Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

At this moment, in Sky Reaching City, the most mysterious city in all of the Academy Dimension.

High above the floating islands of the outer campuses, isolated behind a wall of ancient gray clouds, this city sat untouched by the cutthroat dog eat dog teachings of the Imperial Academy.

It was a massive fortress built entirely from smooth white jade and heavy black iron.

The streets were wide, clean, and paved with flat gray flagstones that had never seen a puddle of blood or the tread of an invading army.

A city that never conquers others, but also no one wants to offend.

Indeed.

They did not send scouts to take spirit stone mines from neighboring peaks.

They did not dispatch disciples to seize ancient herb gardens or claim lower worlds during the grand harvests.

Yet, even the proudest faction of the Imperial Academy walked past its tall gates with lowered eyes.

The Ten Sages never even bothered with them, just letting them do things they like as long as it don’t bother other students.

The people who lived behind these walls had proven more than once that anyone who pushed their gates open with ill intent simply vanished from the face of the earth, leaving no trace behind.

They like to keep to themselves, and almost never participated in any academy trials unless it’s necessary.

Life here moved at a calm, unhurried pace inside the walls.

Tea shops served tea, blacksmiths hammered their iron, and the guards leaned on their spears, watching the drifting clouds without a single care for the loud conflicts shaking the rest of the dimension.

To them, the noisy squabbles of the arrogant and domineering young masters were nothing more than the buzzing of distant flies.

And right now, in a palace at the center of the city, a handsome young man with long black hair in white robes opened his eyes, revealing a pair of blue eyes.

The chamber was grand, empty, and dead quiet.

Twelve massive stone pillars reached up to support a domed roof carved with pictures of old stars and quiet rivers. Incense made from hundred-year-old pine burned slowly in a bronze bowl, filling the room with a clean, dry scent.

Sitting in the middle of the raised dais on a chair carved from a single piece of dark dragon-bone stone, the youth stretched his fingers.

His skin was pale and smooth, without a single scar or blemish, his long dark hair fell loosely across his broad shoulders, framing a face with sharp, clean lines.

His bright blue irises glowed with the deep, cool light of clear ocean water, reflecting the calm shadows of the hall.

Then, the air before his face rippled like water touched by a falling leaf as a flat, glowing glass plate of pale blue light hovered right in front of his nose, resting quietly in the dim hall.

[Name: Lin Yun]

[Age: 100]

[Domain Range: 10 Square Kilometers]

The man, Lin Yun, exhaled, and spoke about how he finally managed to reach ten million square kilometer of range.

”Eighty yeaes of sitting on this cold seat,” he murmured into the quiet room, a small, tired smile pulling at the corner of his lips. ”Ten square kilometers... The circle finally covers a tenth of the whole Sky Reaching City. If an army comes marching through the clouds today, they will drop like dry flies before they can even touch my front steps.”

He leaned back on his throne and closed his eyes, thinking of the past.

Eighty years ago, he transmigrated into this world with a system.

He still remembered the day he had before he arrived.

He had been an ordinary clerk in an old brick town, worrying about bills, catching colds in the winter rain, and counting copper coins to buy coarse grain.

Then, he had closed his eyes on a narrow bed and opened them inside this terrifying land of monsters and flying swords.

At that time, he had been weak, frail, and terrified of every shadow that fell over his head.

But that system appeared once again, telling him that its function was to make him invincible in his domain.

It was a tool of pure, unreasonable protection.

It did not teach him complex manuals, nor did it require him to break his bones refining strange pills, but it simply drew an invisible circle around his feet, and inside that circle, his word was the only rule that mattered.

Inside that circle, an ancient saint swinging an immortal sword could be slapped into meat paste with a flick of his finger.

A mountain could be flattened with a yawn.

He was completely, utterly untouchable—so long as his boots stayed within the boundaries of his designated ground.

’At first, it was just a mere ten square meters.’ Lin Yun though bitterly, thinking of the time.

Back then, he had lived like a frightened turtle pulled into its shell.

His safe zone had been barely wide enough to hold a wooden bed, a small table, and a water jug.

If he stepped one foot outside the door to wash a shirt, an ordinary wild wolf could have torn his throat out.

He had sat on that bed for years, eating dry rations, never sticking his nose outside, patiently waiting for the numbers to tick up, hour by hour, day by day.

And now it had grown to 10 square kilometers!

It was a massive territory now. Within these ten square kilometers, he was an unmovable god.

