"Haha, it worked."
Zeng Shen laughed happily. Looking at the queen ant in his palm, he continued using Heizi as his mouthpiece.
"Tell the queen to order every ant in her colony to submit to me, obey my commands for all eternity, and worship me. Whatever I want them to be, whatever I want them to do, they must obey unconditionally."
Heizi quickly relayed Zeng Shen's orders to the queen.
A short while later.
The queen struggled to move her bloated body, inching toward the edge of the leaf, her antennae waving toward the colony's nest.
Zeng Shen understood immediately and lowered the leaf into the ant colony, which was currently in an uproar.
As soon as the ants saw their queen, they crowded around to protect her. At the same time, they seemed intent on driving out Heizi and the others.
But the queen merely wriggled her bloated body and twitched her antennae, and every ant stopped.
Then, amid the dense black swarm, white rays brimming with intelligence began shining from the ants' bodies, one after another, and streamed toward Zeng Shen.
[Congratulations, host. Under the Mighty Ant Queen's guidance, all Mighty Ants have followed their queen in worshipping you as their deity. Survival points +5,500.] [Congratulations, host. You have gained 550 casual believers. Faith +5,500.]
"Ah, what a windfall!"
"I just gained five hundred and fifty casual believers in one go. Apart from five males, they're all females!"
"And not only did I recover all the faith I spent, I also earned a total of 6,500 survival points."
"That brings me up to 9,230 survival points."
"I'm only 770 survival points away from my next ten-pull."
Zeng Shen was so happy he could barely stop grinning. After all, these two hours of work had earned him more survival points than his previous two or three days combined.
Sure enough.
His judgment had been right. The fastest way to earn survival points was to find intelligent races and turn them into his believers.
Afterward.
Zeng Shen glanced around and, after making sure no one was nearby, quickly summoned the Divine Domain Gate, setting its destination to Emerald Valley.
In an instant, a Divine Domain Gate over two meters tall and three meters wide appeared before him.
Zeng Shen focused his mind and willed the Divine Domain Gate before him to shrink until it was only palm-sized. Then he told Heizi, "Have the queen lead all the ants whose bodies glowed just now into this ring of light."
Upon receiving the order, Heizi quickly relayed his master's instructions to the queen.
The queen received the instructions and gave her antennae a slight twitch.
Immediately, several ants that had glowed earlier began carrying the queen. With over five hundred sturdy ants behind them, they formed a mighty black procession and marched toward the Divine Domain Gate.
[Warning! Your believers possess no divine energy. Upon entering the Divine Domain, each second will pass like ten years for them, causing rapid aging and decay.]
The instant the queen was carried into Emerald Valley, Zeng Shen heard a familiar warning. But another reassuring notification quickly followed.
[Divine Domain trait: Divine Blessing activated. Your believers have received the protection of one point of divine energy and can safely live within the Divine Domain as normal.]
"Phew. Good thing I have Divine Blessing. It lets me bring believers into the Divine Domain ahead of time."
Zeng Shen exhaled softly, then told Heizi, "Time for me to keep my promise. Go pick a few females you like, ones whose bodies didn't glow just now, and bring them here."
Upon receiving Zeng Shen's signal, Heizi turned and hurried into the depths of the nest.
A short while later.
Seven winged ants that looked like miniature queens slowly crawled out of the passage. Three of them also carried three tiny ant eggs with winged forms on their backs.
"Well, aren't you an adventurous little fellow? You won't even spare the tiny ones," Zeng Shen teased, then added, "All right, you've had your eye on these queen candidates for a long time, haven't you? Fine. I'll grant your wish and set you up."
Zeng Shen immediately cast Beast Taming on each of the ten winged queen candidates, turning them into tamed beasts.
Then.
He gave the queen candidates their orders.
"From now on, you all belong to Heizi. Do whatever he tells you, including breeding."
After issuing the order, Zeng Shen selected ten sturdy-looking female ants and turned them into tamed beasts.
Then.
He assigned these ten females to serve as Heizi's personal maids, then instructed Heizi to lead his women and the ten female ants through the Divine Domain Gate.
He wanted Heizi to settle far from the queen and quickly produce an army of Swift Ant Beasts for him in the future.
As for Heizi Two and Heizi Three.
After some thought, Zeng Shen made them the Mighty Ant Queen's guards, responsible for relaying his orders whenever needed.
Once all the arrangements were complete.
About fifteen minutes had passed.
After checking that not a single intelligent Mighty Ant had been left behind, Zeng Shen took out a bag of cat food and poured some around the queen, as well as around Heizi's tribe, which had settled fifty meters away from her.
Then Zeng Shen closed the Divine Domain Gate, went to a nearby vending machine, and bought a chilled five-liter jug of Master Kong drinking water, which he poured over the mound housing the nest.
In an instant, the ant nest crumbled, exposing a dense black mass of ants and their eggs.
Zeng Shen stamped down.
[Undaunted by death, the host has made a desperate last stand while surrounded by Swift Ant Beasts, slaying a large number of them. Survival points +5,770.]
Listening to the system notification, Zeng Shen lifted his foot from the "field of corpses" and stamped several more times on a cluster of ants that had been washed aside.
But this time, no system notification sounded.
Zeng Shen turned and left.
He knew the remaining ants probably hadn't survived the three years of the apocalypse to be recognized by the system as living mutated beasts. Stamping on the remaining ants scattered everywhere by the water likely wouldn't earn him any survival points.
After he left.
Without their queen, the surviving ants quietly regrouped into separate new colonies and produced new queens. A year later, under the influence of divine energy, new intelligent races and new exotic beasts would once again emerge here.
Of course, that was all in the future, and Zeng Shen knew nothing about it.
At that moment, he was walking toward the botanical garden's exit while opening WeChat, intending to message Li Yuqing and Liu Tongtong to ask whether they had finished choosing their hanfu.
Instead, he discovered that Liu Miao had sent him a message half an hour earlier, before noon.
"What are you up to? Are you free the morning three days from now?"
"What's up?" Zeng Shen replied.
Liu Miao quickly sent a voice message. "The morning three days from now, I need you to bring that risk agreement and come with me to the bank to apply for a loan. You'll need to be there to sign your name."
"Sure. Send me the address, and I'll be there."
"Okay, thank you."
Liu Miao sent the voice message along with an address.
Zeng Shen glanced at it. It was the headquarters of the city's largest Recruitment Bank, over by Jinhai Wharf.
"I don't think I've triggered any first-time rewards in that area yet. I'll go take a look tomorrow."
Muttering to himself, Zeng Shen started a video call with Li Yuqing.
She hung up immediately.
Zeng Shen was momentarily bewildered, but a voice message from Li Yuqing soon arrived.
"Hubby, what's up? Tongtong and I are in a changing room, trying on hanfu."
"Baby, it's twelve thirty. What are you planning to have for lunch?"
"Hubby, we still haven't finished choosing. There are several more traditional hanfu shops we want to visit later. Besides, we don't really feel like having lunch. Tongtong and I ate some snacks while picking out hanfu just now, so we're both a little full."
Zeng Shen replied, "All right, keep shopping. I'll grab something to eat and stop by the Lihuo Martial Arts Hall later. Tonight, I'll pick you both up downstairs at the studio, and we'll go out for dinner."
"Go ahead, hubby. Wait, what color dudou do you like?"
"Huh?" Zeng Shen blurted out in surprise, only to see that the voice message had been recalled. A new one arrived immediately afterward.
"Mwah. Go ahead, hubby."
Zeng Shen smiled.