Chapter 659: Focus on Key Areas

The advantage of a makeshift team is that you can act on an idea as soon as it strikes you.

That evening, the three partners of the Detective Agency met as planned. Inessa suggested that the Detective Agency needed to strengthen its targeted training for high-level Extraordinary Persons, while Lina believed that the intelligence team still lacked members and it might be time to recruit more.

Wayne had originally intended to assess the Agents' math skills and quickly form a 'tax audit team'.

Now, he felt that what both of them said made sense, so he decided to follow the adult rule: he wanted it all.

The serious matter the three were currently engaged in was confirming the assessment results of the two groups of new members from that afternoon.

The assessment items that afternoon mainly included general education level, observation and reasoning ability, physical fitness, shooting, and a display of personal specialties that new members needed to declare. Some items reused existing old test papers from the Detective Agency, while others could only be practical exercises.

Because there were people like Connal among the examiners, the Arena assessment, which was originally scheduled to start tomorrow afternoon, had a few warm-up rounds today. In fact, some of them were still fighting at this moment, and Connal even called it 'Night Combat Assessment'.

Although it wasn't counted in the official score, some promising individuals were already emerging. The former army officer named Hope was quite outstanding. While his individual scores weren't particularly excellent, he showed tremendous resilience in the Arena. Unless he was technically knocked out or forced out of bounds, it was almost impossible to make him surrender voluntarily.

It was said that if some matches continued, they might truly become 'real combat'.

At that point, one person would probably have to be completely incapacitated for a winner to be decided.

Inessa happened to observe one of the duels and casually offered her assessment:

"Hope's Extraordinary ability leans towards self-healing, but the focus doesn't seem to be on treatment. All aspects of his body, including stamina, seem to recover to his personal optimal state faster than normal people. When actively used, it doesn't enhance healing ability; instead, it's more like a temporary increase in various physical abilities, and it also seems to temporarily block pain perception.

"When combined with his willpower, the code name 'Solid Rock' given to him by the examiners is indeed quite fitting."

That sounded more like an 'adrenaline rush' rather than 'solidity' in the physical sense.

Wayne immediately thought of Song Peter, who was still undergoing labor reform in Georgeberg, and quipped, "If he's called 'Solid Rock,' then Peter won't have a code name, will he?"

"The examiners actually considered that, but they felt Peter surrendered too easily, so at most he could only be considered 'Pig Iron'."

Noticing the large spider peeking out from Lina's golden hair, Inessa even looked at it and earnestly explained, "We're talking about another Peter. Your code name might be 'Gem'."

The large spider retracted back in satisfaction. Lina, in some aspects, was unusually perceptive. She buried her head in the examiners' evaluations of Hope and had already discovered a problem:

"Considering the beliefs and personalities of the Agents, will it be necessary for our Detective Agency to start filtering information and maintaining internal secrecy for some matters in the future?"

Wayne had actually considered this after talking with Hope last night.

The coverage of Holy Spirit faith in America is quite high. Besides the Holy Spirit Church, there are also some scattered believers based in local communities.

Even with random selection, statistically, they would sooner or later encounter members with good abilities and character who also had strong faith. The Detective Agency couldn't just veto them all and exclude them because of this.

Although the Detective Agency wasn't a hidden organization plotting grand schemes, it inevitably had its own little plans.

If these two clashed, setting aside 'betrayal' or 'reporting,' simply 'not putting in effort' or 'not reporting facts in a timely manner' could lead to a discount in the Detective Agency's efficiency.

Wayne generally expressed his thoughts: "Considering the expansion of personnel, the Detective Agency's tasks may gradually shift to a phased execution model. We might design a set of confidentiality rules, slowly prohibiting Agents from discussing and inquiring about tasks they or other Agents have performed with each other—this also aligns with the professional ethics of private detectives, who, in principle, should not disclose clients' personal privacy without authorization.

