Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

"Where are we going, Chu Yan?" asked Xiao Long, walking effortlessly through the thick, tangled canopy as Chu Yan led him deeper and deeper into the jagged, uncharted depths of a massive, ancient mountain range.

The air here was heavy with an unsettling, stagnant spiritual pressure, and the ground was choked with dark, thorny vines that seemed to twist defensively around the roots of towering stone pines.

"We need to get something first, master," said Chu Yan, his eyes scanning the rocky ridges ahead with a frantic, laser-focused intensity.

He didn’t turn back to look at his master, his feet moving with an automated, reckless speed. "It’s a very important thing. An opportunity that we absolutely cannot afford to miss if we want to survive what’s coming next."

Xiao Long hummed softly, a low, vibration of acknowledgment passing through his ethereal form, and didn’t say anything more.

He merely folded his hands within the wide, flowing sleeves of his robes and followed closely behind, allowing his disciple to take the lead.

Chu Yan, however, was secretly feeling incredibly desperate.

His chest heaved as panic clawed at the back of his throat, the metallic taste of anxiety filling his mouth.

The entire foundation of his plans within the academy had been thoroughly destroyed by Shen Haoran’s terrifying counter-maneuvers.

Elder Mu was surely crippled, if not dead, the academy city was half-destroyed, and the timeline he relied upon was fracturing into unpredictable pieces.

Now, he needed power, and he needed it immediately.

He remembered vividly from the original plot of the web novel he had read in his past life that hidden deep within this specific, forbidden mountain range, there was a dormant, unawakened fragment of an ancient Imperial Artifact.

In the original story, this specific treasure would eventually serve as a monumental, game changing help to Xu Xiansu, acting as the primary catalyst that elevated her into a monstrous powerhouse, capable of even fighting prime Shen Haoran, albeit, with the help of the thickest plot armor imaginable.

It was a fragment of a legendary Imperial Artifact known across the ancient eras as the Sun Moon Refinement Tower, a divine, heaven defying treasure originally forged by the descendants of the ancient Sun Moon Emperor, a mythical sovereign of the primordial eras who also uniquely possessed the Sun Moon Divine Physique.

Unlike other Imperial Artifacts that were forged using the Natal Artifacts of a Supreme, this specific artifact was forged using the very corpse of the Sun Moon Emperor.

The specific piece buried within this mountain range was the intact first floor of the massive tower.

While it was merely a fragment of the complete weapon, it still possessed the ability to accelerate the natural flow of time inside its localized space by up to a staggering hundred times.

In other words, a single day in the outside world is a hundred days inside the first floor of the tower.

And this mind-boggling temporal manipulation was just the most basic, fundamental effect of the tower’s fragmented state, just its first floor.

The tower has a total of twelve floors!

To a protagonist like Chu Yan, who was desperately starving for time to close the massive, terrifying gap between himself and the monstrous heirs of the Immortal Lineages, especially Shen Haoran, this artifact was the ultimate lifeline.

With it, he could compress decades of grueling meditation, although, he’d probably go broke.

Staying in the tower for a day requires a staggering amount of 100 thousand spirit stones, staying there for a hundred days requires ten million!

Of course, you can also use alternative power source, but right now, he couldn’t get his hands on them!

Still, he needed to get that!

Usually, under normal academic operating procedures, this restricted mountain range is tightly guarded by a powerful, highly vigilant Earthly Saint Realm elder stationed at the perimeter to prevent any disciples from wandering in.

After all, this entire mountain range will be used for various tests and trials in the future.

But with all the apocalyptic commotion that just happened down in the city, with Elder Mu Chen completely unleashing his full power and destroying half the campus, that guarding elder had probably already left his post to assist with the containment or protect himself, especially since the Ten Sages had just issued a high-priority decree to all staff members to completely stand down, not interfere with the ground chaos, and immediately retreat to stay secure within the high sanctuary of the Clocktower.

So, this was the absolute, perfect chance to sneak past the abandoned checkpoints and take that completely heaven defying thing for himself before the administration could re-establish order.

As for exactly how that primordial Imperial artifact ended up buried here within the school’s territory... well, the reality was dark and thoroughly horrifying.

The Imperial Academy was not just a school, nor were they as righteous as they show in the surface, instead, they are a predatory, world harvesting machine.

The institution regularly searched the vast, infinite stretches of outer space and the endless, terrifying sea of stars—the cosmic void that physically separates the supreme Imperial Capital from the rest of the vast Central Region—specifically to find unclaimed, isolated mortal planets spinning in the dark.

Once their scouts locate such a world, the supreme elders of the academy will deploy mass-scale array formations to forcibly refine that entire living planet down to its bare cosmic core, ripping it from its orbit and fusing the compressed mass directly into the Academy Dimension to continuously strengthen, stabilize, and expand the school’s geographical territory.

As for the billions of mortal people, lesser cultivators, and living creatures residing on those refined planets... who truly cares?

To the detached masters of the academy, the lives of those insignificant outer beings were entirely worthless.

Think of it as a common human casually spraying boiling water on a small anthill in their courtyard just for brief, passing fun.

The screams of an entire world were nothing more than fuel for the elite students of the Central Region to use.

