This public recruitment drive by the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps was already its third in the mere three months since the beginning of year 3802 of the continent calendar.
In the previous two public recruitment drives, the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps had recruited a total of 2,739 people, a substantial reinforcement.
Yet when this third recruitment drive ended, it had recruited only 398.
Compared with the first two drives, the number recruited in the third had undoubtedly fallen sharply.
There were many reasons for this outcome, but in many people's eyes, the most important was that the third recruitment drive included a test absent from the first two: an intelligence test.
This intelligence test alone had eliminated nearly half the applicants, drastically reducing the number of guards who ultimately qualified.
Countless people could not understand this test, nor could they understand the results it had produced.
An intelligence test was certainly a strange thing, but for a simple intelligence test alone to reduce the number of qualifying guards to such an astonishing degree seemed hard to justify.
"The reason is actually very simple. We only recruited so few people because the vast majority of qualified candidates had already been recruited in the first two drives."
Xu Yi waved the Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps recruitment progress report in his hand. His expression was nowhere near as grave as that of Hart, the Guard Corps commander sitting opposite him.
"But Mr. President, hardly anyone came to apply during these recruitment drives. The total number who signed up for the third one was less than five thousand. Surely our Xinfei Merchant Guild Guard Corps isn't that unappealing?" Hart looked utterly puzzled. "And among those applicants, humans made up only a small fraction, less than a thousand altogether. That's far too