Chapter 130: The Education Department’s Reward
When Xu Luo finished collecting a round and calculated, he found that he hadn't really earned much at all!
The protection fees were collected in reality. The problem was that due to the battles, he had lost quite a few units, and after final calculations, although he had received many IOUs, there wasn't much actual faith power in hand.
Even what he had received was invested back into the previous battles.
Xu Luo had a clear plan for his future development.
Although both the Leviathan and starships were things he needed,
they weren't urgent. The real pressing matter should be upgrading all the Queens first, then letting them divide. That would allow the Zerg's strength to make a great leap forward.
Of course, during this period, the random evolution function should also be activated.
Unlike when evolving the Leviathan, the consumption for random evolution wasn't large, and it wasn't a one-time consumption but a gradual decrease. Given the current output of Xu Luo's Divine Domain, this was not a burden at all.
After activating automatic evolution, he could wait and see what kind of results would appear.
Xu Luo was very much looking forward to new types of Zerg.
The appearance of the Leviathan was already the biggest surprise.
Now the goal was clear.
First upgrade the Queens, then divide them, after that, hatch Leviathans while purchasing starships.
He had too few objects from which he could collect protection fees now.
Xu Luo felt that with the Leviathan, it was time for him to form his own expeditionary force.
Riding starships, roaming everywhere, conquering any target he saw, this was what he should be doing.
Wherever I go, it becomes my territory!
While developing new "leeks", he also needed to protect the existing ones well.
While suppressing their disloyalty, he also had to guard against them secretly doing something to him.
Thinking this, Xu Luo felt he was really too hard-working.
So many things to do every day.
Moreover, although his strength was growing stronger now, he found that there were more and more places needing faith power.
And they were all major expenses.
Whether it was the Queen's advancement and division, or the Leviathan's hatching, or the construction of starships.
Each expenditure was in the hundreds of millions.
Relying on his own output, even though the Divine Domain now had numerous Zerg that could provide a large amount of faith power, it was still not enough to cover expenses.
The main thing was to increase income!
His Divine Domain had no specialties, unlike some people who specifically sold units, so if he wanted to make money, he could only go rob.
Actually, Xu Luo's Divine Domain was vast and could be used specifically for planting and such, but whether planting or breeding, it required a large investment of capital with a long recovery cycle.
And it also needed dedicated people for care.
Other people's units could do these things without needing to hire additional people, but for Xu Luo, with the Zerg's simple intelligence, wanting them to become his helpers would require who knows how many years of training to accomplish even basic tasks.
The Zerg were good at fighting, but this kind of daily routine wasn't their forte.
Moreover, if the Divine Domain was used for planting, the Mayflies still needed to gnaw. It was feared that the things grown wouldn't be enough for the Mayflies to gnaw on.
It wasn't convenient to specifically leave places for this.
So rather than honestly developing on his own, it was better to directly take the path of plunder. What could be faster than robbing for money?
The Zerg's development direction was different from other creatures from the beginning.
With the Queen as the core, constantly exploding troops and constantly plundering in all directions was the fastest way to develop.
This was exactly what Xu Luo was doing now.
Especially after this Queen's advancement, becoming a Gold-Tier Monarch, the increase in strength was secondary. The Queen's combat power wasn't too strong to begin with; its most terrifying aspect was still its reproductive ability.
After directly dividing, the Zerg's egg-laying quantity would double in the future.
In reality, the competition was still ongoing.
The points competition was a one-on-one battle, nothing much to say about it. It was just to determine the school rankings, relating to the allocation of resources for the next year.
As for the team competition, Fang Shuo and Qianqian's team was too strong, crushing everyone and directly leaving others in the dust.
In the individual competition, Xu Luo was the first to advance. Afterward, he fought through ten five-person melees and two challenge matches.
Some people, although they failed in the melee, had very high scores, so they challenged winners with lower scores than themselves.
One person won and one lost, finally confirming the ten spots.
