The energy had resided in the Queen Ant’s body for a long time, and since she was also under the influence of William’s divine trait [Environmental Adaptation], her mental power had gradually begun to adapt to and assimilate with this special force.

  This triggered a mutation in her mental power—one that appeared to be a positive transformation.

  Seeing this, William finally relaxed his tense nerves.

  As long as it wasn’t a malignant mutation, everything could be handled.

  That said, although [Environmental Adaptation] had accelerated the process,

  It only made it faster—not instant. The results were still progressing extremely slowly.

  So, to William, the Queen Ant’s mental power only seemed subtly different from normal mental energy—not clearly distinct just yet.

  After all, in nature, for a species to adapt to an entirely foreign environment,

  The evolutionary process typically took an absurdly long time.

  It was like how marine species in William’s previous life took hundreds of millions of years to crawl onto land.

  Thinking of this, William suddenly felt that his divine trait [Environmental Adaptation] was actually pretty amazing.

  Given the effect it currently demonstrated,

  The trait could accelerate natural adaptation processes by such a large margin—it was already an impressive feat.

  Unfortunately, for a demigod in the early stages, even this “accelerated” process still took decades, centuries, or millennia to play out.

  A demigod simply couldn’t afford to wait that long, which made this divine trait practically useless at their level.

  As the Queen Ant floated closer and heard William inquire about the Beast of Thunder gene optimization,

  A wave of proud emotion immediately surged through the line of faith.

  The Queen Ant:

  “Master, I have completed the adjustment and optimization of the Beast of Thunder gene template.”

  “Moreover, I’ve already performed real-world tests using the optimized gene template.”

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  “The newly optimized Beast of Thunder is developing very well—the gene structure is extremely stable.”

  As she said this, the Queen Ant wiggled her enormous abdomen—over two meters long—

  Implying that she had already laid eggs herself and tested the optimized template personally.

  William’s original reason for preventing her from laying eggs was only to accelerate the shedding and maturation of her ovarian nodes.

  It didn’t mean that her not-yet-fully-mature abdomen couldn’t produce eggs loaded with standard Zerg gene templates.

  Hearing her report, William was instantly filled with joy.

  A genius. I’ve spent so many years struggling with the Beast of Thunder—blocked by one problem after another...

  And the Queen Ant found a breakthrough in just two years? That’s incredible.

  With hope bubbling in his heart, William chose not to scan for the new Beast of Thunder via the faith link.

  Instead, maintaining a calm expression, he casually asked:

  “Oh~ You’ve already done field tests? Where is the test subject? Let me take a look at your optimization results.”

  Although William was overjoyed inside, he worked hard to maintain composure in front of his subordinate.

  Workplace Rulebook 101: Never let an employee get too proud of their achievements—always leave room for improvement.

  Hearing his question, the Queen Ant promptly replied, “He just went out to play. I’ll summon him now for you to inspect, Master.”

  There was a definite note of smugness in her tone—like a child who had finished their summer homework early,

  And was now gleefully answering their parent’s casual inquiry with pride.

  As she spoke, the Queen Ant waved her two antennae atop her head.

  Her mutated mental power spread rapidly, and a Stinger Dragonfly at the edge of the cavern

  Immediately received her command.

  With a swift dive, the dragonfly darted into a passage connected to the underground cavern.

  Moments later, a new Zerg unit—one William had never seen before—came speeding through the tunnel.

  Thanks to his sharp vision, William immediately got a good look at the creature’s appearance.

  Its overall shape was highly reminiscent of the Beast of Thunder—sharp fangs and massive jaws,

  A blade-shaped horn on its forehead, multi-ridged armor on the skull, and two pairs of bony scythes on its shoulders—everything was there.

  Its entire body was covered in metallic-looking scales. Its muscular limbs had been replaced with powerful, clawed talons.

  Even a pair of veined wings had grown from its back—to boost mobility.

  But...

  This is what you call a Beast of Thunder? What’s with the 30-centimeter-tall teddy bear!?

  “What the hell is this 30 cm body size?! Where’s my real Beast of Thunder?!”

  “The one I remember was over 10 meters tall and weighed 15 tons—a heavy ground assault unit!”

  As William stood there utterly dumbfounded, this mini, chibi-style Beast of Thunder

  Energetically flapped its wings, hopping and bouncing along as it sped down the passage from the underground cavern.

  When it reached William, it even pulled off a 360-degree tail-spin stop right in front of him.

  A real tail-spin stop.

  It fiercely wiggled a small tail that William had completely overlooked earlier, braking precisely in front of him.

  William:

  “Hey hey hey—you’re a Zerg combat unit, not a dog, aahhhhhhhhhh...!”

  At that moment, even though William tried his hardest to maintain his composure,

  The corners of his mouth couldn’t stop twitching wildly.

  Fully exposing just how mentally unprepared he was for this chaos.