Rise of the Zerg in the World of Gods

"Alright, let's get to business first!" Dongfang Cheng nodded.

"Xu Luo, first, congratulations on winning this year's Tianhai City Rookie King title. Later, the support for your popularity will be calculated and paid to you."

"Popularity support?" Xu Luo was confused. What was this?

"It's the cost of supporting you through popularity rankings," Zhong Tianyue explained.

"When you're competing, people online and in reality will cheer for you and support your popularity rankings. This costs money. Fifty percent goes to the organizers to cover various expenses of hosting the competition, schools get forty percent for various school resources for the next year, and the remaining ten percent goes to the individual. Moreover, this income is tax-free."

Hearing this explanation, Xu Luo finally understood why so many people cared so much about their popularity. It turned out there was money to be made.

"However, Xu Luo, you've won Rookie King, so you temporarily have some fame. People will come to you about endorsements, which can earn you some money, but I don't advise you to accept endorsements. Even if you do, wait until after all the competitions are over. Your commercial value will be higher than now," Dongfang Cheng warned.

"The most important thing for you now is training, improving your strength, and striving to qualify in the global competition. That way, your popularity will be even higher. Don't lose the watermelon while picking up sesame seeds."

"Yes!" Xu Luo was inwardly alarmed. Becoming famous, accepting endorsements, and advertisements were choices many people made.

But he wouldn't go down this path. People fear fame as pigs fear fattening. After becoming famous, one would live under the spotlight, which wasn't the life he wanted.

"Don't feel too burdened. I'm not saying don't accept at all, just don't rush to accept," Zhong Tianyue interjected with a smile.

"According to convention, first place can get thirty percent of the reward, which can be converted into faith power, or you can choose equivalent items, whether they're props, units, weapons and equipment, or resources. This is the list."

Dongfang Cheng handed over a list.

"First place, 3.5 billion faith power?" Seeing that first place could choose 3.5 billion faith power or equivalent items, Xu Luo was a bit stunned.

This reward was really too much.

"You think it's like those small monthly rewards? Think about it, an elite class of fifty people, nineteen schools in all of Tianhai, how much is spent just on subsidies every month? Of course it's not much. Now it's the annual competition, concentrated in the hands of a few of you, so naturally it's a lot," Dongfang Cheng smiled.

"This is 0.5% of the various outputs from the nineteen schools over the past year, distributed to the top ten of your three grades. The first year gets less. By the time you're in your third year, you'll know how generous the rewards are. Alright, don't just stand there dazed, hurry up and choose what you need. I still have to give out rewards to others!"

Hearing this, Xu Luo felt more balanced. Indeed, he got thirty percent, which was 3.5 billion. The total reward wasn't even 12 billion!

But the total reward was only 0.5%, calculating this way, the output of these schools was terrifyingly large!

"I choose faith power. If possible, please also convert the Treant Herdsman unit card into faith power for me," Xu Luo quickly made his choice.

"What do you need so much faith power for?" The three frowned.

"Now is the time for you to quickly improve your strength, and your Divine Domain needs to be built up. There are many resources here that are hard to buy outside. If you take faith power, you can't buy the same things at the same price."

The valuation of rare items was based on market price, but in fact, these things were very difficult to buy at market price.

"No need, thank you for your concern, teacher. Please exchange it for faith power for me," Xu Luo insisted on his choice.

He was in urgent need of faith power now. Since he could get a large amount at once, why bother choosing resources and then going through many steps to sell them?

Although he could earn more, with the cuts taken in between, the final price would be about the same. Now he directly chose faith power, which was less troublesome.

"Alright then!" Dongfang Cheng nodded.

"You'll receive an email sending it to you later, just accept it directly.

That's the first thing. Also, remember to come to No. 1 High School for special training. See when you have time, I'll send you to that plane to take a look. Hope it can be helpful to you."

Although Xu Luo concealed it well, these experienced people could see that Xu Luo's Demi-God strength wasn't actually strong, and he had been trying to hide this point all along.