The second and third years also completed their selections in about the same time.
The quota was no different from previous years.
Being able to qualify in the first year meant getting more resources than others, especially after competing with other more powerful geniuses. Whether they won or lost, they had gained richer experience than others. After encountering different geniuses, their horizons and knowledge were different from other classmates.
As expected, No. 6 High School didn't have any second or third-year students enter the top ten.
Many people had similar strength, so the competition was very fierce, making for very exciting matches.
Li Dong, who was highly anticipated by No. 6 High School, although he performed very strongly in individual battles, his units and strongest believer didn't have an advantage, and he was eliminated in the melee.
Although his score wasn't low, unfortunately, he still ranked outside the top ten.
So in the end, across three grades, No. 6 High School only had Xu Luo enter the top ten, gaining a qualifying spot.
Compared to previous years, at least this time they didn't come away empty-handed.
After determining the top ten, the importance of the following competitions was relatively lower.
Because the top ten were the city-level league qualifiers to participate in the regional competition.
The time afterward was to determine individual rankings, thereby deciding the rewards to be given.
The rankings of the top ten were based on each person's score. Those who felt their ranking was low could challenge an opponent, with each person having three chances to challenge others.
This was a very interesting segment that contributed many exciting matches every year.
Although Xu Luo's score was a bit low in the third round, he scored very high in the first two rounds, so he ultimately ranked third.
Without being polite, he directly chose to challenge Qianqian, who ranked first.
Facing his challenge, unexpectedly, Qianqian directly conceded without fighting.
Afterward, others continued to fight. Even Qianqian faced challenges from others, but Xu Luo never received any challenges.
His powerful dominance was there for all to see. Everyone knew challenging him would result in certain defeat, so they were unwilling to waste their challenge opportunities on him.
In the end, Xu Luo undoubtedly won the title of Rookie King for this session.
When Xu Luo finally won the Rookie King title, people watching in reality and those following online all voted for him, his popularity soaring. In the end, he even tied with Fang Shuo.
This individual competition was thus concluded. With Xu Luo and Qianqian, the people of Tianhai City were full of confidence. When it came time for the regional competition, their 11th District would surely make a big appearance globally.
Last year and the year before, Tianhai's performance wasn't very good. Among the 36 global districts, the 11th District's best performance was only making it into the top 20.
The 11th District had been absent from the planetary war for five consecutive years.
Starting from school selection, going through city-wide league, regional league, global league, and all-race league, finally selecting the ten most elite humans to represent humanity in interstellar competition with other civilizations.
This was the highest honor, naturally everyone wanted to go, so the competition was fierce.
However, high school students generally didn't have a share in the interstellar war.
Alien races didn't have the concept of high school. The participants were basically veterans who had opened their Divine Domains for five to seven years.
Corresponding to college students on the human side, selecting high school students to participate in battle would just be giving away free wins.
After this competition, there would be a month's rest, waiting for the start of the regional league.
At that time, it would be the people selected from various cities in the 11th District competing for 20 qualifying spots.
Because Tianhai was the center of the entire district, encompassing most of the most powerful geniuses, basically all ten people would ultimately qualify. People from other places would compete for the last ten spots.
Seeing Xu Luo finally win Rookie King, although he already knew this would be the result, the over 80-year-old Zhong Tianyue couldn't help but feel excited.
Dongfang Cheng beside him was also applauding, but there was some feeling of loss in his heart.
It wasn't that he wasn't happy, just purely a feeling of loss.
The title of Rookie King had basically been monopolized by them since Dongfang Cheng took charge of No. 1 High School, and it hadn't been lost for a very long time.
After selecting the ten people to go on the expedition, the city's Education Department naturally had something to offer.
Not only that, but there were also rewards offered by various schools.
These were already put forward before the competition, just waiting to be distributed to these students after the competition.
The ten people on the expedition not only represented their respective schools, but at this time, they also represented their entire Tianhai City.
