Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The next day.

The soft, golden rays of a brand new dawn filtered gently through the lush, climbing green ivy and blooming pink jasmine vines of the hidden sanctuary, casting a warm, dappled pattern across the rustic wooden floorboards of the hut.

The heavy, volatile, and intoxicating storms of raw passion that had thoroughly dominated the small balcony throughout the entire night had finally subsided, leaving behind a deep, serene peace.

Inside the cozy kitchen area, Ye Hongyan was actively preparing breakfast.

She wore a simple, loose-fitting domestic robe, her long hair casually tied up, and a soft, incredibly radiant post-coital glow illuminated her beautiful features.

Every move she made was fluid and filled with a quiet, blissful happiness.

Meanwhile, Shen Haoran sat comfortably on a carved wooden chair at the dining table, lazily scrolling through the sprawling imperial school forum through a semi-transparent, pale blue holographic screen that projected directly from his personal student identity token.

His fingers swiped calmly across the interface, his golden eyes scanning the massive wave of frantic threads and chaotic discussions.

Virtually every single student, faculty member, and citizen of the capital was talking about the incident that had transpired yesterday.

He read detailed, heavily emotional posts analyzing the sheer devastation of the Academy City.

Users were frantically listing the confirmed casualties, whispering about how many promising senior and junior geniuses and young masters of various minor and major sects had died in the sudden explosive temper of Elder Mu.

The school administration had already released an official, sweeping public statement, desperately trying to pacify the panic by announcing that the Imperial Academy would pay a truly astronomical, near-impossible sum of top-grade spiritual stones and rare high-tier resources to compensate the mourning families of the students who had perished.

But the damage to the status quo was already far too severe to be bought off so easily.

The ruling Tian Yuan Empire was currently suffering a massive, unprecedented political backlash, especially from the powerful, high-ranking noble families whose direct heirs and most talented descendants had died in the localized disaster.

The Imperial Court was being flooded with angry demands, threat letters, and political ultimatums.

The whole empire was literally in a state of absolute, chaotic panic, with the shadows of civil unrest and factional wars looming larger by the hour.

Shen Haoran just watched the unfolding digital chaos, his expression completely and utterly nonchalant.

His face remained a mask of pristine, aristocratic indifference, looking exactly as if the entire, apocalyptic incident that had dismantled half the academy city had absolutely nothing to do with him whatsoever.

He tapped his long, slender finger rhythmically on the edge of the wooden table, his golden eyes narrowing slightly as his highly strategic mind began to analyze his future plans.

Now that he had thoroughly dealt with both Chu Yan and the heavy plot-armored transmigrator Xiao Long, his very next tactical target was Lin Che.

That guy...

Haoran’s finger paused. To this very moment, he still didn’t quite know what was truly special about Lin Che’s configuration.

The guy was rather elusive.

He had deliberately, and rather strangely approached him and Zhu Ziyan back in the academy garden, acting with an odd, overly familiar confidence, only to immediately try to flee the premises the exact millisecond Haoran had subtly activated his Karmic Light Observation technique on him.

It was as if the guy possessed an almost supernatural sensory array that felt the invisible gaze of the observation technique and immediately triggered an absolute fight-or-flight response.

Haoran mentally thought of the various possibilities, breaking them down with cold, clinical logic.

First, did Lin Che possess a very powerful, primordial soul power that completely outmatched Shen Haoran’s own soul qualitative density?

Highly unlikely. If his soul was truly that ancient and supreme, he wouldn’t have gotten so easily spooked, panicked, and driven to flight by a basic, localized investigation technique from a younger cultivator.

A true powerhouse would have simply suppressed or ignored the gaze.

Second, did he possess a high-tier protective treasure that actively warned him of incoming sensory dangers?

Also highly unlikely. If he had a passive radar treasure that warned him of dangerous, unhinged entities, he wouldn’t have had any logical reason to approach them in the first place, unless... he had simply taken a sudden liking to the beautiful Zhu Ziyan.

But Lin Che didn’t seem like that kind of shallow, lust-driven person at all.

Haoran vividly recalled the memory of the encounter; the precise way Lin Che had looked at Zhu Ziyan wasn’t the warm, desire-filled eyes of a young man looking at an exceptionally beautiful woman.

No, it was the cold, calculating, and hungry eyes of a treasure hunter who had suddenly stumbled upon an ancient, locked treasure chest and knew with absolute certainty that they were about to get incredibly and filthy rich.

Third, perhaps he possessed a classic ’grandpa spirit’ residing inside a spatial ring or a worn-out pendant?

Also unlikely. If there was an ancient, experienced cultivator’s remnant soul guiding him, that spirit would have definitely warned him beforehand never to approach a core member of the supreme Shen Clan, unless the spirit itself was incredibly incompetent or simply couldn’t care less about the physical safety of its young host.

So, eliminating the standard options, the probability pointed toward a different source of power: Lin Che either possessed some sort of unique, highly specific innate ability, or... he was the host of another independent System.

