Lin Xiao's Talent

Two hundred Lizardman Archers emerged from the Portal and spread out in a formation three to four hundred meters long. He narrowed his eyes at the several dozen Lizardman Archers in the center who were taller than their kin and even carried bows a size larger. Right before his eyes, those larger Lizardman Archers drew their bows from several hundred meters away and shot into the sky.

Of course, they had not spotted him and were not shooting at him. This was an ultra-long-range arcing volley.

Arrow after powerful arrow soared over two hundred meters into the air before slanting down into the charging Murloc horde, felling more than a dozen Murlocs on the spot.

While the Kinfolk charged, seven successive waves of arrows rained down, leaving over a hundred Murlocs dead along the way.

When they reached a distance of around one hundred and thirty to forty meters, the ordinary Lizardman Archers also nocked their arrows and began firing in high arcs. Arrows filled the sky, and many more Murlocs were shot dead before they could arrive.

Yet not a single Murloc was afraid. Their steadfast faith made them temporarily forget their fear, and driven on by the Naga behind them, they charged the Lizardman Archers with wild cries.

After decades of change, as generations of Murlocs died off—including the Murloc Chieftain incarnations Lin Xiao occasionally used, who had died of old age—the newborn Gray Mist Fishmen had completely submitted to the Blackscale Naga's overwhelming power. By now, the Gray Mist Fishmen had become complete vassals of the Blackscale Naga. Lin Xiao's Divine Domain was now wholly centered around the Blackscale Naga, with the Gray Mist Fishmen serving as attendants.

In terms of racial combat strength, the Lizardman Archers were certainly stronger than the Murlocs. But there were simply too many Murlocs. More than two thousand Murlocs from the entire Divine Domain had been projected here, swarming in from every direction in a vast black mass.

After the Lizardman Archers fired over a dozen volleys, the Murlocs had already closed to within fifty meters. The Lizardmen had intended to fire another two volleys before widening the distance and kiting them, but at that instant, the foremost Murlocs suddenly surged in speed. Like warriors charging, they crossed the fifty-meter gap in the blink of an eye and crashed fiercely into the unprepared Lizardman Archers, sending the Lizardmen sprawling in all directions.

To Lin Xiao, these two stages posed no difficulty at all. He simply had too many Kinfolk now.

Not even counting the Blackscale Naga, he had over two thousand Murlocs alone. That by itself was enough to clear these three elimination stages.

In less than two minutes, the relentlessly advancing Murlocs had swallowed up the Lizardman Archers.

The second wave had ended just like that. The Blackscale Naga, the true main force of the Divine Domain, had not even moved.

Several Blackscale Naga Leaders shouted for the injured Greyscale Fishmen and those exhausted after using Salted Fish Thrust to fall back. The remaining Murlocs noisily gathered into several formations behind the Portal, waiting for the third wave of enemies to arrive.

In the void, Wu Hai had just left one of his students' Demiplanes.

Thinking about that student's Kinfolk performance just now, he could not stop shaking his head.

Their strength was not bad. There were nearly a thousand Greenskin Tree Frogmen in total, including quite a few Rank One Tree Frogmen Warriors. Yet they had struggled so badly against the charge of merely five hundred Kobolds. When a Kobold warlock's Fireball exploded, some Frogmen had actually been frightened into retreating.

What did that mean? It meant that this student's Divine Domain Kinfolk had been cultivated terribly poorly.

The Kinfolk population met the standard, but their faith was severely lacking. They were fighting for the Deity they believed in, yet some had fled despite holding the advantage. Wu Hai could only keep shaking his head at the sight.

Of course, with the overall strength of that student's Kinfolk, they would be able to clear all three stages and avoid elimination. But in his heart, he had already concluded that this student's future prospects were limited.

As a reserve Deity, the most important thing was cultivating the faith of one's believers. Faith was what mattered most to a Deity.

If one could not even cultivate the faith of one's own Kinfolk, what would one use to conquer the natives of Alien Planes in the future? At that thought, he could not help thinking of Lin Xiao from his class. The Kinfolk in Lin Xiao's Divine Domain had been managed exceptionally well. Every single one of them was a True Believer, while the proportion of Devout Believers and Fanatic Believers was remarkably high. Not only in the class, but even across the entire grade, he ranked among the very best.

Wan Chuan and Yuan Hong were stronger than Lin Xiao, but they could not compare to him in cultivating believers. Their talent in this regard was inferior to his.

In the eyes of beings above veteran demigods, the ability to cultivate believers' faith was also a kind of talent—a hidden talent.

The school offered theory classes on this subject. Over the Main World's hundreds of thousands of years of history, who knew how many Deities had been born? There were countless courses on how to cultivate believers' faith. Besides classroom instruction, there was plenty of free material online to search through. None of it was a secret.

Yet even if everyone followed the theoretical courses exactly, using the same methods, different students would still achieve different results.

It was strange. Many powerful True Gods, including a being with Great Divine Power, had researched this issue, but ultimately found nothing conclusive. In the end, that great being had said only one thing: "Cultivating faith is also a talent!"

In Wu Hai's eyes, Lin Xiao's talent in this aspect was anything but ordinary.

With that thought, Class Teacher Wu Hai suddenly stopped on his way to Wan Chuan's plane and changed direction. He suddenly wanted to see how this student was performing now.

He remembered that this student had performed very well in the last Placement Test. His Murloc Kinfolk had been weak, but that powerful burst skill had left a deep impression on him. He wondered whether the student could continue to perform well in this Final Exam.

In the north of the Demiplane, a three-meter-tall Portal stood on the wasteland. As ripples spread across its surface, Pigge Orcs around one point eight to one point nine meters tall, powerfully built and bearing pig heads atop human bodies, emerged one after another.

Pigge Orcs were a type of Orc, one of the mid-tier races among Orcs. Individually, they were somewhat stronger than humans, though only to a limited extent. Their racial strength lay in their powerful reproductive ability, which ranked among the best of the entire Orc race.

The enemy of the third wave was the Pigge Orcs. Because they were so strong, their numbers were not much greater than those of the second wave: only three hundred ordinary Pigge Orcs and thirty elite Orc Warriors. Yet their overall strength far surpassed the second wave.

The threat level of this wave was around seventy to eighty percent of the extra test Lin Xiao had faced during the Placement Test. He had passed even the extra test, so this was nothing to worry about. His Kinfolk were far stronger now than they had been then.

More than three hundred Pigge Orcs emerged from the Portal and assembled in front of it. Thirty elite Pigge Orcs wielding weapons such as spiked maces and wooden clubs roared loudly. After a brief rallying speech, they charged toward the dense mass of Murlocs.

High in the sky, Lin Xiao's body was shrouded in golden light and invisible to mortals. He leaned forward and gazed down, rubbing his chin as he considered for a moment. Then he opened his mouth and issued a Divine Revelation.

The Murlocs, who had been preparing to countercharge, suddenly stopped and quickly parted. Several hundred Blackscale Naga swam forward clutching Fine Iron Short Spears. Their long Tails swayed, their thick scales scraping against the sand with grating squeaks. At the calls of several Naga Leaders, they spread out and charged the oncoming Pigge Orcs.