Safety Issues

Zhang Yi absentmindedly clicked through the options in his mind. When he reached the Red Alert Mechanical Industry Engineer option, he suddenly realized, Combat personnel didn't necessarily have to be professional fighters!

Wasn't this Red Alert Mechanical Industry Engineer he was looking at also combat personnel? Besides Red Alert Engineers, many of the geniuses in the system possessed formidable combat strength as well, such as the Giant Race he had seen before.

With that in mind, Zhang Yi immediately searched through the hiring system to see which category had the lowest hiring costs. He quickly found that the mining industry geniuses were the cheapest to hire, so he immediately selected that category.

After filtering through the options, Zhang Yi chose five races from the system. The appearances of these five races were almost identical to humans—or rather, Chinese people—with virtually no differences at all.

The five races were the Yi Race, the Xia Race, the Spirit Race, the Jia Race, and the Red Alert Mining Engineer from the human race.

For factory security personnel, Zhang Yi still favored Red Alert Mining Engineers. Compared to the other races, although Red Alert Engineers did not have the highest combat strength, they were still above average. Their hiring costs were not high either. Most importantly, Red Alert Engineers had undergone rigorous military training, could skillfully operate all kinds of firearms and vehicles, and possessed considerable military expertise.

In a one-on-one fight, Red Alert Engineers might not be a match for many races in the system. But once the number exceeded ten, that was another matter. Therefore, Red Alert Personnel were undoubtedly the most suitable choice for factory security.

As for the people who would protect his family and himself, he had set his sights on the Xia Race. The Xia Race was the only race in the mining industry category with female geniuses. These women were no weaklings either; their combat strength was remarkably formidable, even far surpassing that of Red Alert Soldiers. The system's introduction specifically mentioned that their race possessed extremely powerful combat abilities, and every one of them was a martial arts expert.

The system also told him that they had excellent agility and sharp adaptability. As women, they would not easily attract too much attention while protecting Zhang Yi's family.

After choosing the people he wanted to hire, Zhang Yi first exited the system in his mind and checked his bank account to see how much money he currently had.

After all, he had been far too busy lately to pay any attention to his account. At the same time, he knew it was time to hire some accountants for the factory and establish its finance department.

After opening the account, he discovered that he still had nearly eight million in it. Two million of that had been transferred by Fang Jie, Zhang Yingying's best friend in Zhou Tai City.

Seeing that he still had so much money, he felt relieved. However, he could not possibly spend it all. He had to keep most of it, since the factory would be paying wages in the next few days, and it also needed several million in working capital.

So he opened the system in his mind and first hired ten Red Alert Mining Trainee Engineers he had previously selected. Each Red Alert Engineer cost 80 Scholar Coins to hire, meaning that hiring ten Red Alert Engineers cost 800 Scholar Coins—2.4 million in cash.

After hiring the Red Alert Engineers, he did not immediately exit the system. Instead, he opened the Xia Race option again. Unlike Red Alert Engineers, whose hiring prices were all fixed, Xia Race geniuses varied in cost. The cheapest required 40 Scholar Coins, while the most expensive cost over a hundred Scholar Coins.

Although the hiring cost was a little high for him, he still hired three, all of them the most expensive type.

This directly cost Zhang Yi 300 Scholar Coins, nearly one million in cash. In addition, he hired a male genius from the Yan Race. Hiring men was also necessary. Hiring women to protect his mother was fine, but it would not work for his father. Otherwise, his mother would break his legs. So he still needed men.

After hiring the combat-type geniuses, Zhang Yi entered the metallurgy category. He had previously discussed it with Xiao Hua and decided to enter the bearing manufacturing industry. But entering the bearing manufacturing industry required good Bearing Steel.

However, domestic Bearing Steel still lagged behind foreign products to a certain extent. Even if he wanted to import superior foreign Bearing Steel, it would be extremely difficult.

Those were all items foreign countries had embargoed against them. If Zhang Yi wanted truly excellent Bearing Steel, he could only manufacture it himself. Naturally, that required metallurgy geniuses.

In the end, Zhang Yi hired two more metallurgy geniuses from the system, spending another 400-odd Scholar Coins. In other words, this round of hiring geniuses through the system had cost him nearly five million. Yet Zhang Yi still was not very satisfied. Altogether, he had only hired a little over a dozen geniuses of various types. If possible, he wanted to hire more, because the system needed him to hire at least one hundred geniuses before it could level up, and he had not even reached one-fifth of that number.

But his current circumstances did not allow him to hire any more system geniuses, so Zhang Yi could only give up.

When Zhang Yi exited the Scholar Hiring System in his mind, he discovered that the geniuses he had hired had already been transported over by the system.

Looking at the sixteen people before him, Zhang Yi felt a deep sense of accomplishment. After all, this was the first time he had hired so many geniuses. Among the sixteen, the most eye-catching were the twelve geniuses from the human Red Alert Universe. Ten were Mining Trainee Engineers, while two were Red Alert Trainee Metallurgical Engineers. Since the people from the Red Alert Universe were all soldiers, they stood in perfectly neat ranks, watching Zhang Yi with meticulous discipline as they awaited his orders.

At the same time, Zhang Yi noticed that these Red Alert Geniuses had insignia on their shoulders similar to the military ranks in this world. Most of the Red Alert Engineers had the same rank, but one of them was clearly different from the rest.

So Zhang Yi saw that he stood alone in the front row, while the other eleven Red Alert Engineers all held enlisted ranks, with the highest being only a sergeant. He was probably the commander of those eleven geniuses.

After all, Zhang Yi had hired an entire small squad this time, equivalent to a real-world squad. It naturally included a Captain. However, although these engineers had different military ranks, their skill levels were all beginner geniuses, so their hiring prices were the same.

Aside from those from the Red Alert Universe, the others were far more lax. Although they had been influenced by the Red Alert Universe personnel and tried their best to imitate the Red Alert Engineers, no matter what they did, they were still different. Whether in bearing or discipline, they simply could not compare.