Ye Xu ignored her flattery, pondered for a moment, tried selecting "All," and then clicked "OK." The next second, a card-dealing animation appeared before his eyes, with three face-down cards placed one by one in the middle of the window.
After waiting a moment, the cards didn't flip automatically. It was unclear whether they needed to be flipped manually or were simply meant to be picked blindly. Ye Xu touched the leftmost card first, trying to see if he could flip it.
If it were a blind selection, a pop-up window would appear after contact, asking if you were sure you wanted to select the card. The expected pop-up window didn't appear; the card flipped itself. It was a card with a gray border and a simple part drawn on it.
Click the "?" on "N Common Machine Parts" to display a resume.
Dimension: Modern;
Rarity: N;
Maintenance fee: 1 point per month;
Application: Synthesis formula - 9 N-level ordinary parts + 1 R-level intelligent part = 1 SR-level intelligent robot;
(Note: R-level parts are divided into different types; the vegetable cutting parts can only be used to synthesize a vegetable cutting robot.)
A 10-for-1 exchange? Only a fool would do that. Don't employee coupons cost money? This is just a cheap trick to appease unlucky players.
Ye Xu immediately looked away and started flipping through the other cards. There were only two cards on each side, so he flipped through them all in one go and then checked them one by one.
"R-level low-level vegetable cutting robot"
Dimension: Modern;
Rarity: R-level;
Maintenance fee: 10 points per month (electricity costs are separate);
Uses: Can be used as a vegetable cutter to process ingredients; the workload is comparable to that of a single person.
"R Low-Level Service Robot"
Dimension: Western Fantasy;
Rarity: R-level;
Maintenance fee: 10 points per month (electricity costs are separate);
Purpose: Can be used as a waiter/waitress to serve guests, but can only serve one table at a time;
Ye Xu didn't rush to choose anything. He randomly tapped on the interface, intending to check the function of all the buttons.
After clicking for a short while, Ye Xu accidentally clicked "exit." Without changing his expression, he re-entered the game. Since it was only three low-level cards, he wasn't bothered even if they were refreshed after exiting and re-entering. Unfortunately, the cards in the "All" section remained the same three; otherwise, he could have exploited a bug to keep refreshing them.
Most of the buttons were useless, just rule descriptions or the like. However, the inconspicuous settings icon next to the "×" in the upper right corner gave Ye Xu a big surprise.
This is where you set employee salaries and benefits. It categorizes employees into three types: [Robots], [Pets], and [Intelligent Races]. Except for robots, the salaries of the other two types can be adjusted manually. The system provides minimum values; you can only increase them, not decrease them.
Robots only have three tiers from N to SR, pets range from SR to UR, while intelligent races only have SSR and UR tiers. Salary changes can be made by category, applying them to all intelligent races at once, or they can be targeted individually, such as specifying different salaries for humans and elves.
Ye Xu didn't check on the pets; he didn't have time to study that yet. He only looked at the robots and intelligent races, since the pets couldn't help him chop vegetables anyway.
All populations have the same initial salary: N-level receives 1 point per month, R-level receives 10 points, SR-level receives 100 points, SSR card receives 1000 points, and UR card receives 10,000 points.
The difference is that intelligent races receive both points and currency, and are paid double wages, with the currency amount equal to the points. In other words, an SSR human can receive a monthly reward of 1,000 points and 1,000 currencies simultaneously.
From this perspective, the treatment offered by intelligent races is quite good. If the salary were only 1000 currency, even with room and board included, it would seem a bit low, and not many people would apply. However, with the addition of 1000 points, it's a different story. These points have considerable purchasing power in the in-game store.
"Isn't the so-called maintenance fee for robots just their wages?" Ye Xu pondered.
“That’s right.” Shuangshuang nodded. “Robots don’t need a salary, but they do need regular maintenance, so it’s listed as maintenance fee.”
After thinking for a moment, she added, "By the way, the store has to cover the employees' food and accommodation, and this part of the funding needs to be handled through the company account. The system doesn't provide employee meals, so the store manager should think about how to solve this problem."
Ye Xu didn't care much about the staff meals; eating more was just a matter of spending money. The cost of the ingredients was extremely low, negligible at all.
Cooking is indeed a bit of a hassle, but you can always hire someone to do it. If that doesn't work, you can pay the staff to cook for themselves, or you can just buy food outside – there are restaurants all around, aren't there?
Compared to that, accommodation is the real problem.
The fifth floor is the dormitory for the store manager and employees, but there's currently only one studio apartment there—a one-bedroom, one-bathroom, one-balcony apartment. If a new employee joins, you can't expect the system to give them a new apartment for free; they'll definitely have to buy it with points, and the price won't be low.
"Could we buy a separate bedroom for the new employee?" Ye Xu asked. If possible, he would also buy a shared bathroom on the fifth floor, making it similar to a single dormitory in a university.
