This is the Divine Energy Ring, which has many functions. It’s almost like a combination of William's former smartphone, ID card, and wallet. Without it, one cannot survive in this society, and will even be questioned and investigated by law enforcement departments.
"Please, this way." Hearing William’s inquiry, the staff member gestured and led him to a quieter VIP area. There was an empty spot at the spacious counter.
William immediately walked over to the counter and stood firmly. Upon seeing William approach, the staff behind the counter quickly waved and activated the virtual scanner on the desk.
A blue virtual ring projection appeared on the desk, and William raised his right hand. A faint white light flickered on his Divine Energy Ring as it passed through the projection.
The staff behind the counter immediately focused on the holographic screen in front of him.
"Hello, Mr. William. Your remaining quota for this month includes 120 high-energy nutrient capsules and 30 low-level nutrient capsules. How many would you like to collect?" The staff member quickly reported the relevant information.
William politely responded, "I’ll take them all, please. Could you package them into two bundles for me to take?"
"Of course, please wait a moment." After hearing William's request, the staff member did not hesitate and began fulfilling it.
Two minutes later, the staff member took two bundles from the conveyor belt behind him and placed them on the counter. "Your nutrient capsules are ready."
William immediately picked up the two bundles to check their weight. "Alright, this is manageable. Thanks!" He casually thanked the staff member, then turned and placed the two large bags of nutrient capsules over his shoulder as he walked toward the door.
"The food problem for the next three months is solved. Now, I can focus on closing myself off and developing my divine realm. First, I’ll set a small goal: to ignite the divine fire and become a god," William thought, feeling good as he boarded the free transportation heading back in the direction he came from.
He aimed to use the three-month school break to expand his followers as much as possible. Once the three months were over, the environment in the world of the gods would no longer be as safe. Those with bad luck might be invaded the very day their protection period ended, suffering devastating losses or even perishing if they lacked the power to protect themselves.
Upon returning home as quickly as possible, William placed the two bags of nutrient capsules down and went into the independent bathroom to handle his physiological needs before taking a quick shower.
"Everything is ready. The world of the gods, here I come." With this thought, William lay down in the divine landing pod and slowly closed his eyes.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
He once again entered his divine realm. Compared to last time, not much had changed. Only five or six days had passed, and the ant colony had been developing well in his absence without any accidents.
William arrived once again in front of the ant nest. His primary task now was to thoroughly study the queen ant’s genetic fusion talent and examine if his divine characteristic, genetic adjustment, could truly achieve the desired effect he anticipated.
With his divine consciousness, he gently entered the queen ant’s body, carefully sensing the effect of the genetic fusion talent.
"Just as I expected, it’s exactly what I thought." After two days of observation, William had completely understood the genetic fusion talent.
The talent worked mostly as described: the queen ant could store the genes of creatures she consumed. To activate this talent required a large amount of energy, but fortunately, it could be replaced by the power of faith.
When the queen produced larval embryos, she would inject the new genes into them, allowing the genes to naturally combine with the embryos. When the embryos hatched into larvae and eventually became worker ants, the merged genetic traits would be clearly expressed.
This method of fusion was not as excellent as the chimeric ants in William’s previous world, which could enhance all worker ants effectively. Instead, it had a very high degree of randomness. For example, if the queen consumed a venomous spider, and its genes were fused into the larvae, the resulting worker ants might not develop venomous fangs or poison sacs, but instead, might grow spider legs or even become web-weaving ants. The fusion was highly unpredictable.
William's divine characteristic, genetic adjustment, could perfectly solve this issue. As long as he could fully analyze the venomous spider's genes and understand each individual gene's role, he could manually control the fusion process between the genes and the larval embryos.
He could even create new unit templates through genetic construction, allowing the queen to produce other types of ant colony units.
Having clarified the workings of both genetic fusion and genetic adjustment, William immediately began issuing commands to the queen ant.
"Start collecting and fusing genes immediately to build a gene stockpile." Upon receiving William’s command, the queen ant’s two antennae began to vibrate. The worker ants around her immediately turned and began to crawl outside the ant nest.
As they moved, they passed on the queen's command to every worker ant they encountered. As the command spread throughout the ant colony, the large, fist-sized worker ants expanded their hunting range beyond the area surrounding the ant nest, and various kinds of insects became their hunting targets.
Meanwhile, the worker ants continued bringing various meat chunks, mostly small mammals found within the divine realm, to the queen.
When William observed the queen activating the genetic fusion talent, he saw that the required consumption of faith power ranged from a few tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand points, which greatly pleased him.
The ant colony now provided him with over 150,000 faith points daily, which more than covered the cost of the genetic fusion. As the colony continued to expand, the income from faith would keep increasing, and the eventual gains would far outweigh the consumption.
"Wait...," William noticed something.
A few worker ants were carrying a food item that wasn’t meat. Instead, it was a round, greenish insect, about the size of a thumb, with a shiny, translucent appearance and looking quite tasty.
The queen ant promptly devoured these insects one by one, which piqued William’s curiosity. From the perspective of evolutionary theory, every species tends to evolve in ways that benefit its survival and reproduction.
However, from the reactions of the queen and the worker ants, this insect seemed to be a non-toxic, easily captured food source.
William was very curious: how could this insect survive in his divine realm?