Chapter 2939: Four-Stage Testing, Engineering Problems

Returning to the Floating City, Xia Duo came to the Order Force Laboratory. The soldiers who had previously assisted with the experiments here had all left, but of course, this did not mean the experiment had ended; rather, it had entered a larger-scale experimental phase.

In addition to the twenty soldiers brought in earlier, the entire Territory Guard had been included in the scope of the experiment. During the experiment, their wages would be issued in the form of virtual currency to the balance on their personal Identity Cards.

To allow these virtual balances to be used for consumption, Xia Duo on one hand set up a Gold Coin exchange point in the barracks, where balances could be directly exchanged for Gold Coins for use.

On the other hand, he also selected several local merchants to cooperate with; when soldiers went to consume, they could use the virtual balance to settle the bill, and the virtual currency received by the merchants could be taken to the barracks to be exchanged for Gold Coins or used to offset taxes.

The scope of this experiment, or test, had expanded slightly, but for the entire Territory, the number of people involved was still an absolute minority.

It was just that once users developed trust in this thing called virtual balance, it was definitely much more convenient than carrying coins around all day.

Therefore, on the second day after the test began, people kept petitioning the Government Hall, applying to join the test list. Xia Duo did not agree for the time being, because the current test was only in the second stage, and there were at least a third and fourth stage to follow!

It would not be too late to expand the test scope when that time came.

For the third stage, Xia Duo prepared to enable the official currency, commonly known as the Blue Gold Coin, and call the denomination value "Yuan." The eighth stage would only open 1 Yuan, 2 Yuan, 5 Yuan, and 10 Yuan, with a tentative exchange rate of 1 Yuan to 1 Gold Coin.

Although the prices in Great Xia Territory were relatively low, the Gold Coin was still a small unit of measurement. The Territory's Silver Coins were still in small circulation, and there were even Copper coins, just in very large quantities.

Besides, the machines themselves could also have a few more added; at the very least, there would be no need to worry about loading efficiency for a considerable period of time.

……

"This won't do, I still have to go over and take a look. 500 pieces is not a very large number. To make loading marks more convenient in the future, I still have to find a way to improve it. My design itself should have no problems; the problem lies in the fact that the machine actually produced cannot reach the design expectations, which is an engineering problem."

Therefore, in the future, there will inevitably be currency units below "Yuan," such as "Jiao." Xia Shao had even thought it through: in the future, physical currency with "Jiao" as the unit would be made into a regular polygon shape with corners.

Xia Shao was very attentive to this matter. For this short period, although he had put more energy into analyzing the Domain Protection War Magic Artifact, he also came to the Order Force Laboratory every day.

"Indeed, I am concerned and therefore anxious. Since you have said so, then the current stage of the experiment will end here. Let's talk about it after the currency is updated next month."

It would not be until the fourth stage that the virtual balance would be opened to all official residents. If we say that everything before this was internal testing, then reaching this stage would count as public testing.

"I think the marks on the Blue Gold Coins are already perfect enough. At the very least, the laboratory stage can only test to this extent. The rest can wait until there is large-scale circulation to collect data for further research. And didn't you say that the more the Blue Gold Coins circulate, the more stable the marks on them become? What stage is it now? There is no need to be so anxious!"

"I will go take a look, but I have already guessed the reason for the situation you mentioned. It should be that you put in too many Blue Gold Coins at once, causing pressure on the bottom. I guess you might have added 500 Blue Gold Coins at one time."

Many engineering problems do not have a clear point of defect, but are systemic problems, the result of the convergence of errors from many aspects.

Xia Shao came to the Order Force Laboratory at this moment to confirm the retention of the marks on the Blue Gold Coins with Aiboke. According to the plan, the Blue Gold Coins were to be officially enabled next month. If the retention of the currency marks could not be fully understood, it might damage the residents' confidence in the new currency!

"There isn't!"

Only good things would make people want to join. If it were not a good thing, people would avoid it in time; how could they possibly crowd toward it!

Entering the main experimental area of the laboratory, Xia Shao walked quickly to Aiboke's side and asked with concern: "Are there any new changes to those Blue Gold Coins today?"

Judging from the frequency of misprinted marks reported by Aiboke, one thousand marks corresponded to 500 Blue Gold Coins (both sides had marks). On average, a few misprinted marks would appear every 500 coins. It couldn't be such a coincidence!

In this stage, new Identity Cards would also be replaced simultaneously, but the virtual balance function would only be open to test personnel and would not involve all residents.

Xia Shao acknowledged Aiboke's statement. Just as he was about to leave, Aiboke called him back again, "By the way, I almost forgot. You should go take a look at the Mark Loading Machine. The structure inside needs to be improved. Now, every time one thousand marks are loaded, one or two cases of misalignment always appear."

There is no obvious boundary between public testing and official opening. It will remain in the fourth stage for a while. As for when it will reach the next stage, that might have to wait for people outside the Territory to apply.

In his view, the current currency marks were already quite perfect. This was not a conclusion easily reached from the perspective of a bystander, but a professional judgment made as an actual participant and even the leader of the relevant experiments.

Aiboke did not stop the experiment in his hands because of Xia Shao's arrival. He had already put the vast majority of his energy into the Order Force Spell system at night. As for the Blue Gold Coin experiment, he only worked on it when he was resting.

Thinking this way, Xia Shao walked quickly out of the main experimental area again.

At present, the second stage of testing was proceeding very smoothly. The Territory Guard and the merchants were very satisfied with it; otherwise, other people would not have heard about this and applied to the Government Hall to join the test.

The scope of the third stage of the virtual balance test was initially the same as the second stage—which was the stage currently being conducted. This stage would expand the number of test participants, but it would not be actively promoted; it would only accept those who actively applied to join.

"It should be that I put too many Blue Gold Coins into the machine at once. Then there is no need to look. Just put them in more scattered in the future."

The method Xia Shao prepared to solve it was also very simple: first, determine whether adding 500 pieces at once would cause problems. If it did, there would be no need to modify the machine again; just add an additional feeding device.

Xia Shao instinctively associated it with Aiboke's operating habits. When he said this, Aiboke was stunned for a moment. After recalling carefully, he confirmed Xia Shao's guess:

For Xia Shao, engineering problems were the most troublesome, because this meant that improvements could only be made through repeated experiments. On the contrary, for design problems, as long as the design defect was found, it could be fixed.