10: Chapter 10 The First Lesson of the Divine Kingdom: How to Overcome a Hellish Start?

"It's time to go to school."

The century-old Vermilion Fruit, worth tens of thousands of Faith Points, was swallowed by Fang Chuan without hesitation.

The fruit pulp melted the moment it entered his mouth, instantly turning into a scorching torrent of magma that violently rushed through his limbs and bones.

He could clearly hear his bones making a series of fine, explosive sounds, his muscles becoming firm and full at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even the surface of his skin faintly shimmered with a layer of divine luster.

Feeling the explosive power dormant within his body, Fang Chuan satisfiedly changed into a loose tracksuit and pushed the door open to leave.

Today, a god teacher would personally explain the management techniques of the Divine Kingdom at school. Such free, practical knowledge was not to be missed.

Although he now had the system, he was still in the dark about many basic common sense facts regarding the Divine Kingdom world and the distribution of major forces. Going to school to learn more would certainly do no harm.

Arriving at the classroom, many people were already seated.

After awakening their Divine Kingdoms, the only way out for most students from ordinary family backgrounds was to study hard at school, strive for a good score in the Divine Kingdom Grand Exam in a few months, and earn the qualification to enter a Deity Academy for further studies.

Of course, there were some exceptions.

Fang Chuan scanned the classroom and found that several seats in the front row were empty.

He had heard that several geniuses in other classes who had awakened S-rank talents had been scouted by major local families in Qinghe City, directly recruited as core members, and had signed training agreements.

For ordinary students, this kind of opportunity to ascend in a single step was no different from a carp leaping over the dragon gate.

However, these were not worth mentioning to Fang Chuan.

Given time, he would surpass everyone!

He glanced at his desk mate; Zhang Chao's seat was also empty.

"This guy is probably dragged back by his parents to give his Divine Kingdom special training and extra upgrades," Fang Chuan muttered to himself.

Soon, the bell for class rang.

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue walked into the classroom on time.

She wasn't wearing her usual professional suit today, but a crisp martial arts uniform, making her look even more heroic.

Her gaze swept across the class, and when she saw Fang Chuan, her eyes paused slightly, seemingly a bit surprised by the change in his mental state, but she didn't say anything more.

She clapped her hands to attract the students' attention.

"Students, starting today, we will conduct a three-month course on Divine Kingdom management and development."

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue's voice was cold and serious.

"I know many of you feel lost about the future, not knowing how your Divine Kingdom should develop. Today, I will tell you about the most basic and important development route for a nascent Divine Kingdom, from zero to one."

"The development of a Divine Kingdom is a vast field of study. But all changes stem from the same source, and the core of all development revolves around one most basic need—let your believers survive!"

"Only by surviving can you talk about development! Therefore, the most important thing is to create an environment where your believers can survive stably!"

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue's voice echoed in the quiet classroom, and all the students pricked up their ears and listened carefully.

Fang Chuan also straightened his posture.

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue walked to the center of the podium, and on the huge smart blackboard behind her, following her intent, a barren gray land appeared.

This was exactly a standard F-rank Divine Kingdom starting template, almost identical to Fang Chuan's initial Divine Kingdom.

"Students, please look. This is a typical F-rank Divine Kingdom. The area is small, resources are scarce, there is no water source, no vegetation, and there is almost no divine power in the air."

Her voice carried a hint of solemnity.

"In this environment, your initial believers, such as goblins, gray wolves, or even Slimes, can hardly maintain even the most basic survival."

"They will kill each other due to hunger and thirst, and eventually go extinct in despair."

"And the extinction of believers means the collapse of your Divine Kingdom, and your path as a deity will end there."

The atmosphere in the classroom instantly became oppressive.

Many students who had awakened E-rank or F-rank Divine Kingdoms showed heavy expressions of empathy on their faces.

This was the doomsday scene they had seen in their own Divine Kingdoms these past few days.

"So, the first thing you need to do is to transform the environment!"

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue changed the subject, her tone becoming resolute and forceful.

"You need water! You need land! You need the most basic source of food!"

She stretched out her finger and drew in the air on the smart blackboard.

"A lowest-level Tier 1 Water Vein Card costs 50 Faith Points in the Divine Kingdom Exchange. A plain terrain card that can cover 100,000 square kilometers also costs 50 points."

"And a bush resource card that can produce the lowest-level berries costs about 100 points."

"In other words, if you want your Divine Kingdom to have the most basic survival conditions, you need to invest at least two hundred Faith Points."

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue looked at the students below and said word by word: "I know, two hundred Faith Points is an astronomical figure for you who have just awakened. If your initial believers can provide you with 1 Faith Point in a natural day, that is considered excellent performance. This means you may need to save up for more than half a year without eating or drinking to scrape together this money."

"And this is just the beginning."

Her words were like a basin of cold water poured into everyone's hearts.

A suppressed sigh echoed in the classroom.

"God, so expensive? I checked yesterday, my eighty inferior goblins only produce 3 Faith Points a day in total. How long will it take to save up?"

"Who says it isn't? I steeled my heart yesterday and spent all the pocket money my parents gave me to exchange for 50 Faith Points to buy a lowest-level water vein. As a result, the water vein leaked like a faucet, and only a small puddle accumulated after a day. My dozens of cave dwellers are almost fighting over the water."

