First things first, he could not instantly spot the hidden being. He attempted to divine its location, and after an entire year, he finally spotted it. It looked back at him. Zhou Fan could tell in a moment that it was in the Earth Immortal realm, a vast, vast leap from where it had been before.
That explained why it had been so difficult to find. Looking around, he also spotted a bunch more powerful beings.
Ye Li, the God of Death, the Grand Empyrean, the fish, the King of Massacre, the Demon King, Yoha, the Path Creator of Despair, the space bird, and the Path Creator of Illusion had entered the Heaven Immortal realm. The Buddha, who had stayed silent for many years, was now in the Earth Immortal realm.
Many other notable Path Creators were also in the Earth Immortal realm. It seemed that the entire Universe had undergone a power surge.
Zhou Fan understood that many more years than expected had passed while he was in the nothingness. It didn't really matter.
He didn't bother paying too much attention, though he had an inkling something within the Buddha had changed. As per his request, he did look into it further. Multiple beings noticed his return to the Universe, and a few arrived in front of him.
Ye Li, the Grand Empyrean, and the fish.
The others simply nodded towards him, welcoming him back.
Zhou Fan looked at the three of them.
"I suppose you have some business with me?" He asked.
Ye Li spoke first. "I'm simply curious about the outside of the Universe. You warned us to not try it, and the sense I get is that it wouldn't bode well for me if I entered, even now. So where were you?"
Zhou Fan spoke honestly. "Nowhere."
Ye Li tilted his head. "I don't sense any lie."
"Even if I did lie, you probably couldn't detect it. I was literally nowhere, inside of nothingness. Feel free to investigate." Zhou Fan said.
Ye Li let out a fake chuckle and left.
Next was the Grand Empyrean. "I have some things to discuss with you. Please find me when you have time."
With that, she left.
The fish was last. "I'm curious about the traces of time on your body. It seems different from any time I've seen."
"Self created time. I was outside of time and not connected to the Universe's time. Clearly, I attuned it wrongly, which made me end up in this situation."
"Oh. Were you not gone that long?"
"Just a few years, nothing even close to a century."
"Extreme time dilation. It's like you used the time bubble in the opposite way."
"Indeed."
"Could I perhaps have a sample of the time you use?"
Zhou Fan was a bit confused, but nodded and passed over the traces of time left on him. It seemed his casual action was very valuable to the fish.
It wasn't exactly something simple to do in hindsight. The fish was clearly happy, and soon left.
Zhou Fan went to find the Grand Empyrean, intending to get everything out of the way. He left not soon after.
She had begun to speak about suspicions with the Buddha, and since Zhou Fan didn't want to ruin the Buddha's plans, he took action.
When she wasn't paying attention, he used the Rule of Growth to temporarily send her back to the Earth Immortal realm before completely suppressing her.
"What are you doing!" She said, with her mind.
"I apologize. I cannot let too much get out, for the sake of an old friend."
Zhou Fan spent a few hours altering her memories. If anyone investigated deeply, they would find the flaws left by doing it so quickly and on such a powerful person. Luckily, the Grand Empyrean herself would never find any sort of hints.
And she would never let someone investigate her mind. Only if she was defeated and investigated would anyone find out.
The likelihood of someone defeating the Grand Empyrean was low, and the probability of someone defeating her, then for some reason investigating her mind, was far, far lower.
In other words, it was extremely unlikely for anyone to ever find out about this.
Everything went smooth, and Zhou Fan went back to cultivating.
It seemed everyone had almost reached his realm, though they were two away. Time passed. Zhou Fan continued to cultivate while thinking about the mysteries of the nothingness. It may not seem like there was much to comprehend as it was nothing, but there was a lot. It was complicated stuff that nobody below the Immortal realms could even dream of thinking about, much less comprehending.
Zhou Fan stopped cultivating for a while, and tried to attune himself to the time of the Universe. He didn't mind time moving faster than his outside of the nothingness, but it was preferable that he either stayed in the Universe's time or moved faster than it.
It was a bit difficult since he wasn't specialized in time, but not too difficult.
He soon left the Universe and began the process again, hopefully more attuned this time.
He spent his time in the nothingness comprehending it. When he felt the Rule of Chaos slowly fading from the resistance of the nothingness, he entered the Universe. This time, he instantly analyzed it.
"Only ten Sage Years. Far better than tens of thousands. I can probably do better though."
It wasn't often that Zhou Fan encountered a challenge. Now he had two to overcome.
Attuning his inner time to the Universe's time flow, and comprehending the nothingness. It was quite fun.
He repeated this process thousands of times. He managed to get it to where he would come back and only a quintillion years had passed.
It was for some reason harder to get closer than that, but he was improving, just much slower than before.
He felt that comprehending the nothingness was possible. After these thousands of times, he had understood an inkling, though it was far from enough.
After all, the nothingness was likely the most complicated thing in existence, as it was non-existence itself.