Even in the five-person melee, he first sneak-attacked and eliminated one opponent, then directly let himself be eliminated by the giant snake, without exposing his own combat strength.

Many people thought that someone like him should be well-rounded, with such powerful units, he himself should also be very strong.

But this couldn't fool experienced people.

In the upcoming regional competition, the opponents faced would be stronger than before, and more well-rounded, with much more balanced strength.

Facing such people, Xu Luo's weakness was a bit too obvious.

It was precisely because of this that Dongfang Cheng and Zhong Tianyue wanted to give him some intensive training to make up for this deficiency.

Afterward, the regional league in reality would start in a month, but in the World of Gods, it would be ten months, enough time for training to gain some improvement.

"Yes!" Hearing Dongfang Cheng mention special training and the plane again, Xu Luo was also curious about what kind of plane world it was that made him attach so much importance to it.

"Alright, you can go now!" Zhong Tianyue waved his hand, indicating he could leave.

Xu Luo directly took the hint, said goodbye, and left the office.

The three people inside then had the secretary call Qianqian in.

Honestly, Xu Luo hadn't expected the rewards to be so generous.

The Education Department's was one thing, but for the various schools to directly take out 0.5% of their annual income as rewards was something else.

Schools may seem very expensive, requiring not only allocations from the Education Department but also external funding. However, in reality, the main expenses were still borne by themselves.

Building various venues, maintenance, purchasing facilities and equipment required astronomical sums, mainly relying on the output of various plane worlds owned by the schools to maintain.

For this reason, sometimes schools would organize teachers to form fishing teams, specifically to fish various plane worlds from the void, bringing them back to form plane world groups at the school.

This gave students plane worlds to continuously explore.

And those plane worlds that had been fully developed, with rare resources exhausted, would be used for planting or breeding, etc., always able to play their role.

Nineteen schools taking out 0.5% of their annual output to reward the top ten of three grades was undoubtedly a grand gesture.

The Education Department's gesture wasn't big, but that was because they had to consider numerous counties and cities, countless schools, so naturally couldn't give too much.

Receiving rewards from the school and Education Department, all in all, amounted to nearly 4 billion.

When Xu Luo returned home and entered his Divine Domain, he had already received the faith crystals sent over.

At this time, one of the four Queens had already broken through to Gold-tier, with three remaining.

Advancing to Gold-tier required 1 billion faith power, dividing into new individuals at Gold-tier consumed 1.5 billion, while dividing at Silver-tier required 800 million.

Therefore, Xu Luo specifically waited until advancing to Gold-tier before dividing, which could save some consumption.

Advancing three and dividing four required a total of 9 billion faith power. Originally, Xu Luo thought he would have to wait for quite a long time before he could successfully advance and divide them all. Unexpectedly, now he suddenly received so much faith power. Adding to what he originally had, it was almost enough.

In reality, after waiting for a short while, he gathered enough faith power. Xu Luo directly chose to advance first, then divide.

The process wasn't much different from before. The Queens ate frantically, swelling their bodies, before beginning to divide.

This process lasted a bit longer than before.

Fortunately, it was completed smoothly, directly changing the number from four to eight.

Because there was no faith power left, he couldn't remove the weakened state.

After reaching Gold-tier, the Queens' weakened state lasted longer, but their strength also increased considerably.

Originally, a Queen's daily egg-laying quantity was 5,000, reaching 6,000 with bonuses. But now, it directly became 7,000, reaching 8,400 with bonuses.

It didn't seem like much of an increase, just so-so.

But remember, before there were four Queens, producing 240,000 eggs in one real day. But now there were eight! Suddenly it became 670,000, almost three times as before.

It was only at this time that Xu Luo felt his Zerg troop explosion plan could be put on the agenda.

Anyway, now as soon as he had Zerg eggs, he directly evolved them, prioritizing faith power gain, with combat power being secondary. He'd deal with that when needed.

