Chapter 3388

Batman and Stark finally managed to complete the task on the last day after the deadline. They made most of the equipment Schiller needed and simplified the operation as much as possible, lowering the learning cost to facilitate operation by doctors who weren't very professional.

Schiller also, as planned, separated an upgraded operating room as a laboratory department, and also added a general internal medicine department. The current medical treatment process was already very close to a modern hospital.

Patients first went to the triage desk to briefly describe their symptoms, which was the registration in the hospital now. Some diseases with relatively obvious characteristics could go directly into the operating room, while some more complex ones had to go to internal medicine or the laboratory for further diagnosis.

After the examination was done, they could have surgery, and after the surgery, they would go to the inpatient department to stay. Once the large wounds had recovered enough, they could go home, and later they could come back for infusions.

Under Schiller's management, the hospital's revenue was optimistic. Although the dividends for doctors weren't much, Schiller invested most of the money in the hospital's construction, and now basically all operating rooms had been upgraded. Doctors had obtained better medical and rest conditions.

And the more troublesome thing was that the hospital was still missing a pharmacy. Some people's illnesses weren't serious enough to require surgery or infusions, or they had other things to do and didn't want to stay in the hospital, only wanting to get some medicine to take home.

Schiller didn't know if there was a witch's pharmacy in the town. But according to his understanding, the residents here usually bought potions to drink when they were sick. There were specialized potion merchants who would come to sell medicine every week, and many people would buy potions to hoard at home.

After the plague broke out, although the number of infected people was high, there were also many people who paid attention to protection and didn't contract very serious diseases. They heard about this hospital from those who had fallen ill, and some would also choose to come over to see about minor illnesses.

Potions were the best answer to solve these people's problems. But currently, in the entire hospital, the only witch who understood the complete potion-brewing process was Wanda.

The other two helpers were still apprentices; although they had inherited some potion recipes from their elders, they had never brewed medicine themselves. Natasha was even less worth mentioning; she was a battle witch. That thick witch's grimoire was full of poisons, and she didn't have the patience to boil herbs.

Schiller prepared to let Manny expand a small room at the end of the lobby, specifically for witches to boil medicine and sell medicine. This would definitely earn another sum. But if Wanda was let to sit in the pharmacy, then there would be no assistant for Strange.

At this time, Schiller had to turn his gaze to Henry. Didn't this kid claim he had great medical talent? He had been following Strange for almost a week; not to say he would immediately become God's other pair of hands, but being an assistant shouldn't be a problem, right?

Facts proved that Schiller had overestimated Henry and underestimated Strange. If God's hands were so easy to be, then God would probably be a Thousand-Armed Guanyin.

When Schiller saw this ignorant, arrogant bear child in the operating room again, he had completely lost his previous smug look, and his whole person seemed to have lost color, his soul even faded.

Strange was still there wiping his hands while lecturing him: "I never knew ghosts would have shaky hands. You don't even have muscles, yet you can precisely miss every incision point. Your operation of picking nerves made me think a bulldozer had been driven into the operating room. How did you do it?"

Schiller believed that the one among this group most likely to compete with Pride was Strange in a surgical state.

Just as Schiller walked over, Strange put down the rag in his hand, looked up, and said, "Why would you think of finding such a small child to be my intern?"

"He's not small; although he looks like a child, he's actually over 60 years old."

"Then it would be better to find a child." Strange lightly curled his lips and said, "You should have seen the final goal, right? Once we investigate the truth of the plague, we can just leave, right?"

"Pretty much, he only let us make a choice, and didn't let us solve this matter. However, I decided to stay a while longer to let the hospital's situation stabilize before talking. What do you think?"

"Alright. Regarding the truth, do you have any clues?"

"The key point is the mining area, but I don't intend to go there. This is highly likely a man-made conspiracy; as long as they can't achieve their goal, they will naturally come to find us. So your cure rate is crucial."

"I'm doing pretty well here," Strange glanced at the operating table, "the patients sent in have all had pre-processing done, I only need to do the key parts, and it looks like the efficiency is okay."

"I came to discuss something with you." Schiller said he wanted to transfer Wanda away, and Strange's brows were tightly furrowed, clearly very dissatisfied. Schiller glanced at the scalpel by his hand and decided it was better to be more tactful.

"Although you might find it hard to understand, I must tell you that I use every method to earn money, not entirely because I like money; after all, this money can't be taken out."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"Since this is an orderly society, the power of money is limitless. Although our task is very simple and will end before long, others still have quite a few tasks, and many of them also need money to solve."

Schiller began to pace in front of the operating table and stated his vision: "The hospital is our base, and currently Manny only listens to me. All the hospital's income is mine, which is clearly the fastest channel for earning money among everyone."