"Don't even mention it, I am even worse. I awakened a desert terrain, and my believers are sand scorpions. They don't have to worry about drinking water, but they eat sand! They don't give me any faith at all, they are all non-believers!"

The students whispered to each other, their words full of anxiety and helplessness about the future.

Sitting in the front row, Liu Ruyan, although rated as high as B+, was also slightly frowning at this moment.

Her Divine Kingdom was large, with medium resources, and her initial believers were elves, so she didn't have to worry about food or drink.

But the elf race was naturally arrogant, and the increase in faith was extremely slow. After this night, the accumulated Faith Points were only a few hundred, and it was a drop in the bucket if she wanted large-scale expansion.

As for the school's reward, it was far less than Zhang Chao's one hundred thousand Faith Points; she only had five thousand.

Fang Chuan listened quietly to the students' complaints and Head Teacher Chen Xingyue's explanation, his expression calm as an ancient well, but his heart was surging.

"I knew Faith Points were hard to get, but I didn't expect them to be this hard?"

He thought of his big shopping spree in the Divine Kingdom Exchange the night before last.

And last night, that [large-scale food production and processing base] worth forty thousand Faith Points...

Just in one night, he had spent more than half of Zhang Chao's S-rank gift package.

And these were just a drop in the bucket of his two hundred thousand plus Faith Points.

At this moment, Fang Chuan truly realized deeply how heaven-defying his gold finger was.

The terrifying compound interest brought by "Hedge Fund+" allowed him to completely get rid of the primitive capital accumulation stage that every newly ascended deity had to face, directly reaching the goal in one step, achieving "Faith Point freedom."

He listened to Head Teacher Chen Xingyue earnestly teaching the students how to "live frugally," how to "increase revenue and reduce expenditure," and how to stretch one Faith Point to spend as two, and a sense of indescribable transcendence arose in his heart.

It was like a billionaire mixing into a group of wage earners who were worrying about how to scrape together a down payment, listening to them discuss which bank had lower loan interest rates.

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue continued to lecture.

"After you solve the most basic survival environment problem, you will face the second problem, which is the difficulty that runs through your entire deity career—the balance between population and resources."

"Believers are also living beings; they will reproduce and consume resources. As the number of your believers continues to increase, the environmental pressure on your Divine Kingdom will become greater and greater. Food, water sources, and living space will all become bottlenecks restricting your development."

"In a healthy Divine Kingdom model, the growth rate of the believer population must absolutely not exceed the regeneration speed of your Divine Kingdom's resources. Otherwise, once a large-scale famine occurs, the believers' faith will be shaken, or even collapse. By then, everything you have worked so hard to build will be destroyed in one fell swoop."

Hearing this, there was another commotion in the classroom.

"Ah? My few rabbit men just gave birth to a litter yesterday, more than a dozen! I was quite happy looking at them, but now that I think about it, they are all mouths to feed!"

"Control population? How to control it? Can you stop them from giving birth?"

"It is possible, but forcibly interfering with the reproduction of believers will reduce their faith, which is not worth the loss!"

The students were all looking distressed.

Fang Chuan touched his chin, but his mind was on other things.

"Population growth cannot exceed the resource regeneration speed?"

He thought of his own Divine Kingdom.

The reproduction speed of goblins is famously fast among all races, comparable to mice. Under the condition of sufficient food, a pair of adult goblins can give birth to dozens in a year.

He now has more than three thousand eight hundred goblins in his Divine Kingdom, and the number of adult goblins exceeds five hundred pairs. At this rate, his Divine Kingdom's population will likely break the one hundred thousand mark in less than a month.

However, his [large-scale food production and processing base], can supply one hundred thousand units of food per day. Let alone one hundred thousand mouths, even two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand would be more than enough.

At worst, he could just buy more. Even if he didn't buy a processing base, he could directly synthesize believers with higher-level talents.

For him, the balance between population and resources was not a problem at all.

The only thing he needed to worry about was that the population wasn't growing fast enough!

But he wanted to know, does the Divine Kingdom world have an official hidden solution for this kind of extreme population explosion flow?

Thinking of this, amidst the gloomy discussion, he decisively raised his hand.

Whoosh!

The eyes of everyone in the class instantly focused on him.

Head Teacher Chen Xingyue also looked at him with some surprise. In her impression, although Fang Chuan had good grades in cultural courses, he had always been very quiet in this kind of practical course and rarely took the initiative to speak.

Especially after awakening an F-rating, she thought he would be even more reticent.

"Student Fang Chuan, do you have any questions?" Head Teacher Chen Xingyue's voice softened a bit.

Fang Chuan stood up, his expression serious, and his voice clearly spread throughout the classroom.

"Teacher, I have a question I would like to ask you."

"What I want to ask is, if... I mean if, a Divine Kingdom's believer race has extremely high reproductive ability, and the population growth rate far exceeds the resource carrying capacity of the Divine Kingdom in the early stage. In this case, besides forcibly controlling reproduction, are there any other better solutions to overcome the early food crisis without causing the Divine Kingdom's economy to go bankrupt?"