Deciding to start searching for another way out of the Valley of Illusory Beasts that didn't involve the two illusory wooden gates, Xuan Hao ended up finding him moving deeper and deeper in the valley with each passing day without finding anything that might point him towards an alternative path out of the Valley of Illusory Beasts.
Instead, the only thing he managed to find so far was the large number of Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts roaming around the place. If not for the fact that there were simply far too many of them around and even a slight mistake would expose him to at least three or more Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts, he would have long since tried to find an Earth Immortal Realm illusory beast to test out his new strength.
Whoosh~
Crossing over the seemingly invisible barrier separating the area where the illusory beast in the Earth Immortal Realm normally roamed and the place where the Peak Soul Ascension Realm and weaker illusory beasts could be found after close to a week of searching for the way out, Xuan Hao was happily surprised to discover than the power of his Dao of Space had only been blocked for a short time before becoming available again.
Different from his expectations of it being impossible for him to utilize the Dao of Space in the deeper parts of the valley due to the progressively harder to manipulate space the deeper one went; it turned out that he was wrong. Instead of it becoming increasingly harder to manipulate the Dao of Space, there was instead some kind of barrier separating the two parts of the valley.
The barrier in question was not really a barrier in the sense of one created by a formation but was instead a large swath of land stretching across the Valley of Illusory beasts. Separating the weaker and stronger illusory beasts from each other. Although he thought it might have been artificially created by some powerful expert in the Dao of Space at first, he quickly ended up throwing this thought away after personally examining the strange state of the space around and inside the swath of land. This content originates from n0v3lbin•
The land covered was simply far too large, while the power that stabilized the space and made it impossible to manipulate seemed to be related to the strange space that the Valley of Illusory Beasts, Ephemeral Forest, and Sea of Mist was located inside of.
If something like that had been made by an expert in the Dao of Space, the existence would be far beyond anything he had encountered so far, likely even surpassing the old experts of the Blue Sea Empire standing above the Earth Immortal Realm.
"Huh? What is that..."
Searching around the place where the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts should have been confined, it did not take long before Xuan Hao discovered something that made him pause with a look of surprise plastered all over his face.
"A pillar...?" Muttering this to himself as he stared up at what could only be described as a large pillar, Xuan Hao was rendered speechless as he had no idea what such an object would be doing inside the Valley of Illusory Beasts.
But... For what reason would someone go through the trouble of constructing something like this just for the sole purpose of restraining the illusory beasts in the Earth Immortal Realm? Is there perhaps some other use for the illusory beasts that I don't know about?
Gazing up at the pillar with an increasingly curious expression on his face, Xuan Hao wondered if the illusory beasts had some other magical effect other than increasing one's comprehension of the Dao of Illusions after they managed to reach the Earth Immortal Realm.
Wait, no, it's not time for this! I have to find another way to leave this place. If I really stay in here for the next thirty years waiting to see if the path out will open, the Star Shattering Sect and my disciples might have already perished.
Feeling like his train of thought was starting to drift away from his main objective of finding a way to leave the Valley of Illusory Beasts, Xuan Hao got into the air before continuing his search across the valley for anything that might be able to help accomplish his goal. Leaving behind the strange pillar to continue absorbing qi on its own.
...
As days passed and turned into weeks, Xuan Hao continued searching through the valley with no success.
Outside of the large pillar he had encountered back when he had first crossed into the deeper part of the valley where the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts normally resided, Xuan Hao did not encounter anything. Not even a single Earth Immortal Realm illusory beast ran through the area covered by his divine sense. Making him believe that all of them should have already left the place to go to the outer part of the valley.
This realization made Xuan Hao wonder just what these Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts were up to. After all, they weren't as dumb as the illusory beasts who normally wandered the outer part of the valley.
Given they had at least some level of intelligence, they should be trying to find a way to leave the Valley of Illusory Beasts while the pillar was not there to restrain them and given that the two wooden gates had been blocked off-
"They should be trying to find some other way to leave the valley..." Finishing his own train of thought as he was flying through a large empty field, Xuan Hao could not help could not help freezing on the spot-
Why didn't I think about that before!
Swish-!
And without wasting a single second, he turned around and headed straight towards the outer part of the valley where the Earth Immortal Realm illusory beasts should be searching for an escape path in.