Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The heavy, ancient wooden doors of the Falling Blossom Villa had barely finished swinging completely inward when a sudden, blinding flash of colourful silk robes and shifting spiritual entities violently bypassed the threshold.

The Ten Crowns of the supreme Shen Clan, leading the way alongside Huo Yue, Zhu Ziyan, Ning Xueli, Ling Luochen, Xia Mengyao, Luo Mingye, and Qian Yunxi, immediately entered the pristine interior of the grand villa like a swarm of elegant locusts.

They completely, ruthlessly abandoned all high-born noble decorum, their eyes scanning the pristine jade corridors and layout design before they immediately scattered across the multiple affluent floors, choosing their own private, array-fortified luxurious rooms with loud, overlapping shouts of triumph.

Xie Ji stood entirely frozen by the stone table in the center of the peach blossom courtyard, his bamboo broom still completely forgotten in the dirt.

He looked thoroughly, profoundly confused as to why these highly outstanding, supposedly ultra-wealthy heirs looked and acted so incredibly unhinge and happy just to enter a common residential courtyard.

”Finally! By the absolute grace of the ancestors, we now actually have a safe place to stay inside this lawless academy!” a loud, relieved cheer echoed from one of the upper master suites.

”Thank you so much, Xu Xiansu! Your tragic family grandfather truly did not die in vain today!” a female voice shouted out with a bright, mocking giggle(It was Huo Yue).

Xie Ji’s brown eyes violently widened into massive circles of absolute, mind-shattering realization as the pieces of the puzzle instantly locked together inside his head.

He slowly, stiffly turned his torso around to face the golden-haired young master, his hand pointing a trembling finger toward the upper balconies.

”Y-You... You utterly shameless, silver-tongued little monster! You completely lied to me straight to my face?! You and your companions don’t actually possess an ancestral clan residence established inside this academy at all?!”

Shen Haoran merely let out a low, rich, and thoroughly unbothered chuckle from his throat, his golden eyes dancing with a deep amusement as he casually adjusted the pristine gold silk cuffs of his royal robes.

”Senior Xie Ji, you are an honorable expert of the Nirvana Rebirth Realm. Surely the righteous, fiercely compassionate senior Xie Ji wouldn’t dare to go back on his own sacred words in front of the watching heavens? After all, regardless of what we said or did, you did completely and willingly give the ownership deeds of this villa away to us after a fair martial spar.”

Xie Ji’s jaw twitched violently, his chest heaving as he forcefully swallowed the sudden urge to cough up blood from pure psychological exasperation.

He took a long, deep breath to stabilize his fluctuating channels, before casting a highly skeptical, deeply suspicious look toward the quiet commoner girl standing nearby.

”...Tell me the truth, junior. Is that young girl’s horrifyingly tragic background regarding the black iron mine slavery and the rotting village grandfather an absolute, fabricated lie as well?” He asked, pointing his hand directly at Xu Xiansu, who still stood stiffly beside Haoran’s shoulder, her face burning with a permanent crimson tint of pure embarrassment.

”Not really,” Haoran spoke smoothly, his expression shifting back into a mask of solemnity as he casually reached out his strong hand and placed it directly on top of Xu Xiansu’s head, ruffling her hair with a lazy, patronizing familiarity. ”If we are talking about the reality of her life right now, then she truly and honestly had it terrifyingly rough during her early development years.”

Xie Ji furrowed his brows. He’s not lying again, is he?

”Her biological father was an absolute, irredeemable scumbag who basically sold her body off to be ruthlessly played with and consumed by a high-born young master from an Immortal Lineage, and she was forced to live an exceptionally harsh, dangerous, and desperate life in the shadows alongside her mortal mother just to preserve her breath. It was only until recently, that things finally, drastically started to get better for her.”

Of course... the high-born, irredeemable scumbag young master who played with her body was me.

Haoran thought to himself, a cold, razor-sharp smirk forming deep within the hidden sectors of his soul.

Xu Xiansu resisted the urge to mockingly gag at his words.

