Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The translucent silver barrier that had isolated him within his own private, reality-warping pocket dimension for the last several hours suddenly shuddered, cracked, and completely dissolved into thin air.

The sudden shift in spatial perspective was instantaneous, and Shen Haoran found himself standing firmly on a raised jade platform, right before the thousands of elite Master Teachers who were currently packed into the ascending tiers of the grand amphitheater.

However, as he casually swept his liquid gold eyes across the immediate staging platform, he was a bit shocked to see that Huo Yue was already standing there, waiting for him.

Her long, magnificent crimson hair was swaying gently against her silk dress, and she didn’t look even a single fraction tired from her isolation.

Huo Yue blinked her wine-red eyes in a brief surprise as the spatial arrays flared, and she immediately let out a beautiful, brilliant smile upon seeing his golden hair manifest beside her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, stepping forward with a playful, triumphant tilt of her chin. ”Well now, my dear fiance... it seems that this time around, I actually managed to beat you to the finish line, huh?”

”That, you did,” Shen Haoran nodded his head in an easy, graceful affirmation, a soft, indulgent smile gracing his handsome features.

It was entirely understandable that she managed to beat him. After all, during his time inside that separate dimension, he had aggressively and relentlessly pushed the absolute boundaries of cosmic science, failing over a hundred consecutive times and coughing up several spatters of blood before he finally succeeded in perfectly balancing and creating that miniature, life-bearing dark gold world now securely hidden within the deep recesses of his immortal soul.

His path had been a literal war of attrition against the universal laws.

Of course, he didn’t bother say those words or use them as an excuse. At the end of the day, Huo Yue did complete the trial earlier than him.

Saying those things now just makes him sound like a sore loser.

He walked smoothly towards her position, throwing all aristocratic decorum to the wind as he easily put his strong arm around her slender waist, pulling her flush against his side.

”So? What exactly did you manage to make inside that separate dimension this time, my little flame?”

Huo Yue chuckled softly, her body relaxing completely as she leaned her head against his broad shoulder, her eyes reflecting the light of the soul-lamps.

”I don’t really have a grand, formal name written down for it yet, but it’s essentially kind of a localized death field.”

”A death field?” Haoran raised a single, sharp golden eyebrow, his curiosity instantly piqued by that statement.

”Mm,” Huo Yue nodded her head, her expression turning into that of a prideful master craftsman. ”You see, while I was sitting alone and contemplating the nature of my Dao of Foames inside that empty dimension, I suddenly discovered an interesting property of the world.”

”Oh?” Haoran looked interested, ”Which is?”

She puffed her chest smugly, ”I found out that different material objects actually differ drastically in regards to exactly how much ’heat’ they can naturally absorb from their environment. For example, a rough, completely black surface naturally absorbs significantly more ambient heat and light energy than a smooth, reflective one.”

Haoran’s brow frowned slightly as he processed the statement.

Within the deep, unrolled archives of his mind, he somehow vaguely remembered from the modern world memories of Shen Ming that this was indeed a fundamental, scientifically verified case of physics.

”So, using that exact physical baseline as my core framework,” Huo Yue continued, her eyes gleaming with a dark, dangerous brilliance, ”I used my dao of flames to construct a massive, specialized sort of death field where absolutely all thermal heat from every single star in existence within that coordinate space would all be violently and systematically absorbed straight into the field’s grid, instantly burning and incinerating everyone trapped inside to fine white ash.”

Haoran smiled in amazement. That is indeed a genius method.

”More importantly, by manually adjusting the specific absorption capacity and thermal filtration of the field, I can even use that concentrated, stolen heat to directly aid me in my personal cultivation. Fire cultivators naturally cultivate and break through their bottlenecks significantly faster in a hyper-hot environment, you see.”

Indeed. And not just fire cultivators. Water cultivators also cultivate faster in the sea or rivers, or any bodies of water.

”Now... that is absolutely genius,” Said Haoran, his voice filled with a deep, genuine impression as he looked down at her.

”Isn’t it?” Huo Yue grinned brilliantly, her chest puffing out with an intense satisfaction as she basked in his rare, unvarnished praise.

At that exact moment, the spatial arrays at the center of the platform violently hissed, and the sword maniac from the prestigious Jian Clan, Jian Xi, finally appeared through a spatial distortion.

The moment his boots touched the jade tiles, his sharp brown eyes instantly snapped to locate Haoran, before his brow frowned heavily as his gaze locked onto the red dress of Huo Yue.

A deep trace of absolute disbelief flickered across his pale face, as if his proud, straightforward mind simply couldn’t believe or accept the fact that a girl who didn’t even originate from the core bloodlines of the Nine Immortal Clans had successfully beaten him to the finish line of a pioneering trial.

However, true to his quiet, disciplined nature, he didn’t voice a single word of complaint or arrogance; he just walked silently to the far edge of the platform, crossed his arms tightly over his chest, and closed his eyes to resume his internal training.