Shuangshuang cruelly shattered his dream: "No, every employee of an intelligent race must have their own apartment. It's a system regulation."
Ye Xu sensed something: "Is the 'dog-like system' using single-person apartment-style dormitories as a gimmick to attract job seekers?"
Shuangshuang remained silent, neither confirming nor denying.
Good, he knew it.
"Well, buying apartments directly has its advantages. When we have more money in the future, we can expand the existing ones and provide better accommodation for our employees," Shuangshuang said weakly, trying to save face.
Ye Xu smiled after finding the construction cost: "Impossible, it doesn't exist. What expansion? If they want to expand, they can do it themselves at their own expense. I'm already being generous as a boss by building single apartments for my employees."
An apartment costs 2000 points, and each expansion can only add one room, and the expansion price is still 2000. He's not doing charity, so it's good enough that he has a place to live.
Shuangshuang was speechless.
As a very pragmatic boss, Ye Xu quickly abandoned the idea of hiring intelligent races. Why hire a bunch of creatures when you can't even afford to build dormitories? Even with high rarity, they're just for show.
Ye Xu had originally considered changing the salary and benefits, wondering if increasing the salary would make it easier to obtain high-rarity intelligent races. But now, he thought, forget it. Raising good cards is too expensive; a poor guy like him can't afford it.
Compared to these cards, the highest SR robot is simply more appealing. After all, a robot doesn't have to live in an apartment, right?
“No, that’s not necessary, but…” Shuangshuang paused mid-sentence, startled by the store manager’s dangerous gaze, “But we need to build a charging room. The robots need to go in and charge every night, otherwise they’ll stop working the next day if they run out of power.”
Ye Xu's smile gradually faded: "How much does it cost to build a charging station?"
"It's also two thousand." Shuangshuang said softly, then spoke the last part crisply and hurriedly, as if afraid of being hit, "But a rest room can accommodate 10 robots! It's a great deal! On average, it's only 200 per person!"
Store Manager Ye didn't think 200 was a good deal, since he only had one coupon, enough to hire one robot. Under the current circumstances, this was still equivalent to spending 2,000 points to get a dormitory for one employee.
Ugh, annoying.
Never mind all that for now. The charging station will have to be built sooner or later. Ye Xu currently has over a thousand points. If he levels up again or hosts ten more guests tomorrow, he should be able to raise enough for the construction fee. The robot can work all day now that it's been hired, so building it tomorrow night isn't too late.
Ye Xu reached out and tapped the vegetable-chopping robot. This time, a "Hire this employee?" question finally popped up, with two options: "Yes (consuming 2 employee coupons)" and "No." The text wasn't very big, and a little carelessness would have made it easy to miss. Unfortunately, Ye Xu was careful and didn't fall for the system's trick.
"Two?" Ye Xu narrowed his eyes. He remembered that an employee, regardless of rarity, should only consume one coupon.
Before asking Shuangshuang what happened, I turned around and clicked on the service robot again. This time, the option that appeared was "Yes (consume 1 employee coupon)".
Why is there such a difference? It's definitely not because of rarity. Even if rarity affects the price, both of these are R cards with white borders, so there shouldn't be a price difference.
Ye Xu opened and compared the resumes of the two robots, and found that, apart from their different functions, their biggest difference was actually the dimension they belonged to. The vegetable cutter with 2 coupons came from the modern dimension, while the waiter with 1 coupon came from the Western fantasy dimension.
"Only employees in the current dimension consume one ticket; other types of dimensions require two tickets," Ye Xu concluded confidently.
“That’s right.” Shuangshuang felt increasingly useless. The store manager could figure out all the functions by herself, so there was no need for her at all.
Ye Xu abandoned the idea of hiring directly: "The shop doesn't need waiters for the time being. I can serve the customers myself. Right now, we urgently need a vegetable chopper. Everything else can wait."
The shop was short of everything, so Ye Xu had to pick out the most urgently needed items. After hiring a vegetable cutter, he still needed to buy more bowls and plates; the mage's order had practically used up all the plates in his shop—adventurers eat way too much.
The system, for reasons unknown, had its ambitions gleaned from somewhere, equipping the initial shop with nine tables. Ye Xu was worried about whether he could manage nine tables of customers by himself. But he had to make do, since he didn't have the spare money to hire waiters.
Ye Xu sighed and returned to the selection screen. This time, he wanted to choose a separate dimension to see if he could get a suitable card.
Judging from the current situation, selecting "Western Fantasy" alone should yield three new cards different from "All". Even in the worst-case scenario, if the Western Fantasy robot from "All" reappears, at least you'll have two new cards, so it's still worth a try.
"I hope the system will be fair this time. It's okay if it doesn't give me a good card, but I'll arrange for a vegetable-cutting robot."
