Inside the Divine Space. The moment the demon king died, Cedric immediately received several notifications.

  [Congratulations on killing the demon king in your world. You’ve gained 2 GP.]

  [As the demon king has been defeated, most of the NE in your world have been purified. The rate of NE infection has greatly decreased. The chance of the demon king to appear in the future has been greatly decreased. Your world’s resistance to Negative Energy has also slightly I creased.]

  Cedric breathed in relief upon hearing the notification.

  The situation might seem easy as Lacius has curb stomped the ant queen. But, it happened because Lacius has been storing faith energy for centuries, which he has mostly spent during the battle to strengthen his blessed power.

  Furthermore, the ant queen hasn’t been born for long and the amount of ants in the colony is still within control.

  Even then, Lacius has almost failed to kill the demon king this time.

  If not for the Wind Sword that Cedric sent, Lacius would’ve escaped from the cave, and it’ll take god knows how long before the demon king can be truly annihilated.

  After summarizing the situation, Cedric asked the System, “How much longer does my world need before it leveled up? Does the number change after half a city got killed?”

  [The death of creatures in the city had indeed increased the time slightly. But the demon king’s death has helped your world to grow. So, the amount of time before your world leveled up has been shortened to approximately 1 year and 1 months.]

  “That doesn’t seem long.”

  Cedric proceed to check the situation in the Crystal Cube world while waiting for the time to pass.

  He first checked the ant nest and saw several eggs have hatched from the dead ant queen’s corpse.

  Those hatched eggs merely stay as a larva for a few minutes before turning into several giant ants.

  Right now, they are fighting to the death against each other.

  One of the slightly bigger ant is especially brutal as it has killed all the surrounding ants.

  Soon, the battle royale ended with the slightly bigger ant as the ultimate winner.

  The ant that has won walked towards the dead ant queen’s corpse and swallowed some disgusting fluids that flow out of its mouth.

  After drinking that unknown fluid, the recently born giant ant shed its carapace several times in the span of an hour.

  During the time, another batch of eggs has hatched from the ant queen’s body and turns into several larvae.

  This time, they’re much smaller than the first batch and soon transformed into several half meters long ant.

  The surviving giant ant who has finished shedding its carapace walked towards the group of much smaller ants. Seeing the giant ant, the all the smaller ants gathered around it and they moved toward one of the surrounding tunnels and left the cave.

  Cedric, who saw all that, decided to ask the System in concern, “Hey, can you explain what’s happening?”

  “That big ant seems to be the new ant queen. So, is it alright for them to leave just like that? Or should I remind Lacius to quickly kill it?”

  [The ant is indeed the new queen, and it has just left with the recently born male ants. They should be ready to start a new colony. But don’t worry, they’re just a normal NE infected creature who can at most occasionally give birth to Lower Level 1 ant soldier.]

  Just to make sure, Cedric activated his Divine Sight and checked the newly born ant queen’s level.

  [Level: Lower Level 2

  Potential: Peak Level 1]

  “Well, it’s a Lower Level 2 queen ant.”

  After contemplation, Cedric decided to leave them be. Especially since he just thought of a new plan.

  As an ant queen, it should be able to start a colony as long as there are some male ants.

  Cedric plans to send the ant queen toward the dwarves’ territory, and used it as the main attacker to pressure the dwarves.

  The current dwarves should be strong enough to survive the attack from an ant colony headed by Lower Level 2 ant queen.

  He has a gut feeling that this plan will bite him in the ass like usual. But Cedric is willing to take a bet.

  After all, the battle between a race that instinctively knows how to dig, against a race that loves to dig should be incredible.

  After that battle, the dwarf’s tunneling technology should greatly increase.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Once Cedric made a basic plan, he moved his mental power toward the dwarf territory in search of a suitable place to complete his plan. Soon, he found several suitable places, and noted their location.

  The moment he has the chance to directly intervene, Cedric will move the ant queen and some male ants into one of the suitable location.

  Finally, he checked on Lacius and found him inside a city.

  Except for Lacius, there is also the survivor from the previous demon king attack, and the familiar duo of city lord Hendric and that pain in the ass old head priest.

  From a brief glimpse, Cedric learned that Lacius has been gathering people from the temple’s headquarter in the River Stone city to help him collect the corpse of the ant queen.

  As the location of the ant queen’s corpse is quite deep, Lacius has requested fifty earth elements blessed, with one Level 2 blessed among them.

  Because the location of those blessed are spread throughout the human territory, coupled with the inconvenience caused by low leveled transportation and telecommunication equipment. It took slightly over a month before the blessed he requested arrived.

  While waiting, Lacius has returned to the ant queen’s cave and continued to study the corpse.

  That’s when he saw a few additional ant corpses that has been killed by the newly born ant queen and frowned.

  After checking the surrounding and making sure there are no more living ants inside, Lacius walked towards the ant queen’s body and saw nothing much has changed.

  There are just a few additional empty ant egg shells around the ant queen’s abdomen area.

  Lacius circled around the ant queen’s body several times before starting his study.

