical frame from the inside out.

Any ordinary Elder Disciple would have experienced a total, catastrophic spiritual collapse and turned into a pile of microscopic ash within a fraction of a millisecond under such a reckless, rapid influx of energy.

Yet, Tony's expression remained unnaturally calm, lazy, and fiercely unyielding. He gritted his teeth, his dark eyes flashing with a terrifying, predatory sharpness as he used his Truth Eye to manually guide the chaotic golden solar fire through his newly anchored internal pathways.

He didn't allow a single fraction of the plundered wealth to go to waste. He used his veteran combat willpower to act like a heavy hydraulic press, forcefully grinding the wild, burning solar law particles down into a dense, perfectly smooth liquid state and anchoring them directly into his core spiritual sea.

BOOM!

A deep, thunderous explosion of internal spiritual force suddenly vibrated through the entire mountain cavern, causing the heavy iron doors to rattle violently.

The dense, automated system arrays successfully broke through the heavy constraints of his lower foundation, forcing his baseline power to smash past the 7th Class, tear through the 8th Class, and violently crash into the absolute peak of the outer campus—the legendary 9th Class Elder Disciple magus stage within a matter of minutes.

His physical frame underwent a massive, fundamental qualitative transformation under the blinding glare of the solar laws. His skin took on a flawless, pearlescent hardness that could easily deflect high-tier steel blades, his muscles turned lean, hard, and perfectly toned, and the liquid energy pools inside his core officially turned into a blazing, miniature solar vortex that radiated a heavy, world-suppressing aura.

He had successfully achieved his ultimate goal, completely turning his duplicate from the city's worst talentless trash into an absolute, god-like monster whose core strength could easily match a standard 10th-Class Grand Disciple or an inner-peak genius in a physical clash.

Tony slowly opened his dark eyes, a slow, ruthlessly brilliant grin curling the corners of his lips as he stood up from the granite platform, entirely unbothered by the residual heat waves crackling through the dark cavern. He casually reached behind his back, his fingers tightly wrapping around the sleek riser of the Void Dragon's Shadow Bow, which vibrated beautifully in perfect harmony with his newly reinforced solar foundation, its wind and shadow runes flashing with a blinding violet light.

[Ding! Synchronization complete. Host's standard cultivation absorption speed has officially reached a steady 3.5× baseline multiplier due to the dual-soul bond and the solar core integration.]

Tony let out a loud, confident laugh that echoed merrily across the empty, hollowed-out treasure cavern, his signature villainous smirk perfectly returning to his face as he walked toward the exit.

He knew that with his system fully awake, a mountain of printed wealth in his pocket, a spatial beast guarding his flank, and a 9th Class peak solar foundation in his veins, the grand chessboard of the entire academy was officially his to command, and the final curtain call for the remaining noble clans inside the city was about to become an absolute, bloody nightmare.

- Tq guys for help