After Po Tian's reminder, Ling Tian realized even more clearly that to contend with the Lord of the Universe, he had to master methods the latter did not. Although he had many cultivation techniques and secret arts to study, finding or creating a secret art capable of matching the Lord of the Universe would not be easy. Fortunately, he could still refine various strange energies, and doing so would improve his odds against him. Those strange energies were beyond the Lord of the Universe's control, so using them against him gave Ling Tian at least some chance of victory.
From then on, besides improving his cultivation and fusing the grand formations, Ling Tian had another task: finding secret arts powerful enough to contend with the Lord of the Universe, or even threaten him. Knowing how important this was, he devoted part of his attention to studying various cultivation techniques and secret arts.
Time flowed on. Another ten or twenty thousand years passed in the blink of an eye. Although Ling Tian still showed no sign of making another breakthrough, his strength had improved considerably. Most importantly, through his efforts, the three grand formations had fused quite well. They were still some way from a perfect fusion, but the formation's power had already grown far beyond what it had been before. Combined with the improvement in Ling Tian and the others' strength, the formation was now enough to kill cultivators at the peak of the Twenty-sixth Heaven of Near-Saint—and even contend with stronger cultivators.
Over this long stretch of time, Chi Xue and the others had also improved considerably. After Ling Tian, Chi Xue, Po Tian, and Xiao Shi successively broke through to the Twenty-fourth Heaven of Near-Saint, while Shi Meng and the others all reached the peak of the Twenty-third