Only Dou Er was real. The cultivation goal of Dou Yi Su Ming and Dou San Su Ming was to establish a stable connection with this real node.
Dou Yi Su Ming already had a direction: he needed to extend Illusory History to the Dou Er Node.
Although Su Ming still did not know exactly how to overlay illusory history onto real history and turn the fake into reality, he at least had a direction now.
Dou San Su Ming, on the other hand, had never found any clue.
Now that Su Ming had reached an understanding, he had an idea as well—one even more complete than guiding Dou Yi Su Ming.
"My present self influences my illusory self several years in the future, thereby creating one illusory future after another. Those illusory futures extend further ahead, then are captured by my Dou San self."
This way, perhaps Su Ming could gain complete control over all the nodes from Dou Er to Dou San.
Wouldn't that establish a connection?
When it came to guiding Dou Yi Su Ming, Su Ming still had no idea what his Dou Er self should do. Yet for his Dou San self's retrieval, he already had a solution.
"It seems I'll still have to rely on the Spiritual Domain. Dou Yi's guidance will also need the Spiritual Domain."
As Su Ming tried to influence the future, he also pondered his own future.
"Intervening in the Timeline might not be useless to me. For example, I could inspect details from the past that I never noticed."
He did not need to exert any influence; he could use it simply to investigate methods.
For example, by borrowing his future self's Spiritual Domain, Su Ming could now spread it across a one-year range at the Dou Er Node.