If it was merely an innate ability—like a high-grade detection eye or a spiritual sensory physique—it would be perfectly fine, manageable, and not that troublesome to deal with.

He could simply capture the boy, strip the physical meridians, and assimilate the trait.

But if it was a fully functional, independent System... he needed to be dealt with with extreme caution.

Haoran personally experienced yesterday just how incredibly troublesome and reality-defying a system could be when pushed into a corner.

Xiao Long’s system had practically rewritten the laws of probability, turning common charcoal and rotted wood into supreme defensive wards through sheer protagonist luck.

If he couldn’t quickly, cleanly subdue Lin Che’s core entity and lock down its code, the boy needed to be permanently, violently erased from the face of the earth as soon as possible.

"Breakfast is ready," Ye Hongyan’s soft, melodious voice suddenly broke through his deep mental calculations, instantly dispelling the heavy, strategic atmosphere of the room.

She walked over from the kitchen hearth, carrying a wide wooden tray and gently putting down several beautifully prepared, steaming hot dishes on the table.

There was fragrant spiritual rice, delicate, pan-seared river fish seasoned with fresh mountain herbs, and a light, nourishing clear soup.

Haoran looked up from his holographic screen, his cold, calculating gaze instantly softening into a warm, polite smile as he nodded at her.

"Thank you, Hongyan. It looks wonderful."

Ye Hongyan smiled brilliantly, her eyes curving into beautiful crescents as she pulled out the chair directly in front of him and sat down, her posture relaxed and comfortable in his presence.

"Have you given Elder Mu his food yet?" asked Haoran, his tone entirely casual as he picked up his wooden chopsticks.

He glanced briefly toward the closed balcony doors. "If not, I can easily go over and feed him myself."

Ye Hongyan lightly pointed a slender finger toward a small, covered clay pot sitting near the edge of the kitchen counter. "I saved some simple, plain congee for him over there. But you don’t have to worry about that old man right now, Haoran. Let’s just focus on enjoying our breakfast together first."

"Alright," Haoran chuckled softly, finding it incredibly, darkly amusing that after just a single, passionate night under his absolute dominance, it seemed as if she couldn’t care less about Mu Chen’s entire existence anymore, treating her former millennium-long concern like nothing more than a minor domestic chore.

With that final thought settled, the two of them picked up their utensils, completely ignoring the paralyzed man on the balcony as they happily, peacefully enjoyed their quiet morning breakfast together.

*

*

*

At this exact moment, deep within the cramped, damp, and dimly lit confines of the sprawling servant dormitory sector, a completely different struggle for survival was taking place.

Far away from the luxurious, array-protected pavilions of the Floating Blossom Villa or Hongyan’s hut, the air here smelled of stale sweat, wet stone, and cheap coal smoke.

Lin Che, who was currently cultivating cross-legged on his thin, worn-out straw mattress atop a squeaking wooden bed, suddenly opened his eyes.

A brilliant, fleeting spark of spiritual light flashed deep within his pupils before quickly fading into the dimness of his tiny room.

He let out a long, slow breath, his chest heaving as a wide, incredibly happy grin slowly spread across his face.

He clenched his fists, feeling the brand new, highly refined pathways of spiritual energy coursing smoothly through his rebuilt meridians.

"Finally!" Lin Che whispered to himself, his voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated excitement. "Against all the odds, I’ve actually done it! I broke through to the Spirit Ascension realm! And thanks to the system, I don’t even have to undergo a Heavenly Tribulation!"

To an elite student like Shen Haoran or the Ten Crowns, the Spirit Ascension realm was nothing more than a trivial, basic cultivation level of servants that they used to order around in their childhood.

But to a lowly, resource-starved servant living in the absolute underbelly of the academy, reaching this stage was an absolute miracle—a physical testament to his hidden tenacity...and also his system.

However, he couldn’t even find a single second to properly celebrate his monumental breakthrough when a series of incredibly loud, violent, and impatient bangs suddenly slammed directly into his fragile wooden door.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

The cheap wood groaned under the impact, shaking loose a fine layer of gray dust from the low, exposed stone ceiling.

"Lin Che! You lazy brat, get your useless ass out of bed! You’re already incredibly late!" a rough, gravelly voice roared aggressively from the narrow, dark hallway outside. "The supervisors are already assigning the shift quotas! We need to hurry the hell up and clear the massive piles of rubbles and collapsed masonry from the central academy city before the high-and-mighty academy students wake up!"

Lin Che’s heart violently skipped a beat.

He immediately suppressed his newly elevated cultivation aura, forcefully masking the vibrant spiritual fluctuations of his Spirit Ascension breakthrough back down to the ordinary, weak levels of a common mortal servant.

"I-I’m coming right now, senior Ji!" he called out frantically, scrambling off his squeaking bed.

