Breakthrough - 101

The first place Zhou Fan looked was the place that he had battled with Anna and the dragon king. Not a single thing had changed and the battle had even become what seemed like a tourist attraction.

Many people, old and young, stared at the battlefield and tried to comprehend something.

The next place Zhou Fan looked at was the city walls. They were now many times stronger than before and even contained a formation that would both defend the city and increase the strength of someone using it.

The other place Zhou Fan looked was the towers that once signified the soul formation cultivators in the central city. He could tell that they had torn down five of them and replaced them with ten others. The ten other towers clearly belonged to the soul formation cultivators that were called back from the battlefield.

As for the rest of the city, everything looked about the same but with minor improvements.

Zhou Fan looked at the tallest tower and sensed Anna's presence. Her strength had grown a bit in the time he was gone, but it was nothing crazy.

After checking out the city, Zhou Fan teleported back to the floating palace above the now abandoned floating palace city.

Nothing had changed in the year he was gone and Zhou Fan sat down where he had previously and started cultivating.

As he started to cultivate, he noticed that his speed was faster than before. Despite the fact that he had broken through to the second level of lesser dao creation and it should take longer to advance to the third level, he sensed that it would only take ten thousand years. the same amount of time it took to break through to the second level.

Zhou Fan became interested in the change and looked around the Zhou World using the Dao. He was instantly able to discover that the increase was caused by the increased strength of the Zhou World and its inhabitants.

The increase was minor, but it still astonished Zhou Fan. Perhaps he would be able to increase his own cultivation speed by increasing the strength of the Zhou World?

Zhou Fan found himself excited at the very idea. That meant that the Zhou World would no longer be a fun toy, but a tool to increase his strength.

With a closer look, Zhou Fan discovered that the very existence of the Zhou World was tied to its inhabitants. Everything born on it would instantly die if it was destroyed, and if every living being born from it died, then it would die.

That being said, Zhou Fan technically counted as a living being, so it would likely never die. Of course, that didn't mean Zhou Fan would die if the world was destroyed. Zhou Fan was too powerful for that.

After making the realization, Zhou Fan decided to attempt to make the world even stronger the next time he came out of seclusion.

With that, Zhou Fan fell into deep seclusion and didn't stop for a long time.

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10,000 years later, Zhou Fan stopped cultivating. Like last time, he stretched a bit, although unnecessary, and started to walk towards the exit.

He had managed to break into the 3rd level of lesser dao creation in his seclusion and his strength had increased greatly. Nothing new had happened to him or his cultivation besides breaking through, however.

He teleported right outside the door after making sure that he was invisible. However, he soon realized that that had been unnecessary.

Below the floating palace was an endless sea of trees. The only place without trees was a path leading to the stairs that lead to the floating palace. The path was quite a beautiful path with pink trees known as cherry blossoms lining it.

After seeing no one nearby, Zhou Fan turned off his invisibility and started to walk along the path. Zhou Fan walked for 20 minutes before he arrived at a small town.

It was only a square mile and Zhou Fan could see every inch with a glance. Zhou Fan felt surprised when he looked due to the beings living there.

Instead of celestials, there were many humanoid beasts living in the town. Some only had minor differences from humans like a fox tail while some had fur covering every inch of their bodies.

What surprised Zhou Fan was not the fact that there were beasts, but that they resembled humans rather than celestials.

Zhou Fan even saw a man whose only difference from a human was some fur on the back of his hand. Zhou Fans quickly got over the surprise and started to examine them.

From their organs, there was no doubt that they were beasts, but they weren't transformed beasts. Instead, they were more like hybrids of celestials and beasts.

Zhou Fan didn't even want to think about how that started.

Zhou Fan was interested in the town, but first decided to look at the state of the world after he broke through.

As expected, the Zhou World was preparing for another major expansion. After this one, the world would increase in size by more than 4 times.

Its size was already starting to exceed many things within the universe, but wasn't even near the level of the biggest.

The Qi in the Zhou world was also starting to increase greatly with his breakthrough. Soon, everything's cultivation speed would be faster.

After checking out the state of the world, Zhou Fan turned his attention back to the humanoid beasts.

Instead of calling them humanoid beasts, Zhou Fan chose to call them beastmen. After deciding to explore the village, Zhou Fan didn't even change his form. He started to walk in exactly as he was. Simply Zhou Fan.

It was a great feeling that one wouldn't understand had they not had to change their very looks for a long period of time.

There were no gates nor guards and Zhou Fan freely walked into the village without even getting noticed.