System Shop

When Zhang Yi returned to his family's small workshop, his little truck was already packed full of unfinished blanks. And this was only part of them. With five thousand components in total, there was no way his truck could carry them all at once, so he had to make several trips.

In truth, Zhang Yi did not feel confident at all. Even though he had confirmed it with Xiao Hua over the phone and she had clearly replied that processing five thousand parts within four days would not be a problem, he could not help feeling worried.

After returning, he and Xiao Hua first moved all the blanks into the factory together. Once they were done, Xiao Hua began processing the batch of parts, while Zhang Yi went back to Zhu Gang's factory to haul over the remaining blanks.

Sitting in the office and watching Xiao Hua process the components in the workshop, Zhang Yi noticed that perhaps because she knew he was watching her, Xiao Hua would occasionally lift her delicate little head and smile at him.

Over the past few days, Zhang Yi and Xiao Hua had gone from strangers who had only just met to becoming familiar with each other, and the way they spoke had grown much more casual.

As Zhang Yi watched Xiao Hua, his heart was far from calm, because his visit to Boss Zhu's Xian County Auto Parts Factory today had left him deeply affected.

Boss Zhu's machinery factory had been established much later than Zhang Yi's family factory. Yet now, Zhu Gang's factory had grown to such a large scale.

By contrast, Zhang Yi's factory had seen virtually no changes since his father founded it. The machine was still the same machine, and the only worker was still his father. Even now that he had taken over the factory, nothing had fundamentally changed.

Other than the addition of Xiao Hua, the entire factory remained the same: the same workshop of just over a hundred square meters, the same machine, and the same business model as any other small workshop.

Its operation was basically no different from other shops. When customers came by, they took orders; when no one came, they rested. Occasionally, they received an order like the one from Boss Zhu, but the profits were extremely slim. Even so, to Zhang Yi's factory, it was already considered a major order.

Forget about core competitiveness—they did not even have a product of their own.

So if he wanted to expand his factory, he first had to have products of his own. Only then could he consider anything else.

In fact, Zhang Yi knew that Zhu Gang's factory had also reached its limit if it continued on its current path. After all, they had no products of their own and no core technologies. As an ordinary machinery factory relying solely on contract manufacturing for others, it was already a blessing that they had reached their current scale.

Although Zhang Yi knew his factory needed its own products, the funds in his hands were nowhere near enough to develop them.

At that moment, Zhang Yi suddenly thought of the Scholar Hiring System in his mind. Now that he had hired a beginner Scholar in Mechanical Engineering, did that mean he could purchase all kinds of mechanical blueprints from the Genius Store?

He immediately opened the Genius Store within the Scholar Hiring System, and its options quickly appeared in his mind. The Genius Store was divided into two main sections: the Blueprint Sales Area and the Blueprint Purchase Area.

The Blueprint Sales Area, as the name suggested, was for selling blueprints for products developed by their factory. Moreover, the products had to be independently designed and successfully developed by people in their factory. Anything not owned by their factory could not be sold to the system.

As for the Blueprint Purchase Area, it was where blueprints could be bought. However, there were very few blueprints he could currently purchase. According to the system's prompt, each major rank of the Scholar Hiring System allowed no more than ten blueprint purchases from the System Shop, and the cost doubled with every purchase. For example, if a blueprint cost one Scholar Coin the first time, it would cost two the next time, then four, until the tenth purchase would cost 1,024 Scholar Coins.

After reading the store's introduction, Zhang Yi's first reaction was that he did not want to buy anything—or rather, he could not bear to waste one of his purchase opportunities. After all, each major rank only allowed ten purchases. That meant that before human civilization entered the interstellar era, he would only have ten chances to buy blueprints from the System Shop.

But then he thought about how his factory was only just getting started and desperately needed products. Without the right products, he could only do contract manufacturing for others, and the factory's development could only proceed step by step. Who knew when it would finally have products of its own?

So Zhang Yi resolutely opened the Blueprint Purchase Area in the store.

After entering the store and looking through its goods, Zhang Yi's first reaction was still that he did not want to buy anything. In his eyes, the items in the Genius Store were not particularly advanced, such as the New Steam Engine Design Blueprint, the New Steam Battleship Design Blueprint, and other blueprints from the Industrial Revolution era.

He even saw many blueprints for wooden machinery, such as the Large Waterwheel design blueprint and the Quyuan Plow design blueprint.

There were also many other design blueprints for which Zhang Yi did not meet the requirements. For instance, to unlock the New Electric Motor Design Blueprint, he had to hire not only a Scholar in Mechanical Engineering, but also a Scholar in electrical engineering.

Just as he was about to close the store, he thought again of his family factory's current situation. He patiently began searching through the store once more for the blueprints he needed.

After all, the store was not without good items. It was simply that it contained mechanical design blueprints ranging from the most primitive era all the way to the present day, with the oldest ones placed at the very top. That was why the designs had seemed outdated to him.

At that moment, an idea came to him. All the blueprints that did not match humanity's current level of civilization, as well as the grayed-out blueprints he could not buy, disappeared. Looking at the remaining blueprints in the store, Zhang Yi felt much better.

He then carefully searched the store for product design blueprints he needed. In the end, he really did find several that he considered useful. But after excluding the blueprints he currently lacked the ability to purchase, only four product designs remained.

The first product blueprint was for a pneumatic tool called the Super Air Hammer Design Blueprint. Although the product's design was advanced and its cost was not high, his machinery factory had no reputation at all. Even if he produced such a mainstream product with excellent performance, it would not be easy to establish a market for it right away.

He eliminated this product first. Still, once his factory gained some recognition in the future, he could produce this air hammer.

The second product was something Zhang Yi found rather novel. If it could be manufactured, it could quickly draw consumers' attention.

In Zhang Yi's judgment, once he bought this blueprint, the product could lead to several additional patents. By then, patent licensing alone would be enough to support the factory's expansion. The blueprint was for a bicycle called the Super Aerodynamic Bicycle Design Blueprint. According to the description on it, once its air-storage device was fully charged, the bicycle could travel fifty to sixty kilometers at a speed of forty-five to fifty kilometers per hour.

Even when it had no air, it was just like an ordinary bicycle and required hardly any effort to ride. It was the perfect choice for getting around.

The third mechanical design blueprint was for a Small Diesel Engine. However, it required too much equipment, and for the same reason as the first product, Zhang Yi gave up on it as well.

The final blueprint appeared to be for the simplest product: Mechanical Self-Tightening Bolts and nuts. It was a design even more advanced than the non-loosening nut used by the island nation. But small as a nut might be, the equipment required was even more extensive than that needed for the third design blueprint, and none of it came cheap. It was not something Zhang Yi could afford to consider right now.