Volume 2: Funeral Song of Crows Chapter 43 Efficiency Issues
Sigmunds was not quite sure how things had turned out the way they were.
He was originally just an ordinary team leader in the Yinliu Mine, and his biggest plan for his life was just to "accept his fate."
But one day, after a man who called himself the Chief Judge pulled out a spider with a human face from his throat, his fate, which had seemed to have an end at a glance, suddenly became unpredictable.
At first, the judge just sent him to a mountainous area to dig up an ancient relic, and promised him that if he could do it well, he could become a candidate member of the "Stonemason Order". Although Sigmunds didn't know what kind of organization the Stonemason Order was, it didn't stop him from accepting the commission in order to thank the other party for saving his life.
Everything was normal in the beginning, with dozens of miners, simple equipment, limited supplies and generous rewards. Except for the overly powerful Netherworld Knights responsible for their security, these things were still within Sigmund's understanding.
But then what happened started to seem more outrageous to him.
First, the Chief Judge transformed the rocks and soil blocking the valley pass into a human-shaped earth spirit, and then used them to open a road leading to this long-forgotten valley.
Although it is an extremely simple and rugged road, it still connects here with several surrounding towns and establishes a stable logistics supply line.
Then, this rarely visited place began to become lively day by day.
Hired professional excavation teams, various skilled craftsmen from the Artisans' Guild, a large number of logistical personnel, clergy from the Holy Spirit Church, a small number of magic casters, and many enchanters and alchemists... Not only did a luxurious team of technical personnel come here, but even a few circuses came from the nearest town to entertain them.
It seemed as if this place had transformed from a wilderness into a prosperous town overnight.
At the same time, news one after another was brought in from afar, constantly confirming the presiding judge's previous promise that seemed like a fantasy.
The former Duke of Thorns died, and the entire source silver industry began to reshuffle. The Blackwater Province announced it would break away from the rule of the empire...
The current ruler of the entire Blackwater Province is the former chief court wizard Vincent. The first thing he did after taking office was to spend a large amount of money to hire experts from all walks of life to come to the sparsely populated Mountains of Sorrow to repair the fortress.
What happened next was even more fantastic to Sigmunds.
Refined silver, which was purchased by the gram in the market, was dragged here box by box and piled into the warehouse like sweet potatoes. Not long after, the processing equipment of the Thorn City Silver Refinery was dismantled and transported here for assembly. In addition, the large enchanting table that was regarded as a treasure by the University of Offa was also dismantled and sent here for placement.
Many of these devices were antiques produced before the establishment of the Riel Empire. Their manufacturing techniques had long been lost, and some of them were even damaged and no one knew how to repair them. They were treasures worth less and less. But just to save a little time in repairing the fortress, they were all dismantled and sent here.
After the preliminary work of excavating the ruins was completed, Vincent sent almost all the enchanters above a certain rating in the entire Thorn City to be responsible for the second phase of the fortress repair work.
Of course, all of the above is not the most incomprehensible thing for Sigmunds.
What he found most incomprehensible was that until now he was still the direct person in charge of the entire fortress maintenance work.
In other words, the thousands of people now in the Mountains of Sorrow, whether they are miners or craftsmen, enchanters or magic casters , are actually now obeying his commands.
"Your Excellency, I don't think I can handle such an important task. Please find someone else..."
Once, when the mysterious presiding judge came back to check the progress of the work, Sigmunds plucked up the courage to make a suggestion to him.
"Why? Aren't you doing a good job now? I don't see any mistakes. Rather, you manage this place pretty well."
The presiding judge, who was inspecting the laid wires in the fortress, replied.
"But I was just a team leader before, and I didn't understand those technical things. I'm just lucky that nothing went wrong so far..."
"Then keep up your luck."
The other party replied calmly.
He went on to say:
"There are plenty of people to help you with technical issues, and all you have to do is learn how to use them well. You're doing very well in this regard. Don't worry, if you really can't do this job, you don't have to ask me, I will find someone else to take your place, but before that, I need you to take good care of this job."
The presiding judge's speech at the time made Sigmunds feel very uneasy. He always felt that there would be greater challenges waiting for him in the future.
As expected, not long after that, the Chief Judge ordered that the construction of the Demon Sealing Rune Line be advanced by 30% and completed before the Rainy Month of this year. The current progress of the project is far behind the adjusted plan.
This made Sigmund's hair turn white with worry, because considering the current manpower and efficiency, this was basically an impossible goal.
Although there are plenty of raw materials and work equipment here, the level of these enchanters is so uneven that the qualification rate of the final product can be said to be extremely terrible.
Just identifying and rejecting the unqualified demon-sealing runes, and then melting and re-forging them, would slow down the efficiency of the entire project by at least 40%.
But even so, Sigmons still didn't dare to continue to put pressure on the enchanting factory. Because after he issued the death order last time, several enchanters and the magic casters who were responsible for testing whether the finished products were qualified had a private discussion, and marked some magic-sealing runes that had problems but were barely usable as qualified finished products and sent them to the engineering team.
If Sigmunds had not been careful in advance and conducted a final inspection without the other party's knowledge before the final line was laid, the batch of problematic magic-sealing runes might have been installed in the fortress.
When Sigmunds learned about this, he was so angry that he took the three Netherworld Knights, who were under his control, to the enchanting factory and scared the enchanters and inspectors who had teamed up to deceive him to the point of peeing their pants.
But no matter how was, their subsequent excuses made Sigmunds feel irrefutable.
Their abilities are limited, and now everyone is basically working to their best. But what cannot be done cannot be done, whether it is to continue to increase the salary or threaten with violence, you can't make someone who has done his best continue to improve efficiency.
Forcibly increasing pressure and raising demands will not provide any positive help except for making them take risks and work together to deceive themselves.
In the end, nothing changed except that the workplaces of enchanters and testers were completely separated and rules for blind testing were established.
This new rule even slowed down the overall work efficiency a little bit. After all, the runes could no longer be checked immediately after they were completed.
Finally, Sigmunds, who hadn't even finished the preparatory class at Offa University, had no choice but to go to the enchanting factory himself and prepare to learn the entire enchanting process from scratch to see if there would be areas that could be optimized like mining.
However, he discovered a huge problem on the first day he arrived at the enchanting factory - all the magic-sealing runes were made by the enchanters themselves by smelting the metal and then casting them into shape.
