Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Having decided to stay inside the Valley of Illusory Beasts and try to see if he could continue improving his comprehension of the Dao of Illusions by observing the illusory beasts in the Earth Immortal Realm using the Dao of Illusions while fighting, Xuan Hao decided to wait for them to leave the deeper parts of the valley where they should be staying at the moment.

The main reason for this being that he wouldn't be able to use the Dao of Space nor his movement technique if he went to the place inside the valley where the earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts should be located. After all, the spatial structure of the place made it impossible to do so without him at least reaching the Large Success Realm in the Dao of Space- at which point he would already have fulfilled the requirement for breaking through to the Late Stage of the Dao Domain Lord Realm and wouldn't need to find an Earth Immortal Realm illusory beast to fight…

Following this, Xuan Hao began to comprehend the Dao of Illusions on his own as he waited for the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts to emerge according to what Chu Li had told him back when he had encountered him for the first time.

Although he had no idea how long he would have to wait before they emerged, he could at least deduce from what Chu Li had told him that the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts seemed to emerge once every two or so years. Meaning that he should at most be waiting around for a year considering he had already spent over a year inside the Valley of Illusory Beasts without encountering the emergence of the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts.

…

At the same time that Xuan Hao began to focus on comprehending the Dao of Illusions on his own while waiting for the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts to emerge, Chu Li opened both his eyes with an overjoyed expression on his face.

Even though his strength had not improved since Xuan Hao had left, Chu Li had taken everything he had told him to heart and had begun trying to comprehend the Dao of Space instead of focusing only on the Dao of Illusions. Soon realizing that the path given by Xuan Hao was indeed viable- no, it wasn't just viable, it was superior to his current path of only focusing on comprehending the Dao of Illusions!

If he managed to successfully merge his Dao of Illusions together with the Dao of Space, Chu Li had a feeling that he would be able to easily pass through the final tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm with little difficulty and smoothly reach the Earth Immortal Realm. 

Not only that, but he should also be stronger than normal Earth Immortal Realm Experts after breaking through after combining his Dao of Illusions with the Dao of Space!

"I really have to thank senior if I meet him again!" Feeling an endless sense of gratitude towards Xuan Hao for the guidance he had provided, Chu Li vowed to repay him in the future after he broke through to the Earth Immortal Realm and became strong enough to help someone like that.

Although… If I want to improve my understanding of the Dao of Space like senior told me to, I have to either find a stable spatial anomaly or try to enter one of the Blue Sea Empire's training grounds… Haaa… No matter which of the two it is, it won't be ea- Ah! That's right! Can't I make use of the spatial anomaly senior created back when he killed the Peak Soul Ascension Realm illusory beast I was chasing after!?

Lost in his own thoughts as he thought about how to best improve his understanding of the Dao of space, Chu Li suddenly remembered the spatial anomaly that had been created by Xuan Hao when he used the true spatial collapse ability to instantly kill the Peak Soul Ascension Realm illusory beast during their first meeting.

Back then, he had been too taken aback and awestruck by the display of power and mysterious presence around the senior, that he didn't pay any attention to the small void left behind by the attack. Only now that he needed a spatial anomaly that would make comprehending the Dao of Space easier did he remember the small void that had been left behind by Xuan Hao back then.

Wait… Did he perhaps already predict that this was going to happen and intentionally leave behind the spatial anomaly for me to comprehend!? 

Suddenly realizing that the attack from Xuan Hao back then had been far too powerful to use on a Soul Ascension Realm illusory beast when he should have been able to just kill it without the need for such a terrifying and over the top attack, Chu Li could not help feeling a shiver run down his spine.

Indeed, the senior was far more terrifying than he could have imagined. Maybe he was not in the Earth Immortal Realm and was instead one of those terrifying existences above the Earth Immortal Realm.

Considering the fact that the Valley of Illusory Beasts was filled with Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts in the deeper parts and there should be some kind of big secret hidden at the deepest part of the valley according to what he knew about the place, it wouldn't be too weird for an expert above the Earth Immortal Realm to appear and investigate the matter personally.

The only thing he found weird was the fact that he had never heard of or seen anything of Xuan Hao in the information he had available to him as part of the Blue Sea Empire's armed forces, while also directly serving under one of the four generals.

In the end, he could only conclude that this was because Xuan Hao shouldn't be from any of the major powers on the Ewaria Continent and should instead be a wandering cultivator who journeyed across the continent while cultivating and improving his own strength in the process…