Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Inside the opulent warmth of VIP Suite 012, an absolute, collective shift in attention occurred.

Every single eye in the room pivoted smoothly to lock onto Shen Jian, who was currently sitting back on the plush velvet cushions with a vicious, intensely satisfied grin plastered across his face.

In his right hand, he held his glowing identity token high, its interface flashing with the confirmation of the heavy, crushing bid he had just casually tossed down onto the auditorium below: 3,000 Dao Points.

The rest of the lineage descendants looked at him, their expressions a mixture of confusion and mild judgment.

Although the reality-bending spatial painting on the display stage was undeniably impressive to the common cultivators sitting in the lower rows, someone of Shen Jian’s towering stature shouldn’t have a single practical use for such a novelty.

After all, he was a direct, favored blood descendant of the supreme Second Enshrined Elder of the Grand Enshrined Hall—a peerless, ancient elder who currently resided at the terrifying 9th Stage of the Heavenly Saint Realm.

With an ancestral background that massive, his private spatial rings were undoubtedly overflowing with far superior pocket dimensions and divine arrays.

Buying a lower Profound Saint’s artwork was completely beneath his station.

”Don’t look at me with those judgmental eyes, you lot,” Shen Jian laughed loudly, swirling his rich wine as he leaned his head back against the sofa. ”Did you not hear the gossiping murmurs filtering up from the front rows? That specific painting was crafted by the biological older brother of Kong Xu, you know, that incredibly arrogant, self-righteous scholar who was brutally humiliated and suppressed by our Young Master more than a year ago.”

”So?” Shen Fei crossed his arms, his brow furrowing as he failed to see the logical connection.

The others similarly couldn’t comprehend why a piece of historical bad blood would motivate him to throw away his wealth.

”What does that have to do with you throwing thousands of points at a silk scroll?”

”Look closely down below,” Shen Jian chuckled darkly, pointing his finger through the translucent spiritual glass partition toward a specific cluster of seats near the front stage. ”There are a few elite disciples from the Confucius School of Thought sitting right there. Based on their anxious movements and their red faces, they desperately wanted to purchase this painting for themselves tonight, purely so they could bring it and curry favor with the older Kong brother and kiss his ass. I simply wanted to thoroughly disgust them and break their little plans, so I decided I wanted the painting for myself.”

Hearing such an incredibly petty, completely childish reason for participating in a high-stakes auction, every single person in the VIP room couldn’t help but simultaneously roll their eyes in utter exasperation.

”You are quite literally wasting the financial equivalent of thirty million high-grade Spirit Stones just to satisfy a minor, temporary urge of personal pettiness,” Shen Fei shook his head in deep disapproval, taking a slow sip of his own drink to wash down the absurdity.

Shen Jian let out a low, arrogant chuckle, entirely unbothered by the criticism. ”Isn’t the pursuit of immense wealth and points ultimately supposed to be used to bring you absolute, unbridled joy and comfort in life? What real, practical use is a mountain of spirit stones if I cannot casually throw them around for my own amusement and psychological satisfaction? To torment my rivals is the highest form of entertainment.”

Everyone went silent.

Indeed, they couldn’t argue with what he said.

At the end of the day, wealth is just something to be used to make you happy.

*

*

*

Down below, amidst the suffocating heat of the main auditorium crowd.

Chu Yan froze completely in his seat, his hand paralyzing right above the glowing digital screen of his own token.

His fingers trembled slightly as the numbers 3 thousand glared back at him from the central display board.

’Three thousand points...’

The sheer magnitude of the opening gambit from the VIP balcony was staggering.

On paper, his Chu Family was exceptionally wealthy within this specific territory; they successfully ran a highly lucrative, massive gambling and entertainment business right here in the Academy Dimension, and he even legally owned his own private, luxurious estate in another major city across the province.

However, his own personal stash of inherited points given by his clan’s servants and descendants was currently resting at a mere, rigid balance of thirty thousand points.

More importantly, he was meticulously saving every single drop of that digital currency for what he believes was the absolute prize of the evening—the unpolished stone containing the skull of the Heavenly Saint Realm expert.

Using three thousand precious points right here on a random spatial painting would mean directly decreasing his overall financial capability, giving him a significantly lower chance of successfully outbidding the major factions when the true plot opportunity finally arrived on the stage.

’No... I have to stay strong,’ Chu Yan thought fiercely, forcing his hand back into his wide sleeves as he took a deep, steadying breath to clear the sudden greed from his mind. ’I must resist the urge to compete over a minor treasure. Let the arrogant noble scions waste their funds on a canvas. The skull is my true ticket to the peak.’

Suddenly, Li Hua’s clear, enchanting voice cut through the heavy silence of the auditorium, her wooden gavel raised high in the air.

”We have an incredible, commanding bid of three thousand points from the esteemed guests in the upper suites! Three thousand going once...!”

”3,100!” a sharp, clear voice suddenly called out from the front rows.

A young Confucius scholar had stood up, his face flushed red with intense anger as he raised his token high, his hand shaking.

Inside VIP Room 012, Shen Jian’s eyes lit up with pure, malicious glee.

He grinned viciously like a predator watching an insect walk into a web, and immediately tapped his screen, inputting a massive counter-bid without a single millisecond of hesitation.

”4,000!” the central display screen violently flashed.

