the villain is the one who has cruel motives and does evil deeds, I am not saying that the MC of this novel is a villain, although sometimes it may seem so, I am only correcting your meaning of these concepts
Isn't Grey's technique to increase his plane in 5 stages supposed to be unique ?? They went from the maximum stage of the Arcane plane to the fifth stage of the Origin plane, I cannot imagine what the techniques will be to increase stages in more advanced places.