When he saw William shake his head slightly, indicating that he had no more questions, Lex finally turned his attention to the other students.

  "Lex, what is the standard for the candidates you are selecting?" Chen Hao quickly asked after seeing that William had stopped speaking.

  "My standard? Of course, it's strength. I will nominate whoever is the strongest. If someone lacks strength, there’s no point in selecting them."

  "Besides, without enough strength, entering the citywide high school league will just result in an early elimination, which would be a disgrace to our academy. After all, Zhonghai No. 2 High School is one of the top three high schools in the city."

  "When it comes to the selection of participants, the school administration will be even more cautious than you can imagine, so there's no need to worry too much about fairness."

  After Lex finished speaking and saw that no one else had any further questions, he clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention before continuing, "Alright, go back and prepare yourselves. Choose your dependents wisely and get ready for the assessment. William, stay behind. I have something to discuss with you privately."

  As the others returned to their divine domains, William looked at Lex with a puzzled expression and asked, "Lex, what’s the matter?"

  "Nothing much, just wanted to let you know to relax during the assessment. I'll be nominating you for the citywide high school league. With your strength, getting a spot is no problem. Also, I wanted to ask—how many dependents do you have now?"

  Since there were no other students around, Lex spoke to William in a hushed tone.

  "About 3.5 billion." William didn’t hold back and answered directly.

  For the past few years, William had primarily been producing Zerglings, while maintaining the Beast of Thunder population at 100,000 without further expansion.

  These creatures consumed too many resources, yet their faith output was the same as the Zerglings'. Until he could solve their resource consumption problem, William had no plans to mass-produce the Beast of Thunder.

  Hearing the number William revealed, Lex was nearly shocked speechless. It was just 2.2 billion before, and in just five years, the number had surged by 1.3 billion.

  Even when Goblins were counted in billions, their combat effectiveness was still quite considerable. Let alone William's Zerglings, which ranked among the strongest of ordinary dependents.

  From past observations, Lex also noticed that William's dependents had virtually no morale issues. The thought of 3.5 billion fearless, battle-hardened Zerglings was simply terrifying.

  His own professional combat dependents didn’t even number 200 million. At such a scale, unless one had massive area-of-effect destruction abilities, anyone facing William would have a serious headache.

  "Uh... Well, just do your best. Don't worry too much about the assessment results. The real reward comes from securing a spot in the competition—the school’s resources are the real prize."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Lex reminded William and stopped speaking, though internally, he was overjoyed. With William’s strength, their class was guaranteed at least one spot in the competition.

  At that moment, a divine domain covering more than 3 million square kilometers slowly drifted over. This was the venue for the assessment.

  Though the field administrators had lost their core dependents, it didn’t mean they were powerless. They could still cultivate other ordinary dependents—just without the possibility of igniting their divine flames.

  The semi-divine entity of the field administrator appeared outside the divine domain’s barrier, and his voice echoed across the High School Senior Class One encampment.

  "The rules of the assessment have already been explained by your teacher, so I won’t repeat them. Now, all students must immediately establish an invasion channel. The assessment begins now!"

  Upon hearing the announcement, everyone quickly connected to the massive divine domain.

  Once his teleportation channel stabilized, William immediately dispatched 5,000 Beasts of Thunder along with 5,000 Zerglings—half mutated and half flying—into the field administrator's divine domain.

  Under William’s command, the 10,000-strong Zerg force formed a tight formation within just thirty seconds.

  The 5,000 Beasts of Thunder stood at the front, 2,500 mutated Zerglings spread out on the flanks, while the remaining 2,500 flying Zerglings hovered above.

  Within three minutes, a force of 10,000 Goblins appeared in front of the swarm's formation.

  The moment these Goblins saw William’s Zerg units, they began to panic.

  The towering 10-meter-high Beasts of Thunder, with their ferocious appearance and massive scythe-like arms, easily terrified the small green creatures.

  As soon as the Zerg swarm charged, the Goblins scattered in fear, fleeing before the battle even began.

  Seeing this, William halted the Beasts of Thunder's charge and refrained from pursuing the fleeing Goblins.

  The same scenario repeated with the second and third waves, both consisting of Orc armies.

  The overwhelming presence of the 5,000 charging Beasts of Thunder was simply too much for ordinary creatures to endure.

  It wasn’t until the fourth wave that William finally became serious—though at the same time, he couldn't help but reveal a helpless expression.

  The fourth wave consisted of 10,000 eagle-kin beastmen.

  As they soared through the skies, approaching rapidly, William's mere 2,500 flying Zerglings immediately engaged them.

  The relatively fragile flying Zerglings pushed their speed to the limit in a suicidal charge, managing to take down nearly 2,000 eagle-kin beastmen before being completely wiped out.

  With only ground-based units left, William's swarm could do nothing but watch the eagle-kin hover overhead.

  They endured two waves of tungsten short spears raining down from above.

  Although the mutated Zerglings hid beneath the Beasts of Thunder, avoiding the barrage, and the Beasts of Thunder’s sturdy shells protected them from harm, the inability to strike back was a critical weakness.

  Simply enduring the attacks was not a viable strategy, forcing William to make the reluctant decision to surrender.

  He recalled all his dependents and exited the assessment.

  By the time all his classmates had completed their assessments and the field administrator had severed all invasion channels, William realized that no one in the class had survived beyond the fourth wave.

  Most had surrendered by the third wave, and only a few had even seen the eagle-kin beastmen.

  Once everyone had finished, Lex gathered the students and announced,

  "The assessment is over. Your results will be sent to you later. I hope you’ve identified the weaknesses of your dependents through this battle."

  "As for the citywide high school league, I have decided to nominate William and Richard. The rest of you should focus on improving and preparing—soon, we’ll be organizing an expedition for further training. Dismissed."

  With that, Lex vanished, likely exiting the Divine Realm.

  Confirming the assessment had ended, William immediately returned to his divine domain, resuming his research on transcendent genes.

  Recently, he had completed the analysis of one transcendent gene from the Splitting Eye Bug.

  If he could finish deciphering the other, William would obtain his first transcendent gene template.

  Thinking about this filled him with boundless motivation.