"They need money to complete tasks, so naturally they have to find ways to ask us. At that time, we can completely sell the money in the game to them in exchange for some benefits in reality."

"Moreover, this hospital is also very valuable. If I run it well, the person who takes over later won't have to spend much effort to have a stable channel for earning money, and it can also be used to buy people's hearts or as a base for recovery. I believe someone will need it."

"Although the money and resources in the game can't be taken out, there will always be people willing to pay some resources in reality to exchange for these things. Otherwise, how could there be so many online games that earn money?"

"My idea is to maintain the basic foundation, earn as much money as possible, and then use our advantage of simple exit from the game to throw all these things out and exchange them for real money in the real world."

"Are you sure someone will buy it?" Strange asked.

"Of course. On one hand, I'm not asking for much; spending a little money to improve one's game experience is still quite worthwhile. On the other hand, if I'm not mistaken, the free two-player dungeons should all be in a similar format. A large map can accommodate many teams for adventure, and the number of teams now might not have reached the limit."

"Hasn't reached the limit?"

"There might still be newcomers entering this map." Schiller rubbed his fingers, "Even right now, there might be someone who has just started the game, accepted the task, and started exploring."

Schiller introduced the worldview he heard from Loki, then said, "Westchester is just a duchy, and there are two major empires next to it. Such a large map won't just have a few players put into it; that would be too wasteful."

"You suspect that all free dungeons are on the same large map?"

Schiller nodded and continued, "Although you can choose the theme, clearly whether it's a hospital, school, horror or not, technology or magic, all can be realized in the worldview of this map. The possibility of there being only one such map is very high."

"If we queue again after leaving the game, we should be able to confirm if this is the case." Strange said, "However, I still have to go to work tomorrow; you can only find someone else."

"I don't intend to queue a second time either; with this time, I'd rather go visit other people's universes." Schiller yawned and said, "If the facts are as we speculated, then for those who want to grind dungeons repeatedly, the assets in this universe are valuable and should be able to sell for a good price."

"In that case, you should be keen on real estate speculation here." Strange said.

"Fun is equally important to me. Although grinding in online games earns money, it's really too boring. Actually, if it weren't for the theme this time being a hospital, which is more interesting to run, I might have speed-run it and exited long ago."

"Regardless, this guy can't be my assistant." Strange glanced at Henry, "He has no surgical talent, is irritable, has poor control, and lacks focus; he's not even as nimble as Wanda. You can't transfer my only assistant away."

Schiller was a bit troubled. He also knew that if Wanda was moved to the pharmacy, there would be no one on Strange's side. But the pharmacy was really important, and besides Wanda, no one knew how to brew medicine.

"Let's ask Wanda for her opinion. If she prefers to be an assistant here, then let someone else brew medicine." Schiller said.

Schiller found Wanda in the lounge nearby, and after stating his opinion, it was no surprise that Wanda didn't want to go brew medicine, because she felt she could learn a lot of knowledge here with Strange, which would facilitate her learning nursing later.

Schiller chose to respect her opinion. He returned to the lobby, found Jarvis, and said, "Do you feel that the efficiency of pure manual medicine brewing is a bit low now?"

"Of course, Doctor. Actually, when I saw Wanda brewing medicine before, I felt it was a bit tiring; many steps could be completely replaced by machines. I am researching assembly-line medicine brewing."

Schiller patted him on the shoulder, very satisfied with Jarvis's tact: "Truly worthy of being a high-level artificial intelligence; this emotional intelligence is much higher than Stark's."

The expanded room was handed over to Jarvis, but building an assembly line required smelting metal. The fire composed of vengeful spirits didn't need special treatment at all and could be used for smelting, but the quantity of minerals was a big problem.

Batman and Stark consumed most of the brass they had mined from underground. Stark built mechas, while Batman built a series of equipment and even wanted to build a Batmobile and a Batplane. The amount of minerals the two consumed was an astronomical figure.

If Jarvis was added, the current mining volume would definitely not be enough. Thus, Stark and Batman manufactured more professional drilling rigs, preparing to mine deeper.

Because surgery and office work were needed during the day, the large drilling rigs were started at night. Although slightly noisy, they only ran for a few hours a day at most, which was barely acceptable.

It was just that one night three days later, Schiller, who was in his sleep, suddenly heard a loud boom, and the entire hospital shook violently.

Hearing the chaotic sounds coming from outside, Schiller knew he wasn't dreaming and that something must have happened.

"She's out."

Manny's ethereal voice sounded in Schiller's ear. He turned his head and saw the little girl's ghost floating by the door, looking outside with a slightly worried gaze.

(End of chapter)