Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

”Before we officially begin our first true lecture of the day, does anyone in this hall have a question regarding the rules or the core structure of the curriculum?” asked Ye Hongyan, her crisp, melodic voice slicing cleanly through the thick, lingering layer of post-conflict tension that still hovered in the lecture hall.

”Honored teacher,” Shen Haoran suddenly spoke up, his tone perfectly smooth, casual, and entirely devoid of any typical student deference.

He leaned back in his front row seat, crossing one leg over the other as his piercing golden eyes locked onto her face. ”How many Dao Points does it cost to spend a night with you?”

An absolute, deafening silence instantly collapsed upon the entire classroom.

The ambient breathing of dozens of geniuses seemed to freeze mid inhale.

Everyone in the room, from the defeated Hei Clan members to the senior students, all stared at him in sheer, unadulterated shock, their minds short-circuiting at the borderline suicidal audacity of his words.

Even the unhinged Gu Xunyi faltered for a distinct fraction of an instant, her playful smile freezing on her lips.

And she was a certified, chaos loving lunatic who feared nothing!

Huo Yue just stared at him, then back to Ye Hongyan, wondering if she would erupt into anger, or turn red from embarrassment, or maybe both?

Shen Jian, however, sitting a few rows back, just blinked his golden eyes in profound, intense curiosity.

’Wait, you can actually do that in this academy?’ His wide, sparkling eyes seemed to be screaming those exact words as his gaze darted rapidly between the young master and the beautiful instructor, mentally calculating the financial feasibility of such a transaction.

Using points to bang a beautiful Profound Saint Realm woman...oh wait no, he’d die!

His body wouldn’t be able to handle the yin energy that would rush into him the moment they had intercourse!

Ye Hongyan stood perfectly still behind the wooden podium.

She slowly raised her slender hand and gently fixed the bridge of her silver-rimmed glasses, her purple eyes remaining completely calm, clinical, and not looking the absolute least bit offended or insulted by his highly suggestive inquiry.

She was a venerable, ancient existence who had lived for over a thousand years; why on earth would she allow herself to be easily offended or emotionally compromised by a minor, provocative comment from a young, green mortal junior?

Wouldn’t all those intense millennia of grueling mental tempering, extreme soul refining, and profound celestial tribulations she had successfully gone through be an absolute, pathetic waste of time if it was truly that easy for a single brat to make her lose her inner calmness?

In all honesty, as she navigated the higher echelons of the continent, she sometimes genuinely couldn’t understand how some powerful cultivators who had managed to cultivate to exceptionally high levels and endure various mortal trials could still remain so incredibly childish, fragile, and get violently offended by every little insignificant thing people said to them.

It’s like their brains were fried and emptied out.

What, did you all gain a long lifespan and began to think you’re young again?

However, the exact second that proud, logical thought fully formed in her mind, a sudden, vivid image of the hot-headed Elder Mu aggressively using his superior cultivation base to bully a Nascent Soul junior immediately flashed into her mind.

’Hm... perhaps it actually is completely normal, expected, and human for people to instantly lose their cool over minor slights,’ she mused internally, a soft wave of sentimentality softening her gaze.

She was probably just a uniquely special case.

Yes. That had to be it.

Elder Mu was absolutely not like those common, dumb people who threw tantrums over nothing.

Or rather, it’s perfectly normal for them to throw tantrums, after all, they cultivated to their level after enduring thousand of years of trials and tribulations, they couldn’t allow a junior make fun of them, right?

As for her...well, she’s a unique existence. Because she was so kind and gentle, she doesn’t get angry that easily.

She cleared her throat with a small, perfectly executed fake cough, breaking her brief internal monologue as she looked down at the golden-haired young master.

”Student, not to mention that you don’t have enough points for it, but even if you can theoretically afford the hypothetical price, and even if you do amass a mountain of points... I will simply and absolutely not agree to any such proposal.”

Shen Haoran nodded his head slowly, raising his hand to lazily rub his chin as a calculating, satisfied glint flashed across his golden eyes.

”I see. I understand.” He smiled, putting his hands down, ”So, even if a buyer possesses a completely sufficient, overwhelming pool of Dao Points, that does not immediately mean that a transaction is guaranteed to happen. The final execution of a deal mainly and ultimately depends on the consent of the seller.”

Ye Hongyan blinked at that, but she nodded. ”Indeed. That is how the point system works.”

Haoran stared at him, his eyes rather amused. ”Does that fundamental principle imply that there are absolutely no rigid, fixed prices on standard material items within the academy’s broader ecosystem either? So, theoretically, some rare items that can be purchased incredibly cheaply in one isolated sector can be sold several times higher in another, depending entirely on market demand and negotiation?”

Ye Hongyan stared down at him through her silver glasses in a sudden wave of profound, absolute disbelief, her breath hitched in her throat.

’He managed to actually deduce the entire, complex underlying structure of the academy’s hidden economic trade laws with just one single, vulgar question?’

”Indeed,” she admitted slowly, her estimation of the youth’s intellect spiking sharply. ”There are absolutely no fixed prices on materials, resources, or manuals within our borders. This has been deliberately and systematically done by the founding ancestor so that shrewd students can actively exploit these fluid price margins, simulating the harsh, manipulative trade wars of the real world’s grand merchant unions.”

Shen Jian’s eyes sparkled at that.