For fear of discouraging ordinary students, the rewards for them weren't directly announced.
After the competition, Xu Luo alone was invited to an independent office, where three people were already present.
"Xu Luo, come here!" Seeing him, Zhong Tianyue beckoned with a face full of smiles.
"You already know Dongfang, so I won't introduce him. This is Wen Zheng, Deputy Director of Tianhai City's Education Department. He put in a lot of effort for you to apply for and upgrade your seed status."
Zhong Tianyue understood very well that without Wen Zheng's efforts, Xu Luo's seed level would have been quite controversial.
Level 3 was possible, level 4 was also fine, there was no fixed number.
In the end, it was Wen Zheng who strongly stated that Xu Luo's performance in the great battle, as well as his personal strength and talent, finally secured the level 4 seed status.
The treatment between level 3 and level 4 seeds was worlds apart.
It wasn't just about the killing certificate and gun-carrying permit, more importantly, it was about the attention from above.
"Thank you, Director Wen!" Xu Luo expressed his gratitude.
"Xu Luo, you don't need to be so formal. Actually, I didn't do much. This is what you deserve. I just played the role I should have played," Wen Zheng waved his hand.
"You working hard to become stronger is the best repayment to me.
Coming here this time, firstly is to award you your prize, and secondly to tell you that after the regional competition is over, we will conduct a two-month closed training, specifically to improve your strengths in various aspects, targeting your weaknesses. If you have any matters to attend to, it's best to handle them now. It will be very difficult to contact the outside world at that time."
"Closed training?" Xu Luo didn't quite understand. The development of the Divine Domain relied more on oneself. Others could only give some experience. What was there to train?
With resources, development could be accelerated. Otherwise, even with intensive training, with only a month's time, what use could it be?
"You'll know when the time comes!" Wen Zheng just smiled mysteriously, without explaining what kind of training it would be.
"Let me first talk about your rewards!" Wen Zheng took out a list.
"Here, besides 200 million faith power, there's also a reward of 100,000 credit points. In addition, there are ten rare items here, including units, materials, and resources. You're in first place, so you have priority in choosing."
Saying this, he directly placed the list in front of Xu Luo.
On the list, there were only the names of the items and simple introductions. You could see what type they were, but it was difficult to discern which was the most valuable or highest-starred from this.
Because the same things with the same attributes could have vastly different prices due to different years and other reasons.
Xu Luo wasn't a professional appraiser, and even appraisers couldn't see much value without seeing the actual items, just looking at such a list.
So he could only make simple judgments based on the knowledge he had learned, and finally chose a unit.
Treant Herdsman Unit Seal Card: Sealed inside were a group of Treant Herdsmen, who possessed decent combat abilities.
This was the prompt that could be seen.
Xu Luo knew about the Treant Herdsman unit. This was actually a branch profession of elves, specializing in companionship with trees, able to summon powerful tree warriors. The older they were, the stronger their combat power, and some could even summon ancient treants.
Among Silver-tier units, they were elite units.
Based on this reason, Xu Luo chose it.
"It seems your eye is not bad!" Seeing Xu Luo choose this, Wen Zheng raised his eyebrows.
This was a small test, testing his grasp of the basics.
When faced with choices of unknown value, choosing the most valuable item was a very big test of one's basic skills.
Just like now, the Treant Herdsmen weren't the highest in apparent value among the ten options, but at least they ranked in the top three.
"This is just 'not bad'?" Zhong Tianyue laughed mockingly.
"He picked out the most valuable rare three-star item."
"What I meant was that among the ten choices, he could judge the apparent value of the items, finding one of the three with the highest apparent value. His basic skills are not bad," Wen Zheng shook his head and explained.
Not knowing the actual value, but the apparent value could be roughly estimated.
Weighing among them to see which was most valuable.
This involved one's knowledge reserves in various aspects, which wasn't so easy.
"Alright, my task is complete. Hurry up with your business, then switch to the next one!" Wen Zheng urged.