Chapter 47: Blue Ocean

The spacious lobby seems to be designed for hosting grand banquets. Thousands of candle-shaped chandeliers are scattered in a staggered manner on the ceiling several meters high, but below are more than a hundred men and women of different shapes.

They are all scholars who are slightly famous in a certain field, invited by Umbrella Corporation from all over the country. Although the invitation letter clearly stated the work salary and entry conditions, they originally thought they would face an interview, but they didn't expect to be brought here.

The lobby is full of self-service food and drinks. Before long, waiters told them they could eat and drink at will. The scholars who were a bit restrained at first gradually relaxed, only treating this banquet as a welcome ceremony for Umbrella Corporation.

Murphy stood at the railing on the third floor looking at the noisy scene below, and he counted the number of people. "108."

This number is really auspicious.

It's about time, it should start.

His wand waved, and the gate at the entrance of the lobby closed with a bang. Immediately, with a bang, the other three entrances and exits, together with the windows, were pulled by a force and closed by themselves.

The security team of Hazard Mitigation Group had been driven by him to alert 200 meters away from the villa in advance.

Then, he threw a silencing spell down, making the buzzing discussion sound smaller.

Then he flashed to the podium below and used "Sonorus" on his throat.

"Ladies and gentlemen." His voice echoed in the lobby as if added with a loudspeaker.

"First of all, congratulations to you, you have been hired." Murphy said. "Welcome to Umbrella Corporation. Regarding the salary and precautions, they should have been noted in the invitation letter given to everyone before. I won't repeat them here. I believe that at least three times the salary of the past should be enough to satisfy everyone. But regarding the confidentiality agreement, I still need to reiterate it."

"Here, it is the company's most rigorous and core R&D institution, so it has the highest level of confidentiality measures. The terms have also been noted. Once everyone joins the job, they will at least work in a closed manner here for one to three years. Of course, we will re-formulate the agreement every year to ensure that anyone who wants to leave can leave."

"But after leaving this Mansion, no one is allowed to disclose any research in the Mansion in any way. Of course, we will also take some measures to ensure that everyone can abide by this agreement."

"Are there any people who want to quit now? If there are, you can leave now. Everything I say next belongs to company secrets. If you hear it, you can't quit at will."

Murphy waited for a minute, and no one wanted to leave.

"Very good, then you have been officially hired." Murphy said. "Now I can introduce you.

"I believe you must all be very curious about what exactly your research content is."

"If you have chatted with the people around you just now, you will find that you all come from different fields. Present here are mathematicians, physicists, biologists, doctors, chemists, engineers, materials scientists, pharmaceutical experts, zoologists and botanists, and we have even invited linguists, dancers, conductors, musicians, and writers..."

"And there are very few people whose specialized fields are the same. For example, this gentleman, Mr. Cameron Snyder, is a computer expert, but his professional focus is on algorithms and artificial intelligence."

"And this lady, Ms. Maria Ford, is also a computer expert, but her specialty is in processor architecture and instruction sets."

"In addition, you have several other colleagues in the computer field, such as Neizerer Sosa in graphics and visualization, parallel and distributed computing expert Melita Strickland, and cryptography expert Toli Brana. I believe you should have all heard of each other's names to some extent."

"You are all accomplished experts in your respective fields," Murphy said, "but forgive me for being blunt, your achievements are still some distance away from being truly top-tier."

A buzzing sound of discussion suddenly arose in the crowd, but no one stood up to refute him.

"I have carefully reviewed the resumes of every one of you. You are undoubtedly the most diligent and passionate scholars and experts. You do not lack talent, inspiration, or a fighting spirit. What you lack, sometimes, is just a problem that is sufficiently important and sufficiently interesting."

"Our technology has developed to an explosive stage, just like a big tree. Two hundred years ago, it was a bare trunk, and one could find a huge branch of problems in any direction. Every person who made a contribution on this branch, the problem they faced and solved, would serve as a foundation for this branch. They were enough to be remembered in history as pioneers in this field."

"One hundred years ago, the branches on this tree had almost all been labeled with names. Latecomers could only choose smaller twigs to push forward more deeply. And by fifty years ago, and even now, technology has grown into an incomparably lush giant tree. What is left for current researchers are only those deeper, yet much smaller problems within the branches of branches."

"Modern technology relies on countless scientific researchers to accumulate and break through step by step through the piling up of countless tiny problems. The era where a single scientist or a single piece of research could change the face of an entire field is becoming increasingly rare and increasingly difficult."

The crowd listened to his speech without much reaction. As researchers, they already had a clear understanding of this issue when they entered the industry.

Although everyone entered this industry dreaming of becoming a great scientist who could change the world, they also knew that this was very difficult. Therefore, they usually just regarded so-called "scientific research" as a simple job, not much different from the nine-to-five office workers.

"I believe you have all accepted the current status quo, but I wonder if you have ever dreamed of re-entering a blue ocean where no one has ever set foot?"

"There, there are endless unknowns and countless problems. Every step you take and every result you obtain is like creating the world! You are no longer insects crawling arduously on those trivial details, but giants and gods who plant big trees."

The scholars all raised their heads to look at him. Of course, they had had such dreams, but in reality, such huge unknown fields no longer existed.

Therefore, in their eyes looking at Murphy, besides a slight nostalgia caused by recalling their childhood dreams, there was only doubt and vigilance.

Such words were usually only heard from pseudo-scientists and swindlers.

But Murphy on the podium looked extremely confident.

"Today, I will open this door to the unknown field for you all."

"But before that, please watch me perform a trick."

"Leviosa!"

(End of chapter)