No sword could pierce his skin, no poison could foul his blood, and no grand emperor could take a single breath without his permission.

That was the sole reason this city had stood tall and quiet for decades while the rest of the world drowned in blood and fire.

”I should have already solidified my status in the lower ranks of Heavenly Dao Pavilion, right?” he wondered.

He rubbed his chin with his thumb, looking at the stone ceiling.

Years ago, when he was just starting out, he was discovered and recruited by another system user like him, and he had joined the Heavenly Dao Pavilion since.

He had been sitting in his small wooden room twenty years into his arrival, quietly expanding his circle to a few hundred meters, when a man wearing a plain straw hat had walked straight through his front door.

That stranger had not carried weapons, but he held an odd tool just like Lin Yun’s.

That man had looked at Lin Yun, laughed loudly, and slapped a black wooden token onto his table, telling him that out in the wide sea of worlds, people who held tools like theirs were not alone.

There was a grand gathering of them—an alliance built across dimensions, where those chosen by tools gathered under one banner to protect their paths.

Although he was just a lower ranking member, he was already satisfied.

He was not a greedy man who dreamed of stepping on the heads of gods or drowning the world in blood.

Having a safe house, good tea to drink, and an iron wall around his neck was more than enough for him.

After all, those at the top were monsters beyond comprehension!

He had seen their names listed on the grand rolls of the organization.

Figures who carried tools that could eat whole star clusters with a single bite, users who could turn back the flow of time by a hundred years, and champions who had slaughtered ancient pantheons just to harvest their bloodlines.

Even in his invincible domain, Lin Yun felt like he was being crushed.

He remembered the day he had attended his first regional assembly through a spiritual projection.

One of the high elders of the pavilion had simply glanced in his direction.

Even though Lin Yun’s boots were planted firmly inside his own safe circle, where no harm could reach him, the sheer weight of that gaze had made his soul tremble like a dried leaf in an autumn storm.

It was a terrifying realization: his safe ground made him untouchable to common cultivators, but against those true monsters who had developed their tools to the absolute peak, his little turtle shell was still fragile.

Just then, another blue screen popped up in front of him.

Ding.

A sharp, crisp bell rang inside his thoughts, different from his personal status panel.

This one was a message.

You see, when he joined the Heavenly Dao Pavilion, he had also been invited to their group chat, where those with system have gathered to help each other and sometimes get sent on a mission.

The screen was filled with rows of rolling text and blinking names, like an ancient bulletin board carried across the stars.

Down in this chat, tool users from different worlds shared news, traded extra spirit herbs, complained about arrogant young masters they had slapped in their local sects, and warned each other about dangerous ancient ruins.

And every once in a while, when an anomaly appeared in a specific sector, a directive would drop down from the higher halls.

This is because the owner of this group chat is one of the strongest and highest ranking members of the pavilion!

The person who held the master seat was a figure known only as the Sovereign Arbiter.

A legend who had survived dozens of world wars, crushed thousands of false protagonists, and commanded resources that spanned across entire star domains.

When a message came bearing the golden crest of the room’s owner, every single member—from the highest commanders to the lowest turtle like Lin Yun—had to pay attention.

He opened the message, and his eyes widened.

The blue glass flickered, opening a neat, black-bordered letter stamped with a burning golden eye.

[Priority Assignment: Sector 7 - Academy Dimension]

[Target: Shen Haoran (Scion of the Shen Clan)]

[Status: Anomaly Detected. Target has bypassed natural fate protocols, fused dual forbidden constitutions, and is an anomaly.]

[Directive: Observe, test, and restrict target’s growth before next dimensional convergence.]

[Assigned Agent: Lin Yun (Sky Reaching City)]

There is actually a mission for him!

Lin Yun sat straight up on his throne, his fingers curling tightly around the stone armrests, his blue eyes staring at the glowing letters in total shock.

For eighty years, he had been left alone in his quiet city.

He was a defensive asset, a turtle who never left his pond.

The high ranking members rarely looked his way, preferring to send their bloodthirsty brawlers and assassins on external tasks.

But now, an official directive had landed directly on his lap.

He stared at the name on the screen: Shen Haoran.

He had heard the name whispered by the academy elders.

The young master who had just returned from the lower realm, the monster who had brought back thousands of hardened killers and forced the Ten Sages to bow their heads in silence.

Lin Yun took a slow, deep breath, his throat feeling dry as the blue light cast long, cold shadows across the empty hall.