Zous saw William looking at him with a face full of curiosity. Laughing, he continued explaining, “You don’t have a Holy Spirit-level believer yet, so you don’t understand their importance.”

  “This kind of knowledge is usually only needed when you enter university. But since you want to know now, I’ll explain it in advance.”

  “In the hierarchy of believers among followers, apart from the Holy Spirit, all others—whether general believers or fanatics—are referred to as believers. Only the Holy Spirit lacks the word ‘believer.’ Do you know why?”

  Hearing this for the first time, William searched his memory but found no relevant explanation. He could only shake his head at Zous, indicating that he didn’t know.

  Seeing William’s response, Zous didn’t keep him in suspense and immediately continued, “Because for those of us walking the path to godhood, the Holy Spirit is extremely special.”

  “The biggest difference between them and ordinary believers is that the Holy Spirit can directly produce divinity.”

  “One Holy Spirit can generate over 300 points of divinity per year.”

  “So, as long as you have a single Holy Spirit, without counting other believers, you can accumulate the one million divinity points needed to ignite godfire in about 30 years in the real world.”

  “Otherwise, relying solely on the faith power generated by believers to gather one million divinity points for godfire ignition would be extremely difficult.”

  Hearing this, William widened his eyes in admiration and eagerly asked, “Zous, how can I cultivate a Holy Spirit-level follower?”

  “There’s actually no real cultivation method. Holy Spirits almost always emerge by chance when the number of believers reaches a large enough scale,” Zous said, suddenly showing a bitter smile.

  “It all comes down to luck. There’s no fixed training process. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be without a Holy Spirit follower myself.”

  William, puzzled by this, continued asking, “Zous, has no one figured out how Holy Spirits are created?”

  Zous waved his hand and replied, “That’s not the case. The principle behind the birth of a Holy Spirit is actually quite simple.”

  “A believer who possesses independent thought and ideals, whose will shines brilliantly and has never been distorted by faith, has a chance to become a Holy Spirit—if their thoughts and ideals align closely with those of their god.”

  “Rather than calling Holy Spirits followers of gods, it would be more accurate to describe them as fellow travelers of the gods.”

  “So, even if you know the principle, it doesn’t help much. The birth of a Holy Spirit depends on too many factors.”

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  “Just finding a follower with independent thought and ideals, whose will shines brilliantly, is a one-in-a-million chance.”

  “And such a follower, if they do exist, is extremely unlikely to become a believer in the first place.”

  “Even if they do become believers, ensuring that their thoughts remain unaltered by faith is even more difficult.”

  “Finally, their thoughts must align closely with the god’s own ideology. Most who embark on the path to godhood don’t even truly know what they themselves desire.”

  “That’s why Holy Spirits are almost always born by chance after amassing a vast number of believers.”

  After hearing Zous’ explanation, William’s eager expression had completely faded, replaced by an exasperated eye roll and a twitching mouth.

  “Thoughts, ideals, will...”

  As he listened to Zous’ explanation, William mentally compared these requirements to the current state of his followers.

  The result? Aside from having a large number of believers, he met none of the other criteria.

  Brilliant thoughts and ideals? Not even worth considering. The only intelligent being in his swarm was the queen ant, while the rest were mindless drones.

  Calling them biological weapons devoid of independent thought would be more accurate.

  As for the only intelligent unit, the queen ant, she had just recently reached mental maturity.

  Where would she get thoughts and ideals? And those had to align closely with William’s own?

  How was he supposed to do that? Train the queen ant to be a miniature version of himself—a greedy workaholic, an extreme productivity enthusiast, and a master of internal competition...?

  After analyzing himself deeply, William wasn’t even sure what he truly wanted. That was an unsolvable problem in itself!

  Even though the prospect of obtaining a Holy Spirit now seemed utterly unrealistic, William still refused to give up and asked Zous, “Zous, is there really no shortcut or technique that can increase the probability of a follower ascending to a Holy Spirit?”

  Seeing William’s persistent expression, Zous seemed to recall his own reaction when he first learned this information.

  With a bitter smile, he shook his head before finally saying, “The most effective known method for increasing the probability of a follower becoming a Holy Spirit...”

  “Is to ignite godfire and create the divine engraving of ‘Absolute Loyalty,’ which can only be used on one’s core followers.”

  “Then, select a few core followers and consume a massive amount of divine power to plant the seeds of your thoughts within them from the embryo stage, thereby increasing the chance of a Holy Spirit emerging.”

  “But the prerequisite for using this method is having already ignited godfire. So even though I’m telling you now, you can’t use it yet.”

  After hearing Zous’ explanation, William completely gave up hope.

  “Damn it, forget about Holy Spirits. As long as I have enough swarm units, I’ll gather the one million divinity points needed for godfire ignition eventually,” he consoled himself sourly in his heart before decisively abandoning the topic.

  Instead, he shifted his focus to carefully observing the divine domains of the other contestants docked nearby.

  With only about 600 participants in the competition, William quickly estimated the overall battle strength of the contest based on the sizes of their divine domains.

  The results weren’t far from his expectations—most contestants’ divine domains were under a million square kilometers.

  Only a few had reached a million square kilometers. But what truly surprised him was discovering that one other contestant had a divine domain as large as his own—15 million square kilometers.

  That contestant’s demigod form stood outside their divine domain’s barrier, arms crossed, surveying the other competitors.

  It was a young man with an arrogant expression, his gaze filled with disdain for the divine domains of the other participants.

  Suddenly, as if sensing someone’s gaze, the young man turned his head and noticed William’s demigod form observing him.

  At the same time, he also saw William’s divine domain—calmly floating in the void, spanning 15 million square kilometers.