Over the past 10 years, out of the ten split ovaries shed by the Queen Ant, six were completely lost during the process of being transformed into incubation nests and undergoing transcendence.

  Not a single one of the nests designed to produce mutated dragonflies succeeded.

  If it weren’t for the fact that the most valuable Thunder Wyvern and Flame Demon bloodline cards were successfully used, the results would have been disastrous.

  William knew there was nothing he could do.

  Using three high-level transcendent bloodline cards on the same incubation nest in a row meant the success rate dropped to around 34%.

  Otherwise, with William’s explosive temper, he would’ve already ripped the God off the wall and replaced Him with Lord Guan instead.

  Now, the total number of the swarm has nearly reached 2 billion.

  And that’s just the increase in combat strength over the years.

  The biggest gain, actually, was the optimization of the digestive system and improvements in energy conversion efficiency.

  Newly born Zerg units now consume half as much food as before.

  On top of that, William’s long-term genetic modification efforts on food-producing species within the Divine Realm have begun to bear fruit.

  Although he’s been optimizing cash crops in the Divine Realm for a while, his early focus on the swarm meant economic crops were largely neglected.

  This led to a deeply entrenched issue in the food industry, which has become hard to reform.

  At the same time, William also lacked the Queen Ant’s gene fusion ability.

  He could only optimize and adjust existing species based on their original traits, and this required consuming massive swarm labor resources for careful cultivation or breeding, in order to avoid degradation through hybridization.

  As a result, progress in this area was slow.

  Fortunately, William recently introduced a new type of high-sugar block fungus from the outside world.

  Since it grows in soil and resembles a potato, he directly named it Sweet Potato.

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  This fungus grows similarly to truffles from his past life, but isn’t as delicate.

  It’s photosensitive, and can coexist with plant roots while drawing nutrients from them, as well as absorbing nutrients directly from the soil.

  It grows quickly and makes an ideal companion to chives.

  Even better, it doesn’t take up surface area in the Divine Realm.

  Thanks to this "Sweet Potato" fungus, the output of the Divine Realm has increased significantly.

  That’s the only reason the Divine Realm hasn’t hit its carrying limit yet.

  According to William’s estimates, he’s raised the swarm’s population cap within the Divine Realm to over 3 billion.

  It’s basically like permanently doubling the area of the Divine Realm—a massive win.

  So, even though he spent all his free time focusing on development instead of raiding resource wells for windfalls, William didn’t feel like he missed out.

  Being able to steadily grow stronger in a safe way isn’t all that different from the gains of a successful raid.

  Sure, you can’t get rich overnight, but it’s stable.

  After all, technology is the primary productive force.

  Well… black technology counts as technology too.

  Raiding might be tempting, but it comes with risks.

  If you slip up, it’s game over.

  Never underestimate the strength of heroes out there. The universe is huge, and staying low and farming is the true path to power.

  There’s still room for William to grow. Once he’s fully prepared and pushed development to its limit, he can strike hard when necessary.

  That’s the smart survival strategy.

  Staring at the faint blue light screen before him, William completed his review and summary of the Divine Realm’s current state.

  A satisfied smile spread across his face.

  “Not bad, not bad. I’ve unknowingly grown stronger again. What a joyful occasion!”

  “Hmm… Stay calm. It’s only been, what, not even 100 years of grinding?”

  “There are folks in the Divine Realms who’ve been here for thousands—tens of thousands—of years. Still a long way to go. No room for pride.”

  “Godfire remains unlit. The mission continues.”

  Once he had calmed himself, William stopped focusing on his long backlog of pending tasks.

  Instead, he went back to his routine work of analyzing the common genetic stock.

  A few days later, when Lex’s Divine Realm once again appeared near William’s realm, William immediately sensed Lex’s demigod spirit approaching his domain barrier.

  Without delay, William stopped his work and flashed his demigod spirit outside into the void, heading toward Lex.

  “Lex, are we heading out now?”

  Lex didn’t waste any time either.

  He handed William a high-level teleportation card as a travel expense, along with the coordinates for the competition venue.

  “This competition is completely different from the previous ones. You’ll have to play it by ear.”

  Hearing this, William’s interest was instantly piqued.