Actually, back in the Trial Pavilion, Ye Fan could have easily broken through to the True Essence Realm, but he didn't do it.
He was suppressing his own power!
Because Ye Fan learned from Elder Xuan that the True Qi Realm and True Essence Realm were merely foundational processes in cultivation.
Having faced numerous challenges, Ye Fan thoroughly understood the importance of fundamentals.
A skyscraper rises from the ground up, and whether the foundation is firm or not affects whether future cultivation progresses smoothly.
No matter how luxurious a tall building constructed on sand is, it will eventually collapse due to an unstable foundation.
Cultivation follows the same principle; only by solidly building a foundation can one avoid encountering overly difficult bottlenecks in future cultivation.
However—