For things like Earth Dragon Zerg, he was a bit disdainful in his heart, especially after having facehuggers.

The faith power provided by Earth Dragon Zerg was the normal amount for Silver-tier 9, which wasn't a problem.

But Earth Dragon Zerg were formed by combining two Zerg. Two Zerg raised to Silver-tier 9 would provide twice the faith power of an Earth Dragon Zerg.

With better options available, Earth Dragon Zerg seemed dispensable.

The advantages of facehuggers were just too great. Although they were consumables, they were only Silver-tier 1!

The biggest benefit of the Queens advancing successfully, besides increased egg-laying quantity, was being able to use faith power to specifically stack up Silver-tier Zerg to reach the Gold tier.

Previously, xenomorphs were firmly stuck at Silver-tier 9, unable to advance no matter how much they consumed. But now there was no such limitation.

After consuming enough blood and flesh energy, they might even be able to forcibly break through to the Gold tier.

Thinking of this, after saving some faith power, Xu Luo directly found a random unfortunate soul and deployed facehuggers.

This time, his goal wasn't to occupy or breach, but simply to observe whether xenomorphs formed by facehugger parasitism could break through to Gold-tier.

The result didn't disappoint Xu Luo.

After nearly wiping out all the units of that unfortunate soul, many xenomorphs reached Silver-tier 9, and some stayed there for quite some time, consuming extra large amounts of energy.

After finding no more targets, they actually started killing and devouring each other, and finally two successfully advanced to Gold-tier.

This proved that xenomorphs could reach the Gold tier.

When the Leviathan probed their strength, it found they had ordinary Gold-tier 1 power, without any special talents. Their only advantages were their fearlessness of death and ability to mimic and evolve, gaining battle experience very quickly.

At first, Xu Luo wondered if reaching Gold-tier could change the xenomorphs' short lifespan and genetic defect issues.

Unfortunately, reality proved he had thought too much. Xenomorphs still died at Gold-tier, just that compared to before, when not in battle, they could survive longer, about three real days, which was one month in the World of Gods.

After one died, Xu Luo took the other one out specifically for individual battles, feeding it to improve its strength.

As a result, Xu Luo learned that xenomorphs could extend their lifespan after improving their strength.

The stronger they were, the longer they could survive.

At Gold-tier 9, xenomorphs could survive for about a year.

This was what Xu Luo deduced from its life signs.

And Gold-tier 9 was the limit of xenomorphs' strength.

Because the Queen was at Gold-tier, there was no higher level.

Moreover, above Gold-tier was Dark Gold quality, with Legendary strength. How could that be easily reached?

Although they could only exist for a year, Xu Luo was very satisfied. As long as he raised the xenomorphs' strength to Gold-tier 9, it was equivalent to having an extra Gold-tier unit. Although only for a year, the combat power was solid.

Although the starships weren't built yet, Xu Luo still directly used search cards to randomly find enemies.

This method had a drawback: you didn't know who the opponent was.

Sometimes, Xu Luo had also invaded humans, but in such cases he directly turned and left, not feeling good about attacking his own people.

When encountering alien races, there was nothing to say. He directly deployed facehuggers, first letting them eat most of the opponent's units, then speaking with a friendly face.

"Young man, you need protection!"

He went out time and time again, just to let more xenomorphs advance.

For averagely developed Divine Domains, even if all living things in the entire Divine Domain were devoured, plus the xenomorphs' own mutual killing, the accumulated energy was still not enough to advance to Gold-tier.

Xu Luo usually invaded multiple Divine Domains together, then threw all the xenomorphs together, letting them devour each other, like raising venomous insects, keeping only the strongest few.

As long as they reached Gold-tier, they could exist for at least thirty days of Divine Domain time, enough to wait for the next invasion.

Afterward, they just needed to continuously devour flesh and blood.

Evolution points could have a similar effect, but the required amount was enormous.

For the same amount of flesh and blood, after being collected by Mayflies into evolution points and fed to xenomorphs, the consumption increased fivefold!