"Well, hurry the hell up!" Senior Ji barked one last time, his heavy wooden clogs clattering loudly against the damp stone floorboards as he marched further down the corridor to rouse the next unfortunate servant in the block. "If our sector misses the daily clearance quota because of you, the disciplinary hall will whip us all until our backs are raw!"

Lin Che hurriedly stood up, his limbs still slightly stiff from the residual heat of his cultivation session.

He quickly grabbed his coarse, scratchy gray servant uniform from a wooden peg on the wall and pulled it over his shoulders, the cheap, rough fabric chafing uncomfortably against his skin.

But as he was fastening the simple cloth belt around his waist, his movements suddenly slowed.

He couldn’t help but walk over to the small, grimy circular window of his room, staring intently at the massive, chaotic yard stretching out endlessly down below.

There, as far as his eyes could physically see, hundreds, no, tens of thousands of gray-clothed servants just like him were frantically coming and going in absolute, disorganized waves.

They scurried through the narrow mud streets of the servant quarters like a disturbed colony of insects, their faces pale, dirt-smeared, and looking completely panicked as they carried heavy wooden shovels, iron wheelbarrows, and crude lifting ropes.

Well, the catastrophic incident that had transpired yesterday in the skies above the academy city did indeed cause a truly staggering, unprecedented amount of structural damage to the realm.

The shocking power of an enraged Earthly Saint had shattered entire palaces into dust.

Still, no matter how many times he had personally stood at this window and gazed out over the sprawling shantytowns of the servant sector, Lin Che was always deeply surprised at the sheer, unfathomable scale of exactly how many servants this school actually possessed.

The division of classes in this independent dimension was utterly mind-boggling.

The total, combined number of official, high-ranking students studying within the pristine white-marble halls of the Imperial Academy only ever numbered at a few tens of thousands at any given time.

Meanwhile, the silent, invisible population of servants, laborers, cleaners, and low-tier craftsmen who kept the floating dimension running numbered in the staggering hundreds of millions.

Most of these hundreds of millions of people were the direct, multi-generational descendants or abandoned children of past students.

After all, when highly talented geniuses from the outside world enter the prestigious Academy, they often stay confined within this isolated dimension for several centuries to complete their studies.

Over such an immense span of time, in a simulated society, it was only natural and inevitable that some of those students would form relationships, have families, and leave behind a child or two who did not inherit their parents’ high level talents.

Some of them were the extended families, personal servants, and childhood retainers that wealthy, elite noble students had formally brought along with them from the outer empires to maintain their luxurious lifestyles.

Some were the distant descendants, distant cousins, or clan families of the lower-ranking teachers and academy administrators who had permanently settled within the borders of the dimension.

The high authorities of the Imperial Academy deliberately allowed this massive, sprawling population of hundreds of millions of natives to stay and multiply here for a highly specific, cynical reason: so that they could actively simulate a real, thriving, and highly competitive civilization.

By having an entire, functioning world of commoners, soldiers, and merchants living directly beneath their boots, the elite noble students could actually practice statecraft, build powerful networks, recruit rare, hidden talents, and actively construct massive, loyal private armies that, with enough points, they can take back with them to dominate the political chessboards of the outer world.

If, by some statistical miracle, a highly talented individual was discovered amongst the native, low-born servants, it wasn’t entirely rare for the academy elders to officially grant them a scholarship, allowing them to rise above their station and formally join the Academy as official students.

However... those rare, miraculous fairy tales of social mobility were nothing more than a cruel, glittering illusion meant to keep the masses quiet.

The harsh reality was that the vast, overwhelming majority of the hundreds of millions of natives living here had never once in their entire lives even seen the true, natural sky of the outside world.

They lived, bred, labored, and died within the artificial, array-projected borders of this restricted academic dimension.

They spent their entire existences serving master cultivators whose power they could never hope to comprehend, and they didn’t even know the local ruling emperor’s actual name.

Which... when Lin Che truly sat down and allowed himself to think about the crushing weight of their generational imprisonment, was rather sad.

They were entirely like tiny, insignificant ants raised within a massive, beautiful, and glass-walled vivarium, existing solely for the cruel amusement, training, and convenience of the privileged giants walking high above them.

He shook his head slowly, a self-deprecating sigh escaping his lips as he forcefully cleared his mind of the heavy, philosophical thoughts.

"Well, there’s absolutely no time for me to be standing here wasting my breath thinking about the grand, tragic design of the cosmos," Lin Che muttered, turning away from the circular window and tightening the laces of his cheap leather boots. "I have a long, grueling, and exhausting day of physical hard labor ahead of me today if I want to keep my head on my shoulders. I need to keep my head down, play the role of the obedient servant, and just live my life honestly and peacefully."

With one final, careful check to ensure his Spirit Ascension cultivation base was completely, flawlessly masked behind his ordinary facade, he walked over to his heavy wooden door, pushed it open, and stepped out into the dark, crowded hallway to join the endless march of the working class.