  With the Wind Sword as his scalpel, Lacius occasionally cut a part of the ant queen, or imbued his energy into the ant and queen’s corpse.

  He continued his study until a month later.

  Wiping the trace of mucus from his sword, Lacius muttered, “The blessed I requested should be ready by now.”

  He jumped through the hole and went towards the city he has chosen as a meeting place and brought them on the surface above the ant queens’s nest

  Lacius pointed at the ground, and without much nonsense, he immediately ask them to use their blessed power and dig a hole to retrieve the ant queen’s body.

  To make sure they can bring out the ant queen’s body. Instead of digging vertically like what Lacius does, the blessed dug their tunnel diagonally. If seen with an x-ray, the tunnel they dug looks pretty similar to a metal spring.

  While the blessed are busy living their lives as a humanoid excavator. Lacius has returned to the ant cave through the hole he has created.

  He silently studied the ant queen’s corpse for eight whole months.

  Finally, the blessed he sent has successfully created a tunnel that can be used to retrieve the ant queen’s corpse.

  The moment those people saw the cave full of dead giant ants and the few especially massive ant guards and queen, their expression became full of fear and awe.

  During their journey to dig the tunnel, they have met many giant ants whose power equalled blessed humans.

  Those are the ants that have scattered throughout the ant nests once the ant queen has been killed.

  They have even met the Level 2 ant guard that has escaped Lacius’s slaughter.

  If not for the Level 2 blessed who has joined them and got injured to kill the ant, the team would’ve been wiped out.

  After hearing their story, Lacius sighed.

  He indeed has thought of cleaning the whole ant nest. But the ant tunnel is too complicated, which made it almost impossible to kill all the ants in it even though be can faintly sense their movements through the earths.

  After giving a few healing potions to the earth element blessed that has been injured. Lacius immediately ordered them to collect the ant queen’s corpse and escort it back to the temple’s headquarters in River Stone City.

  He also ordered them to collect the corpse without further damaging it, as he still hasn’t finished studying the ant queen.

  It took close to two months and several horses’ death from exhaustion before Lacius’s group brought the ant queen’s corpses to River Stone city.

  To accommodate his research, Lacius even created a bigger secret room that can fit the ant queen’s massive body.

  While being accompanied by some ice element blessed who helps him to freeze the corpse and delay the decay, Lacius entered a focused state to study the corpse.

  Meanwhile, in the Divine Space, Cedric has been looking at a screen in excitement.

  On the screen, there is a countdown that the System has created especially for him.

  [Countdown until the Crystal Cube world leveled up. 00:01:37]

  He silently waited until the countdown finally reached 00:00:00.

  Soon after the countdown ended, the System released several consecutive messages.

  [Congratulations, your world has fulfilled the requirements to level up!]

  [The process of leveling from Level 1 world will take approximately 7 days. During this time, your world’s stability will be greatly increased and you may directly intervene in your world. Please note, the increase in stability isn’t infinite and your world can still be destroyed upon excessive intervention.]

  [The operation law and rules inside your world will slowly be strengthened and perfected.]

  [The stability of your world will slowly increase.]

  [The amount of annual GP gain will be increased.]

  [The chance for your world to give birth to creatures with high potential has increased.]

  [The maximum level of creature in your world has been increased to Level 4]

  [Your world’s resistance against NE has increased.]

  [The …]

  While Cedric listened to the System’s spam like messages. Unbeknownst to him, in the void outside the Crystal Cube world, special energy began to gather toward the Crystal Cube world.

  The fluctuation of that energy should’ve been enough to alarm creatures in the surroundings. But, before it could extend far away, the fluctuation turns into something virtual and ceases to exist all together.

  Cedric, who didn’t know about it, is still focusing on the spam messages the System sent.

  [... has increased.]

  [Warning! Your world’s advancement has caused fluctuation in the surrounding void that might alarm surrounding creatures.]

  [As you’re still under the System’s protective period, the System has removed the fluctuation released by your world and properly hid your world from outside interference.]

  [The universe has awarded the gods for their hard work. You’ll receive a small amount of extremely pure mysterious energy.]

  [Once again, congratulations for your world’s advancement.]

  “Ah? It’s finally done.” Cedric muttered when he saw there were no more new messages appearing.

  Just when he wanted to analyze the bombardment of precious info that the System has sent. Cedric suddenly felt his body and soul seem to sublimate into a higher state of existence.

  The feeling is extremely good to the point he almost lets out a moan.

  Actually, he might’ve unknowingly released a moan.

  Luckily, there are no other creatures in the Divine Space, so even if he indeed has released a moan, no one should’ve heard it.

  Except for that annoying system.

  The extremely satisfying state last for a few minutes. By the time Cedric woke up from that state, he felt extremely relaxed.

  When he reopened his eyes, Cedric somehow kinda understand what has just happened, as he immediately opened his status screen.

  [Name: Cedric Hills

  Level: Pseudo Lesser Divinity (Actual level: Peak Level 3)

  Law: None.

  World: Crystal Cube World

  World Level: 2

  World’s Average Potential: Lower Level 0

  GP: 12.077

  Annual GP income: 6]