He had been crunching nonstop in his divine domain for nearly ten years straight.

  Once William realized this, his whole body gave a visible jolt.

  Lex noticed the sudden shift in William’s expression and immediately grew concerned.

  “Kid… don’t tell me you didn’t prepare at all?”

  Snapping back to the present, William gave an awkward laugh and quickly replied:

  “What? Of course I did! I’m just… excited, that’s all. I’ve made thorough preparations.”

  “I’ve been waiting for the Sector Tournament to show what I’m made of—and bring glory to our academy.”

  Seeing how confident William seemed—and knowing full well how capable he was—Lex didn’t press the issue.

  “Good. Then take the next few days to rest and reset your state of mind.”

  “Every time you come out of your divine domain, you look like you’ve left half your soul behind.”

  “I’ll come back to pick you up when it’s time. I’ll take you to the tournament coordinates myself.”

  William nodded in response, indicating he understood, and then asked:

  “Is Zous not coming with us this time?”

  Lex’s eyebrow twitched at that. His expression instantly turned into one that screamed, Don’t push your luck.

  “What, you don’t think I’m good enough for you anymore?”

  “Zous is the dean, for crying out loud. He’s got more on his plate than you can imagine. You think he’s got time to babysit you every day?”

  William immediately switched to a flattering smile, trying to play it off.

  “No way, that’s not what I meant! I just haven’t seen him in so long, I was wondering how our uncle’s been doing…”

  Lex didn’t even bother with a comeback. He just waved it off.

  “Alright, enough nonsense. I only came to tell you the departure schedule.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “I’ve got other business to take care of. Make sure you’re ready. I’m off.”

  With that, Lex’s semi-divine form vanished in a flash of light, leaving William standing alone.

  Only after Lex had completely disappeared did William return to his divine domain, diving back into work.

  He started reviewing the progress he had made since the Global Tournament.

  Designing the Zerg’s new suicide unit was a massive project.

  Each version required long testing and optimization cycles.

  So William made sure not to waste a single moment.

  He kept pushing forward on several parallel projects as well.

  Somewhere along the way, perhaps due to years of accumulated data and iteration, the Zerg’s digestive system finally achieved a critical breakthrough.

  The new digestion system doubled the efficiency of energy conversion.

  For William, this was nothing short of revolutionary.

  After all, the Zerg swarm was pieced together using genes from countless basic species.

  Their energy conversion rates had always been mediocre.

  Most herbivorous insect genes William had found could only convert about 10% of consumed biomass into usable energy.

  Carnivorous genes weren’t much better—typically capping out around 20%.

  Through gene tuning, William had built a custom digestive system that reduced species-specific food constraints.

  But its conversion rate had always been limited by the donor DNA.

  Compared to the ideal Zerg he envisioned, the difference was night and day—like a sparrow compared to a mythical Kunpeng.

  From basic bodily energy consumption, food digestion and absorption,

  mass-to-energy conversion and storage,

  to heat loss during biological work processes—

  any breakthrough in those areas would let William support many more Zerg units with the same divine domain area.

  Thanks to this upgrade, all newly developed Zerg units in recent years now used this optimized digestion and conversion system.

  This was the only reason William’s divine domain hadn’t hit its maximum load and interrupted the ongoing suicide unit R&D.

  Back inside the divine domain, William went to inspect the Mutated Thunder Drakes, now in their dormant state.

  These new ranged combat units, evolved from the Hydralisk gene template, had grown to nearly five meters long.

  They inherited the terrifying insectoid head of the Hydralisk—fiercely iconic of the Zerg aesthetic.

  They had three pairs of eyes, all using the swarm’s latest optical system, granting them nearly 360° vision.

  Where there used to be one pair of large mandibles, there were now two, doubling their capacity for close-range aerial grappling and biting—giving them a notable boost in melee capabilities.

  Behind the head, dense skeletal plating extended in layers along the spine, gradually transforming into a circular bone carapace that encased their now-bulked-up bodies.

  Their original arms had been heavily modified into a pair of massive flesh wings, each joint studded with sharp, curved bone spines, giving them a viciously menacing appearance.

  The biggest difference between the Mutated Thunder Drake and its Hydralisk ancestor, though, lay in the tail.

  What was once a simple serpentine end had now been replaced with a gnashing maw.

  At the tail tip was a grotesque quad-jawed mouth, lined with razor-sharp fangs—

  designed specifically for surprise rear attacks and grappling prey mid-flight.