”I see...” Xie Ji let out a long, slow sigh, his gentle brown eyes softening once again as the residual prompt of Xu Xiansu’s Protagonist Halo smoothly filtered his lingering anger, forcing his mind to focus entirely on the girl’s authentic, underlying suffering.

Haoran got to say, this type of intelligence reduction type of protagonist halo was completely broken.

Isn’t this basically hypnotism?

Xie Ji nodded in a solemn, respectful acceptance. ”Although you admittedly did not tell the truth regarding your housing situation, but I am a man of my word. I will still resolutely keep my sacred promise, so you and your entourage can officially have the permanent deeds to this Falling Blossom Villa... but I humbly ask that you please take meticulous care of its gardens and architecture. It is, after all, the absolute structural manifestation of my entire life’s hard work.”

”Do not worry for a single second, senior,” Haoran replied, his tone dropping into a rare, authentic line of profound dignity. ”The descendants of my house are many things, but we are not so thoroughly, irresponsibly pathetic as to desecrate the sanctuary of an honest cultivator.”

Yeah right. Xu Xiansu rolled her eyes. Tell that to your aunt, Feng Yuyan, who liked to dig up ancestral graves or Leng Shuang who enslaved several lower realms.

At that exact second, Haoran smoothly reached his left hand toward the spatial storage ring resting on his finger.

With a faint, golden ripple of space-qi, he casually took out a heavy, blindingly brilliant golden token from the vault and tossed it carelessly through the air toward Xie Ji’s chest.

Xie Ji instinctively raised his hands, cleanly catching the flying piece of metal.

The moment his palms closed around the heavy architecture, his brown eyes violently contracted into pinpricks.

The surface of the solid, high-tier deity-gold token displayed a beautifully intricate, terrifyingly alive insignia of a colossal Eastern Dragon ruthlessly circling the geography of the entire world, its jaw locked shut as it eternally ate its own tail.

The token was actively radiating a faint, crushing pressure that caused his internal Nirvana-qi to primitive freeze in fear.

”This token... this design, is this...” Xie Ji’s voice completely lost its stability, his hands trembling as he stared at the artifact.

”That is my personal clan’s primary identification token,” Haoran spoke smoothly, his liquid gold eyes flashing with an unbending sovereign depth. ”Before your departure from the gates today, I will personally pen a formal letter of recommendation for you, and you can take that token, travel directly to the boundaries of the Divine City, the absolute, supreme ancestral metropolis owned and ruled entirely by the Shen Clan.”

’Divine City...’ Xie Ji of course heard of this city before.

After all, it’s the second most important city aside from the Imperial City, and is the central hub of trade and economy of the entire empire.

It is said that you can find anything you want there.

”Senior, once you’re there, present that artifact directly to the high city mayor. Upon verifying my signature, our house will instantly willingly grant you a massive, boundless amount of high-tier heavenly resources, pristine cultivation matrices, and saint-grade medicinal pills that will perfectly support, finance, and secure your path until you successfully break through your bottlenecks to reach the Profound Saint Realm.”

Xie Ji’s breath completely caught in his throat, his head snapping up as he stared at the young man in an absolute, mind-shattering horror. ”The... The Shen Clan?! You are actually a descendant originating from the Shen Clan?! The undisputed head of the entire Nine Immortal Clans?!”

Haoran merely offered a slow, incredibly relaxed smile, refusing to voice a single word of confirmation, as his very existence was already an absolute answer to the universe.

”I see... I see. No wonder,” Xie Ji nodded his head in a state of profound, dazed enlightenment, carefully sliding the heavy deity-gold token into the safest inner pocket of his gray robes. ”Then... since it is a gift, this one will absolutely not be polite or refuse the karma.”

He badly needed resources anyway. In fact, because he gave away his villa, he was wracking his brains how to earn some resources before leaving.

But now it seems there is no need for such things.

”So, are you officially preparing to leave the academy grounds today, senior?” Haoran asked, his hand dropping from Xu Xiansu’s head as he adjusted his robes.

Xie Ji offered a firm, peaceful nod of his head. ”Yeah. I have already meticulously prepared and packed all of my worldly belongings into my storage rings over the last week. Truthfully, I had initially planned on waiting around the central city sectors for a few more days until my villa was officially auctioned off at the bank, but since I already gave it away to you, then there is absolutely no practical need for that tedious delay now.”