This entire jagged mountain range they were currently traversing was actually an entire, independent planet before one of the academy’s founding ancestors had dragged it from the sea of stars and crushed it.

Every single kingdom, city, and living soul who had once lived here had been brutally refined into raw, ambient spiritual energy for the academy and its students to use during their training sessions.

The ancient fragment of the Sun Moon Refinement Tower had only managed to remain completely intact and untainted during that world-crushing refinement process because it was deeply hidden within its own personal, pocket spatial dimension, completely cut off and insulated from the outside world’s physical laws.

"We’re here," said Chu Yan as he paused abruptly, his knees trembling slightly from the exertion as they finally arrived at the absolute summit of the mountain peak.

Before them opened a surprisingly wide, perfectly flat clearing of grey stone, entirely devoid of the thorny vines that choked the lower paths.

Standing directly in the absolute center of this flat ground was a lone, beautiful peach blossom tree.

Despite the freezing, heavy alpine air and the stagnant aura of the mountain, its pink petals were in full, vibrant bloom, drifting lazily through the wind.

If one looked closer at the rough, ancient wood of the tree trunk, there was a deeply carved, glowing engraving depicting a conjoined sun and crescent moon, radiating a faint, almost imperceptible warmth.

Without a single second of hesitation, his eyes gleaming with absolute, desperate greed, Chu Yan hurriedly ran across the stone clearing towards the tree.

He slammed his palms flat against the rough wood, right over the engravings of the sun and moon, and instantly began frantically injecting his qi into the array.

Nothing happened.

The pink petals continued to drift lazily, and the trunk remained completely inert, refusing to absorb a single shred of his energy.

His triumphant smile instantly froze on his face, his skin turning pale. "W-What? Why isn’t it opening? I’m pretty sure this is exactly the place!"

Xiao Long stepped closer, his long brows furrowing into a deep frown as he looked at his disciple’s erratic, panicked behavior. "Chu Yan, what exactly is wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost."

"Teacher... this tree... it should have contained an entire separate, hidden pocket dimension within the core of its wood..." Chu Yan stammered, his fingers clawing at the bark as he tried to inject his qi once again, pushing his meridians to their limits, but the energy just bounced harmlessly off the surface. "But... but I can’t seem to access it at all!"

Xiao Long nodded slowly, his spectral eyes analyzing the faint, ancient resonance humming beneath the bark. "Step back. Let me try to decipher the seal."

He walked forward through the air as Chu Yan anxiously moved aside, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.

Xiao Long immediately pressed his ethereal palms flat against the ancient engravings, closing his eyes as he accessed his internal soul interface.

’System, initiate a full deep-space scan of this structure immediately.’

[Ding! Initiating high-tier systemic scanning of the target structure....]

[Scanning process complete!]

[System Notice: This biological specimen contains the heavily compressed, lingering Imperial Qi of a ancient supreme expert historically known as the Sun Moon Emperor. This precise location is the impact point where a fragment of an Imperial Artifact made from his corpse fell during the ancient primordial wars]

[And as years passed, an independent, self-contained sub-dimension naturally formed over the millennia to protect itself from whoever wanted to claim it]

[Only those who inherently possess the bloodline of the Sun Moon Emperor or those who has the Sun Moon Divine Physique can open the gates to this domain.]

Xiao Long frowned deeply, the glowing interface fading from his vision as he turned his spectral head back towards Chu Yan, his voice grave.

"Boy, there is indeed an independent dimension hidden within this tree, however, it required a specific individual to open. Without it, no matter what we do, we can’t open it, unless we became Supreme Emperor."

Chu Yan frowned, his mind instantly racing through the data banks of his memories from his past life, before his eyes suddenly widened to their absolute limits in profound shock.

’Could it be...?’

Could the reason why Xu Xiansu was able to effortlessly enter this forbidden zone and claim the tower in the original plot line... was because she secretly possessed the legendary Sun Moon Divine Physique?

But this crucial piece of genetic lore wasn’t even mentioned anywhere in the Chapters of the novels, not even implied!

Just then, he fiercely slapped his own cheek, the sharp crack echoing across the silent mountain peak. ’No! Why are you constantly being so incredibly dumb, Chu Yan?! You already knew that this is a real, functional world, and although the historical events are highly similar, it’s not completely, word-for-word the same as the fictional text in the novels! The real details are far more complex!’

That’s right. This is a real world! The novel obviously lack many details!

"Shit," he cursed out loud, his hands clenching into fists as a profound sense of helplessness washed over him.

His ultimate trump card to out-cultivate Haoran was locked behind a genetic door he didn’t hold the key to.

And he couldn’t possibly kindap Xu Xiansu right? Not to mention that she’s a protagonist with insane plot armor, she is also now in cahoots with Haoran!

If he tried to get close to her, dying would be considered mercy!

"What in the heavens should we do now, Master? We can’t just leave it here."

Just then...

"Ah, so this is exactly why that bastard Haoran asked us to stay behind and follow you two idiots."

A smooth, highly amused, and utterly mocking voice drifted down from the high rocks above the clearing, shattering the quiet sanctuary of the peak.

Chu Yan and Xiao Long immediately turned their gaze, their eyes widening seeing a group who appeared before them.

"You... Xu Xiansu!?"