"Beyond that, to ensure the integrity of the Detective Agency, some information and task progress can be regularly disclosed internally after review. I think such shared content and internal talking points are still meaningful. Many community consensuses in Blackstone Town, for example, are actually based on various small matters that everyone knows, and then a shared identity emerges from that."

Seeing Inessa and Lina nod, Wayne recalled the TV shows and movies he had watched and continued to speak extemporaneously:

"Some early experiences might be very helpful for completing new tasks. Many organizations require summaries and reports to be filed afterward. We might gradually standardize this and design regulations similar to 'secrecy levels' and 'access scope,' incorporating certain specific matters and Extraordinary knowledge into them.

"This would also provide Agents with a direction for effort beyond promotions and honors. Some contributions from Agents are not easily quantifiable by money, so compensation can be offered in terms of right to know and Extraordinary knowledge."

It must be said that while America's system suffered from overlapping structures and multiple sources of command, some experiences of the Founding Fathers were still worth drawing upon and learning from.

Wayne, at this point, had also come into deeper contact with large organizations like the Church and City Hall, so he would copy any useful systems.

Inessa thought for a moment, "If we do this, won't some Agents feel neglected or excluded?"

"Then we'll just have to compensate in other ways," Wayne, being well-versed in such matters, said, "For example, in principle, Agents of all levels, and even partners, are equal in dignity, differing only in division of labor; training courses for Agents should be as fair as possible, and in principle, everyone is eligible to participate; also, Agents with similar character and beliefs should be assigned to tasks together as quickly as possible, and during less urgent times, they can be allowed to acclimate to each other through daily interaction."

Lina had more experience with these kinds of matters: "Then I'll sort it out later. These things are more important for the intelligence team."

She then briefly discussed the recent activities of the Dock Area gangs. After speaking, Lina still seemed a little conflicted, "I've recently felt that the atmosphere between 'Soften' and Alicia isn't quite right. I'm thinking whether we should stop having 'Soften' teach her lessons in the future and just have other members do it."

Oh, this...

It seemed that the union between an Indigenous person, whose style was already close to that of an immigrant, and a beautiful Little Black Girl could be considered a forbidden romance in these times.

Wayne immediately switched to gossip mode, "Who is pursuing whom?"

Lina seemed to answer indirectly, but in fact, she cut straight to the core: "But Alicia seems to be distressed. She already has a partner at the Plantation—the one who comes earliest every morning recently, do you remember? They both escaped together at the time."

Oh, right.

Wayne continued to gossip, "What's his situation? Who has the advantage, him or 'Soften'?"

"After attempting to escape last time, he was imprisoned for a while. He's been coming every day since his injuries healed recently." Lina hesitated slightly, "Their advantages are not in the same direction."

Wayne understood: "How about this then? If you think Alicia is quite good, you can ask her if she wants her little boyfriend to come over too. He could be specifically responsible for organizing the slaves who assist with workshop production—the Plantation probably values male slaves less than beautiful female slaves, so discussing it with the Beaton Family shouldn't be difficult. We can advance the funds for the purchase and then deduct it from both their salaries."

"What about 'Soften'?" Lina asked.

Wayne didn't think it was a big deal: "Let them compete freely. Matters of the heart shouldn't be forced, and the lessons don't need to be adjusted for now. Everything as usual, we don't need to interfere too much."

If it really didn't work out, he could send 'Soften' to the Rabbit Gang's territory to see the world. Why pine for just one flower?

Hmm... the Rabbit Gang is too close. It might be better to go somewhere else. Liam should have a way with this, I just Hope he doesn't lead 'Soften' astray.

Inessa didn't seem interested in such gossip and didn't participate in the discussion.

However, after Wayne and Lina had dropped the topic, she was the one who said, "I never paid attention to these things before. It seems necessary to pay close attention to their progress from now on."

Eh?!

Wayne remembered Inessa's previous emotional analyses of several men and worried if she would go off track because of this, "It's not that important, actually Lina can just keep an eye on it..."

Inessa blinked, "But it sounds quite interesting. I'm a little curious."

Alright,

As long as you're happy.