Before pressing confirm, Ye Xu remembered that he seemed to have forgotten to wash his hands when he flipped the cards. He quickly went to the kitchen and washed them carefully again before clicking the button.
Chapter 7 Naming
To make it easier to wash his hands anytime, Ye Xu decided to stand by the sink while drawing his card. Standing for a while would also help him digest, as sitting always made his stomach feel too full.
Since the modern-world cards required two employee coupons, Ye Xu simply skipped that option and directly chose [Western Fantasy]. After selecting, the familiar card-dealing interface quickly appeared before him, followed by three cards face down.
I must say, the patterns are quite nice. I hadn't noticed before, but now that I'm looking closely, the patterns on the back of the Western fantasy cards seem different from those on the modern cards.
Ye Xu thought about it carefully and confirmed that he had not misremembered.
The patterns on the backs of modern playing cards are different, but because the patterns are more intricate and the colors are the same, Ye Xu didn't pay much attention to them at first. Ordinary people generally don't bother to carefully distinguish the patterns on the backs of different playing cards.
Another number of useless discoveries have been made.
This pattern at best allows Ye Xu to quickly identify which dimension the cards come from when selecting "All" again in the future. But the problem is, who has the time to refresh the card images in "All" every day? It's easy to get cards that require two tickets, which is far less convenient than selecting a single dimension.
Putting aside these random thoughts, Ye Xu reached out and flipped over the first card. He didn't rush to look at it after flipping it; he washed his hands, then flipped over the second card, repeated the process, and then flipped over the third card.
After flipping through them all, Ye Xu looked at each card one by one. At first glance, what caught his eye was the border of the card: white, blue, and white. White meant R, and he hadn't seen blue before, so it was at least SR.
Ye Xu was overjoyed and quickly checked the names at the bottom of the cards: "R Low-level Dishwasher Robot", "SR Intelligent Vegetable Chopping Robot", and "R Intelligent Dishwasher Parts".
It's SR!
He was lucky to get the highest-level robot on the first day, and it was even the vegetable-cutting robot he needed.
As for the other two, dishwasher and dishwasher parts, we won't buy the parts, but we can hire a dishwasher if we have extra coupons. Ye Xu himself doesn't really want to do it himself, with so many difficult-to-wash pots and bowls.
Without further hesitation, Ye Xu directly selected the SR card and used the employee coupon. The next second, a lifelike robot appeared next to him. Although it was lifelike, it was still obvious at a glance that it was not an intelligent life form, but an ordinary mechanical creation.
The vegetable cutter bowed to Ye Xu, then obediently stood in the corner, waiting to be deployed. Shuangshuang reminded the manager that they could give the robots code names for easier identification.
That's easy. Ye Xu simply renamed it Cai Yi, and any new arrivals will be numbered one through four. The dishwasher can also use this naming method and be called Xi Yi.
The waiters can't be called that; they don't work in the kitchen, and customers might ask their names, which would expose Ye Xu's terrible naming skills. So, the waiters need to be given nice names. After thinking for a moment, the manager decided to name them after the twenty-four solar terms.
"Our store shouldn't be short of 24 waiters, right? We'll be hiring more human employees in the future, and they can all work as waiters." Ye Xu's plan was quite shrewd.
“Uh…” Shuangshuang didn’t know what to say. After a while, she reminded, “Besides the vegetable cutter, the store also needs to hire a vegetable preparation worker. Peeling and washing are things that need to be left to them.”
As mentioned before, washing vegetables could actually be skipped, but Ye Xu has a severe case of OCD and insists on rinsing them, which requires someone to handle it. This person can also take care of peeling and sorting the vegetables, since the vegetables purchased from the store are freshly picked, not copied and pasted from data, and it's impossible for them to be completely free of any yellow or rotten leaves.
Ye Xu nodded after hearing this: "Yes, what are these robots called? Vegetable washers? Then let's call them Xi 1, 2, 3, 4, and the dishwashers Maru 1, 2, 3, 4. I remember there are people with the surname Maru, right?"
Shuangshuang simply couldn't understand the store manager's strange insistence. She was on the verge of a breakdown: "It sounds awful. Can't you change the surname?"
"Then, A, B, C, and D?" Ye Xu probed.
Washing dishes, washing vegetables, chopping vegetables, and cleaning—these are the four main jobs in the kitchen, and A, B, C, and D are more than enough.
Shuangshuang remained silent for a long time, but finally decided to try: "How about Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter? The waiters are represented by the twenty-four solar terms, so the style of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter is more consistent."
"Okay, I can accept either." Ye Xu nodded happily, as long as he didn't have to name it, he had no objection.
Ye Xu opened the salary settings interface to see what other types of robots were available, and found robots for food delivery, cashiering, cooking, and soliciting customers.
The heartless boss, Ye Xu, said in a stingy voice, "The robots are doing all the work, what are the human employees doing? And they're asking for such high wages!"