"Merciful Father!!! Thank you for your generosity! Your greatness fills the world with light!"
Looking at the mountain of grain piled up, the queen ant's antennae trembled rapidly, trying to express all the praise she could muster for Deng Ru.
"From now on, this shall be the habitat for your kind. Go and bring your tribe here," Deng Ru commanded.
As Deng Ru's words fell, the queen ant instantly waved her antennae in a strange rhythm.
The ants in the living room also began to tremble in unison.
Soon, a dense swarm of ants emerged all around Deng Ru's living room.
The black ants surged like a black tide.
Each ant occupied about two millimeters in length.
The dense swarm of ants, resembling a black tide, occupied the living room of the rental house.
Most importantly, some of the ants even carried chairs and tables made of polished stones on their heads?
Deng Ru was dumbfounded. Although he had anticipated the large number of ants, he hadn't expected there to be so many. Moreover, it seemed like they had truly entered the Stone Age.
He now began to doubt whether the food he had purchased would be enough for his beloved followers.
Most importantly, the ten-square-meter storage room wouldn't be able to accommodate such a vast number of ants.
Unless they could stack themselves up like a pyramid.
"I guess I'll have to consider buying an estate. Otherwise, there's no way all these ants can fit," Deng Ru mused.
Money wasn't an issue for him.
As a deity, he had accumulated a fortune that was considered a vast sum for ordinary people, given his lack of worries about food and drink.
"Heave-ho, strong antennae ho-hey, carrying the throne ho-hey ~ Glory supreme ho-hey ~"
A group of ants trembled their antennae and carried a brick towards the storage room.
"????"
Deng Ru was a bit confused. Did these ants know how to sing work songs now?
He had thought they had only entered the Stone Age, but it seemed like they had leaped into the early feudal era of slavery?
His group of ants was clearly not ordinary.
They possessed everything a civilization should have, which explained why they could provide him with faith.
Soon, the storage room was filled with ants, densely packed, and a brick was erected on top of the mound of food.
The queen ant perched on that brick, resembling a human emperor sitting on a dragon throne.
"My tribe! Together with me, praise the Merciful Father who has granted us an endless supply of food!"
The ants covering the mound of vegetables waved their antennae.
A massive influx of faith poured towards Deng Ru.
Deng Ru nodded in satisfaction. All fifty million ants had become his followers.
They stably provided him with five million faith per hour.
This transformed him from a deity who could only hide in a rental room to one with the strength of a county-level deity.
He was no longer the weakest deity, as there were township-level and village-level deities below county-level deities.
Basically, each level represented a tenfold increase in strength.
There was also a complete system of tribute among deities, where lower-level deities were required to offer a portion of their divine power to higher-level deities daily.
For instance, a township-level deity needed to offer around 400,000 points of divine power daily to a county-level deity.
This was effectively rounding off the daily divine power income to a certain degree.
If a township-level deity earned 3.5 million divine power in a day, they would round it off and offer 500,000 as tribute to the county-level deity.
With this system in place, usurping positions among deities became extremely difficult.
After all, a township-level deity couldn't suddenly become a county-level deity, and any changes in their daily tribute of divine power were clearly visible to the higher-level deity.
But Deng Ru was an exception. His followers weren't humans.
Well, most of them weren't.
He couldn't exclude Qiu Yuan from being human.
No other deity knew that Deng Ru was now a county-level deity, nor did any demand tribute from him or offer tribute to him.
However, this was beneficial for him as he could develop unnoticed by other deities.
Deng Ru glanced at the cheering ants and, as a deity, felt compelled to respond to their fervent faith.
He waved his hand, causing his divine power to surge and shower down upon the ants.
"Oh my, a miracle! My leg, my leg has grown back!"
"Deng Ru, the deity, has responded to our faith. I feel like I have the strength to lift an evil rat monster now!"
"Oh my god, is this the power of a deity? This is truly marvelous."
As a deity, Deng Ru could provide his followers with permanent enhancements, such as increased strength or lifespan.
Some fervent followers could even absorb the divine power that leaked out from their deity daily and use it to cultivate and become stronger and wiser.
The relationship between a deity and their ordinary followers was akin to that of a farmer and their farmed turkeys.
However, it was a completely different story with fervent followers. Powerful deities could have fervent followers capable of killing weaker deities, making each one precious in the deity's eyes.
The divine power within a deity dissipated quickly.
There were only two destinations for the leaked divine power: it could be directly absorbed and cultivated by fervent followers or condensed into divine power stones using special methods.
Creating divine power stones was an extremely tedious process, while it was much simpler for fervent followers to cultivate by absorbing leaked divine power.
Even powerful deities at the city or provincial level, who might have millions of battle-hardened fervent followers, rarely had one or two divine power stones to recharge their power.
Deng Ru wasn't at the stage where he could allow the ants to absorb and cultivate his leaked divine power.
It wasn't that he was stingy; he simply didn't know how an ant could embark on the path of cultivation.
"Merciful Father, I feel it, I feel your radiance. This radiance has made me stronger, and I praise you from the bottom of my heart!"
The queen ant's words caught Deng Ru's attention.
To his surprise, he saw that the queen ant, the size of a mouse, was slowly absorbing the divine power leaking out from him.
Her body was being polished smooth and hard by the divine power.
She had somehow figured out how to absorb divine power and cultivate on her own.
It was worth noting that even human fervent followers required guidance from their predecessors to cultivate.
This queen ant was truly extraordinary.
"If you and your tribe forever maintain your faith in me, I will not spare any benefits for you," Deng Ru responded with his divine power.
"Rats! Evil rat monsters! Oh my, Deng Ru, the deity, is here, and yet these evil rat monsters dare to come!"
A strong pheromone message was translated into words that reached Deng Ru's ears.
Deng Ru turned in the direction from where the pheromone message came. He had been curious about why a tribe that had entered the Stone Age would fear a group of rats that lacked self-awareness.
After all, humans in the Stone Age were already capable of hunting and taming elephants.
There was no reason why Stone Age ants should fear rats, especially with the cheating ant queen around.