Everyone sitting inside the VIP 012 room couldn’t help but stare at him in genuine amazement, their minds actively wondering just how many monstrous amounts of points this guy had managed to gather in a single day of hunting missions outside the city gates.

He was spending points like they were common gold coins.

”4,100...!” another Confucius scholar across the aisle called out, literally gritting his teeth so hard that a faint creaking sound could be heard, his eyes burning with hatred as he glared toward the glass of VIP Suite 012.

”5,000!” Shen Jian laughed loudly, his voice echoing through the suite’s intercom system to echo mockingly across the auditorium floor. ”Do you truly think you common scholars possess the financial depth to outbid the Fourth Crown of the Shen Clan? Fat chance! Come on, you hypocrites! Bid more! Let me see the extent of your loyalty to the Kong family!”

The cluster of Confucius scholars down below violently hesitated.

Their faces shifted from red to a deathly pale hue, their breathing ragged as they engaged in a frantic, hushed mental conversation.

Eventually, realizing the absolute futility of fighting a bottomless wallet, they lowered their heads and shook them in bitter defeat.

It simply wasn’t worth the immense, ruinous cost to spend more than five thousand precious points just to curry favor with a senior alumnus, especially when those points could fund their own cultivation breakthrough for the entire semester.

”Five thousand going once...!” Li Hua’s voice boomed, her eyes gleaming with excitement at the massive profit margin.

”Five thousand going twice...!”

*Bang!*

”Sold to the esteemed guest residing in VIP Suite 012!”

”Hahaha! Look at their pathetic, miserable faces down there!” Shen Jian laughed hysterically, pointing at the dejected scholars who were slouching back into their seats. ”That was worth every single point!”

Everyone couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation.

”Shen Jian, seriously, how on earth did you manage to acquire so many points in a single afternoon?” Huo Yue asked, stepping closer to his couch as her eyes sparkled with a strange, intense curiosity.

She leaned forward, a deeply playful smirk on her lips. ”You didn’t secretly go out and rob a high-level administrative convoy or plunder an elder’s private vault, did you?”

Her beautiful eyes were practically glowing with a strange warmth, secretly thinking that if he had truly resorted to high-stakes banditry, she had finally found a kindred spirit within this otherwise uptight lineage.

However, the moment the accusation left her lips, Shen Jian immediately shot her down with a sharp scoff.

”Tsk, please wash your mouth out with spirit water, Miss Huo Yue. Do not dare to lump a brilliant, aristocratic strategist like me together with a common, brainless street bandit.”

Huo Yue felt her right cheek violently twitch in pure, unadulterated annoyance. ’C-Common bandit? Who is he calling a bandit!?’

Shen Jian continued smoothly, entirely ignoring her rising irritation as he waved his hand lazily through the air, a proud, incredibly self-satisfied expression illuminating his sharp features.

”The process was actually an absolute masterpiece of socioeconomic engineering,” he explained condescendingly. ”The process is remarkably elegant, really. I didn’t waste a single watt of my spiritual energy fighting monsters in the mud. Instead, I simply utilized my high status as an Enshrined heir to launch an exclusive, multi-layered resource distribution network.”

”A pyramid scheme, you mean.” Shen Ying rolled her eyes.

Shen Jian glared at her. ”Anyways, I recruited twenty elite struggling commoner senior disciples, and forc—ahem, convinced them to pay a heavy mandatory buy-in fee of 100 points each just to secure the legal right to distribute my family’s own cultivation pills. Then, those twenty disciples were legally required to recruit twenty more underclassmen below them to recoup their initial investment, passing a heavy 20% percentage of all their accumulated points directly up the ladder straight into my personal registry.”

An absolute, heavy silence descended upon the VIP room once more.

Every single person stared at him in profound, paralyzing shock, their mouths hanging wide open as they processed the sheer, unadulterated corporate evil of the method he had just casually described.

He had literally invented a pyramid scheme in an afternoon.

Meanwhile, Huo Yue’s eyes gradually shifted from annoyance to a state of absolute, blinding enlightenment as a terrifying, chaotic light began to bloom within her pupils as she stared at him.

’You can... you can actually do that?! Why the hell did I spend my afternoon sweating under the sun for a mere 25 thousand points!?’ her expression loudly screamed.

But soon, she calmed down, rubbing her chin as her brilliant mind already calculating how to apply a multi-tier recruitment structure to her own pill distribution network to bankrupt the senior students.

”Alright, honored guests, elders, and senior disciples!” Li Hua’s booming voice suddenly echoed through the sound arrays, breaking through their thoughts as a heavy, metallic platform slowly rose from the center of the display stage. ”The night is drawing to a close, and we are officially down to the final two grand items for today’s event! And I must warn you beforehand... this next particular treasure is exceptionally rare, unique, and highly special!”

The heavy silk cloth was pulled back by the stage handlers, revealing a massive, rough-edged, and completely unpolished gray boulder that radiated a faint, ominous, and chillingly cold death energy.

”What you see before you is an ancient, naturally sealed celestial stone,” Li Hua announced, her expression turning incredibly solemn. ”Our archaeological teams have verified that the hollow core of this boulder safely contains the complete, beautifully preserved remnant skeleton of a ancient, fallen Heavenly Saint Realm expert!”

At that, everyone in the auction hoise erupted in commotion.