Soon after his arrival, the dark, light-absorbing energy of the Hei Clan flared, and Hei Xuan arrived on the platform.

His blood-red eyes immediately glared fiercely at Haoran’s golden hair, before he looked thoroughly, utterly shocked upon seeing Huo Yue standing casually beside the heir.

His pale fists clenched so hard within his black robes that his knuckles cracked.

It was one thing for an absolute, unmatched monster like Shen Haoran to beat him in speed, after all he had already accepted that historical disparity, but how on earth did this peripheral village girl manage to come out of a creative trial significantly faster than the prime heir of the Hei Clan?

Before he could process his frustration, the spatial fabric violently twisted, and Gu Xunyi appeared.

This time, however, her physical face was actually remarkably and terrifically scary.

Her eyes were completely empty, hollow, and utterly soulless, and there was a very uncanny, deeply creepy, and unhinged smile plastered across her porcelain lips, her purple hair radiating a trace of ancient, forbidden death-qi that suggested she had just unsealed something that should have stayed dead.

However, the exact microsecond her empty eyes locked onto the close figures of Haoran and Huo Yue, all of that horrific, apocalyptic majesty instantly vanished like smoke in the wind.

Her eyes brightened with a childish joy, and she immediately hop-skipped across the platform towards them, acting completely jolly, carefree, and academic as she tried to wedge herself into their space.

Soon after her arrival, the majestic, pristine form of the neglected princess Xu Xiansu appeared through the spatial rifts, her orange eyes cool and calculating as she assessed the platform.

She was closely followed by Bai Wenxin from the legendary Purple Sky Immortal Sect, who descended with a crackle of violet lightning, followed in rapid succession by several more high-born heirs and legacy successors originating from the core Immortal Lineages.

Then, as the grueling days began to slowly pass within the academy’s temporal matrix, the difficulty of the trial began to take its toll on the lesser geniuses.

A few days later, protagonists like Chu Yan finally managed to break through their creative blocks and appeared on the platform, his face pale and sweating from the immense mental toll, closely followed by Zhu Ziyan, Ling Luochen and Ning Xueli, who arrived looking incredibly exhausted, but doesn’t seem to be hurt or injured.

Another few grueling days pass by after that wave, and the space violently rippled to admit the exhausted, yet proud figures of Luo Mingye, Qian Yunxi, and Xia Mengyao, who appeared one after another, their porcelain faces breathing heavily as they stabilized their newly birthed techniques.

And finally, a full, uninterrupted month had officially passed since the final trial first opened its doors.

As Haoran looked around, he realised that out of the tens of thousands of proud, arrogant geniuses who had gathered at the outer gates a month ago, there were now only a mere 36 people left physically standing upon the high platform of the winners.

The academy had cleanly, ruthlessly ground a generation down into a handful of supreme seeds.

However, this suits him just well.

Just then, the brilliant gold-trimmed thrones of the Ten Sages violently flared with a blinding, planet-shattering light.

Then, the massive, sky-sized holographic projection of Venerable Sky Cloud expanded across the northern sky of the amphitheater, his deep blue eyes scanning the elite group of thirty-six survivors with a profound, unyielding look of deep pride and supreme satisfaction.

When he spoke, his deep, booming voice carried a majestic, bell-like resonance that echoed across the entire capital city, causing the very laws of the domain to hum in perfect alignment.

”Heirs of the Immortal Lineages, scions of the great sects, and peerless pioneers of the new dawn... lift your chins and look upon the lights of the Imperial Academy!”

”Today, your feet stand upon the sacred jade tiles of the ultimate sanctuary, having desperately but successfully survived the most ruthless selection process our ancestors have ever devised.”

”You have proven your perseverance upon the gravity stairs, anchored your true self against the fragmenting weight of a thousand artificial lifetimes, defended the absolute purity of your Dao before the cross-examination of our masters, and single-handedly pioneered a miracle of creation within the isolated void.”

”You have systematically shed the fragile skin of a common mortal practitioner and forged yourselves into the true, unyielding iron of this era.”

”Out of the tens of thousands who barked at our gates, only your thirty-six names remain recorded on our golden registries.”

”Therefore, by the absolute, ancient authority vested in my soul as a Rank 10 Master Teacher and a Heavenly Saint of this realm, I offer you the highest congratulations of the faculty!”

”Welcome... to the inner halls of the Imperial Academy! From this day forward, you are no longer mere students navigating the dark; you are the living, breathing sovereigns of our legacy, the chosen protectors of the empire’s luck, and the true seeds who shall carry the shadow of this empire into the eternal star systems.”

”Step forward, claim your tokens, and let the universe tremble before the path you shall write!”

The final, magnificent echo of his voice settled over the platform like a physical crown of gold light, and the grand, heavy inner doors of the academy slowly began to grind open before their boots, welcoming the thirty-six monsters into the true sanctuary of power.