Speaking of which, he still need to immediately march over to the auction house to formally inform the registry elders that he won’t be auctioning my villa anymore.

It will be a bit troublesome otherwise.

”I see. Then we wish you the absolute best of luck and smooth waters on your journey home, Senior Xie Ji,” Haoran spoke politely, his arms smoothly closing around Xu Xiansu’s waist as he began to lead her away toward the main doors of the villa to inspect the layout.

Xu Xiansu frozen for a moment, but said nothing and followed him.

Anyway, it’s just a waist.

”Ah, wait for a brief second, Junior Shen...” Xie Ji suddenly called out across the courtyard, his expression turning into a line of deep, serious administrative concern.

Haoran stopped his stride smoothly, turning his upper torso back around to face the old man. ”Is there another thing, Senior? Don’t worry, I’ll write the letter and hand it to you.”

”No, not that.” He shook his head, ”Have you and your companions already officially received your primary Academy Tokens?”

Haoran nodded his head lazily, reaching into his gold silk sash and taking out a heavy, simple golden token that bore the clean, deeply etched words ”Imperial Academy” written across its pristine surface in the ancient, master-tier script of the capital.

”Try and imbue a single strand of your qi directly into the token,” Xie Ji instructed, his voice serious.

Haoran followed his words without a single thread of hesitation as he immediately pinched the edges of the metal.

And with a soft, fluid motion, he imbued a tiny spark of his qi straight into the core of the token.

*HUMMM!*

The exact second his spiritual energy cleared the metallic circuits, a clean, translucent blue holographic projection violently shot upward from the center of the token, hovering in the stable air of the peach courtyard like a modern digital interface.

[IMPERIAL ACADEMY ID REGISTER]

[Owner: Shen Haoran]

[Age: 24]

[Cultivation: 5th Stage of the Nascent Soul Realm]

[ID Number: IA-2859-7492-4722]

[Dao Points: 0]

[Access Level: E]

”Oh?” Haoran raised a single, sharp golden eyebrow in a deep, genuine spark of interest, his mind tracking the subtle spatial formations woven into the interface.

”That metallic device will permanently serve as your official identification and data register during your entire tenure here inside this pocket dimension,” Xie Ji explained carefully. ”You must absolutely, under no circumstances, ever lose that artifact. You will need its internal interface to conduct every single transaction at the markets, place emergency spatial calls to your faction members, receive official instructional notifications from the Enshrined Elders, and many more daily necessities.”

”I see,” Haoran replied smoothly. ”This is remarkably convenient. By the way senior, what’s up with this access level? And why is it E?”

Xie Ji smiled, ”That is the level of every freshman. Access Level is, as the name suggest, the minimum level required for you to access certain facilities, purchase certain items, etc. With E level, you can only use the lowest level of facilities, and you might not even be allowed to enter some cities.”

”Is that so?” Haoran nodded, a small smirk playing on his lips.

”....Junior,” Xie Ji’s face suddenly turned incredibly, intensely serious, his brown eyes locking straight into Haoran’s gold pupils with a depth of profound gravity. ”There is one final, absolute rule that I must strictly remind you.”

Haoran turned towards him and nodded, ”Please speak, senior.”

”Dao Points are the single most critically important, life-sustaining resource inside this entire academy.” Said Xie Ji, eyes turning solemn. ”Within these boundaries, if you possess a sufficient volume of points, you can buy anything.”

”Oh? That’s the second time someone had said that” Haoran’s smirk widened into a sharp, predatory line as he pocketed the golden token back into his sash, his mind already calculating a hundred different ways to completely manipulate the school’s economy. ”Thank you for the magnificent reminder, senior. Safe travels.”

Second time? Xu Xiansu wondered, staring at him. When did someone said the same thing?

”Well then, junior. I need to head to the auction house first. Enjoy your stay.”

With that, Xie Ji turned around and walked out of the villa, with Haoran smiling as if he just thought of something funny.