After he finished speaking, Zous saw William nod solemnly, clearly taking his advice to heart. Only then did Zous reach out and pat him on the shoulder.

  "Alright, as long as you’re clear about these things yourself. You just finished the competition, so take some time to rest and digest what you’ve gained."

  "Winning the Global Championship this time means there will be divine power rewards from both the city of Qinghai and the school."

  "I’ll go handle the process for you later. Once the rewards are issued, I’ll bring them over to you."

  Upon hearing there were benefits involved, William immediately pushed thoughts of university to the back of his mind. Smiling, he thanked Zous:

  "That’s great news—thanks a lot, Zous."

  Then, without missing a beat, he asked eagerly, "So, what kind of rewards are we getting from the school and the city?"

  Seeing how excited William got the moment rewards were mentioned, Zous couldn’t help but chuckle and give him a look before answering:

  "In our civilization, when public resources are used to reward individuals, there's always strict oversight."

  "To prevent corruption and power abuse, everything is tightly audited."

  "So you won’t be getting too much—at most, the school will give you 2 million units of divine power, and the city could give around 10 million. That’s about it."

  William hadn’t expected this surprise bonus and was instantly overjoyed.

  "Zous, when can I actually get the reward?"

  Even though William hadn’t stopped talking about the rewards for three whole sentences, Zous wasn’t annoyed at all. He found it a bit amusing and explained patiently:

  "Haha, don’t worry. You won the global championship—our school is incredibly proud."

  "I’ll go handle the process right now. Give it two or three days at most, and I’ll get it done. Just relax and wait."

  After saying this, Zous naturally showed a proud, satisfied expression and turned to leave.

  "Thanks again, Zous!" William called after him, watching his figure disappear into the distance.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Once Zous was gone, William’s figure shimmered and vanished into his divine domain.

  He appeared midair in his domain, released his divine sense, and let it spread to every corner.

  He carefully and thoroughly scanned the entire domain.

  After all, he had brought a lot of stuff back from the outside world into his divine domain.

  If something like the Deadland Fungus started spreading in his domain again, it’d be a disaster.

  Not to mention, he had to be cautious of sabotage.

  Someone could deliberately send something like Deadland Fungus into his domain to cause destruction, tricking his swarm into picking it up.

  William had personally done something like that before—sneaking Deadland Fungus into rocks and burying them in someone else's divine domain.

  So thinking the worst of others wasn’t exactly paranoia—it was experience. What if someone didn’t like him and tried to pull the same trick?

  People were unpredictable.

  That's why, now, a post-battle full-domain scan with divine sense had become a necessary part of the checklist in his self-made "Divine Domain Management Guidelines."

  It was like doing a post-battle summary and analysis.

  “Trust, but verify. And as for harming others… mm, focus, William. Don’t get distracted. That stone stuck in the sole of my shoe seems suspicious. Let’s take a closer look…”

  Although such a detailed divine sense scan didn’t take too much time, it was extremely draining mentally.

  Once he confirmed that the entire domain was clean, William rubbed his forehead, finally able to relax.

  Now he could start assessing the losses and gains from this match.

  Thanks to the thorough scan, William now had a clear understanding of the current status of his divine domain and his units.

  Excluding the 200 million logistics worker bugs that didn’t participate in the battle…

  The mutated jumpers were down to about 300 million. Thanks to their two supernatural abilities that provided some damage reduction, they lost only about a quarter of their numbers.

  Flying jumpers had fewer than 200 million left, about a one-third loss.

  The ranged stinger bug army, which had grown to 600 million, took the biggest hit due to their fragile bodies.

  Combined with the enemy necromancers’ widespread spectral ray attacks…

  Their numbers were halved, down to around 300 million.

  William couldn’t help but sigh. That edgy teen Cedric had truly insane firepower with his 1.5 million necromancers.

  Given how densely packed the swarm was during the battle, every spectral ray that hit the ground wiped out at least ten units.

  The rays were fast, long-range, and incredibly powerful. If it weren’t for the Thunder Drakes’ harassment—

  And the enemy underestimating the explosive jumpers, who took them by surprise…

  The swarm’s casualties would’ve been way worse.

  As for the Thunder Drakes, with the current daily production of 10,000 units…

  Their numbers had already recovered to nearly 200,000. The loss of those 100,000+ during the match was basically negligible.

  Finally, there were the explosive jumpers who had contributed the most to the victory.

  Their numbers had dropped from 30 million to below 5 million again.

  Seeing this, William could only feel helpless. The supernatural hatching nest for the explosive jumpers was still the only one he had.

  It only produced about 10,000 a day.

  These bloodline cards, which cost tens of thousands of divine power each, weren’t the kind you’d want to spend millions on just to take to a god with a diagnostic divine seal…

  …just to find out what exact bloodline trait or spell they inherited.