”So, does that mean there are no fixed conversion for Dao Points and Spirit Stones as well?” Asked Haoran.

Ye Hongyan blinked, and this time, she was actually starting to get scared at this young man’s deductive abilities.

However, she nodded at the question, ”Indeed. the baseline administrative conversion rate of 10 thousand high grade spirit stones to 1 Dao Point isn’t mathematically fixed either. The official exchange rate differs significantly from person to person, shifting drastically depending entirely on the personal impression, mood, and whim of the specific treasury staff member running the desk. Is there any more questions?”

She scanned the tiers of seats.

No one raised a hand.

No one uttered a word.

”Very well,” Ye Hongyan nodded her head smoothly, fixing her silver-rimmed glasses once again. ”Let us officially begin the lecture.”

*Hummmmm—*

The exact second the final word left her lips, her voice suddenly carried a strange, deeply resonant spiritual frequency that violently rippled through the air molecules of the lecture hall.

To the ears of the students, her tone seemed to instantly and profoundly refresh their cluttered minds, burning away all residual fatigue and stray thoughts, as if a gentle celestial hand were forcing their consciousness straight into a state of deep, natural enlightenment.

This was the legendary and highly coveted passive ability possessed by all Master Teachers, and is more pronounced the higher their rank.

Whenever they formally engaged in a lecture, their abilities as a master teacher made it exponentially easier for their direct students to bypass mental blocks and enter the sacred state of enlightenment.

At the same time, the mechanics of this ability were beautifully reciprocal: the more their students managed to successfully learn, comprehend, and breakthrough during the duration of the lecture, the more the feedback of that comprehension helped the Master Teacher expand their own cultivation base and refine their unique path.

”As I can clearly feel, some of the students here are already safely stabilized at the absolute peak of the Nascent Soul Realm,” Ye Hongyan spoke clearly, turning her body around to begin writing ancient, glowing runes on the grand obsidian chalkboard behind her, ”then for our first lesson, how about we thoroughly discuss the core mechanics of how to successfully break through into the transcendent Spirit Ascension Realm?”

As she said that, she began to traced a complex runic diagram representing the human soul.

”Unlike the fundamental Nascent Soul realm and the weaker cultivation realms below it, the Spirit Ascension realm is a monumental and terrifying cultivation threshold that permanently stops and breaks the advancement of most common cultivators across the world,” she explained, her voice carrying a chilling weight. ”Your natural cultivation speed will drastically and painfully slow down to a crawl once you enter this level, and you can no longer rely on simple resource consumption.”

She tapped the core of the diagram.

”This extreme stagnation is due entirely to the existence of the Spirit Avatar.”

She turned towards the students, noticing them paying great attention and nodded.

”The manifestation of an Avatar is not just a standard energy construct like many people believes it to be. Instead, it is the physical, tangible projection of your personal Dao, and the literal, unyielding manifestation of the concept of ’invincibility’ residing within your Dao Heart.”

She began to write another words on the board, ”To successfully execute a breakthrough from a peak Nascent Soul Realm to the Spirit Ascension realm, you must forcefully externalize your dao heart, expanding your spiritual entity into a giant soul titan.”

She turned back to face the wide-eyed students, her eyes flashing behind her glasses.

”The physical size and the dimensional height of your manifested Spirit Avatar during the exact moment of its birth will permanently symbolize and dictate the absolute boundaries of your innate talent, your own foundation, and your future combat potential.”

She wrote some numbers on the board, ”For the standard, common cultivators of the four cardinal regions, an Avatar of twenty to thirty meters is considered a success...”

She paused at that, remembering that in the distant east, some idiots created a completely flawed cultivation method that crippled their potential to form a Spirit Avatar.

”Of course, some flawed cultivation method would result in a person becoming a Pseudo-Spirit Ascension Realm. They will possess the power and strength, but lack the fundamental ability that cements this level as a cultivation threshold.”

Huo Yue covered her face with her palm. She was damn well sure that Ye Hongyan was referring to her hometown!

”Anyways, for the elite and gifted geniuses residing within the walls of this Imperial Academy, a height of 80 to a 100 meters is the absolute, mandatory standard baseline for greatness.”

She walked down from the podium, her steps light but commanding. ”That’s not all. Unlike the Nascent Soul realm and below, where you only require a sufficient influx of high grade spiritual stones and intense combat tempering to trigger a breakthrough, Spirit Ascension is completely, fundamentally different.”

”No matter how many millions of spirit stones you consume, and no matter how much pure energy you take into your meridians, it is mathematically and conceptually impossible to ascend simply off material density.”

”Instead, you must thoroughly understand your true self, accept your own desires and selfishness, and aggressively strengthen your Dao heart until it can withstand the judgment of the world.”

She stopped right in front of Shen Haoran’s desk, her gaze locked onto his calm countenance as she delivered her concluding decree.

”How to successfully execute this self-realization differs entirely from person to person, as everyone’s psychological understanding of the self and the Dao is completely unique, even if two individuals cultivate the exact same dao.”

”Within the boundaries of this Grade A class, I will personally prepare every single one of you for your ultimate Ascension.” She smiled at everyone in the room, ”We will break your limits, temper your convictions, and forge your paths until your Avatars can pierce the very vault of heaven.”

”So, sit straight, focus your minds, and let us begin!”