New Gods of North America.

Chapter 659 is a key focus.
The advantage of a makeshift team is that you can start doing whatever comes to mind.

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-ranking extraordinary individuals, while Lina believed that the intelligence team still lacked members and it might be time to recruit more.

Wayne had originally planned to test the agents' math skills by hastily forming a "tax investigation team."

Now I realize they all make sense, so I'll do it the way adults do—I want them all.

What the three of them were actually doing at that moment was confirming the assessment results of the two groups of new members that afternoon.

This afternoon's assessment mainly focused on general education, observation and reasoning skills, physical fitness, shooting, and a demonstration of personal strengths that new members were required to declare. Some of the assessments reused existing test papers from the detective agency, while others required practical demonstrations.

Because of an examiner like Connor, the arena assessment, which was originally scheduled to begin tomorrow afternoon, was held today as a warm-up – in fact, people were still fighting even now, which Connor euphemistically called the "night battle assessment."
Although it doesn't count towards the official results, some promising talents have already begun to emerge. One such talent is former Army sergeant named Hope. While his individual performance isn't particularly outstanding, he displays remarkable resilience in the arena. Unless you use technical knockouts or knock him out of the ring, it's almost impossible to force him to concede defeat.

It's said that if some of these matches were to be played again, they might actually become "real combat" matches.

It'll probably take until one person is completely defeated before the outcome can be determined.

Inessa happened to be watching one of the matches and casually offered her assessment:

"Hope's extraordinary ability leans towards self-healing, but it doesn't seem to focus on treatment. His physical condition, including his stamina, seems to recover to his peak condition much faster than ordinary people. When he uses it actively, it doesn't enhance his healing ability, but rather seems to temporarily improve his physical abilities, while also seemingly blocking out pain."

"If we consider his willpower as well, the code name given to him by the examiners as 'Solid Rock' is indeed quite fitting."

It sounds more like an "adrenaline rush" than "solidity" in the physical sense.
Wayne immediately thought of Peter, who was still undergoing labor reform in Georgeburg at the time, and joked, "If he's called 'Solid Rock,' then Peter won't have a codename?"

“The examiners did consider this, but they felt that Peter was too easy to surrender and could only be considered ‘pig iron’ at best.”

Noticing the large spider emerging from Lina's blonde hair, Inessa looked at it earnestly and explained, "We're talking about another Peter; your codename could perhaps be 'Gem'."

The giant spider retreated again, satisfied. Lina, however, was unusually perceptive in some ways; she buried herself in reading the examiners' evaluations of Hope and had already spotted the problem:

"Considering the agents' beliefs and personalities, should we start implementing information screening and internal confidentiality measures for some of our detective agency's affairs in the future?"

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

The Holy Spirit faith has a fairly high penetration rate in the United States. In addition to the Holy Spirit Church, there are also some individual believers based in local communities.

Even if it's just a blind draw, statistically speaking, sooner or later we'll encounter members who are capable, virtuous, and have unwavering beliefs. The detective agency can't just reject them all because of that.

Although the detective agency isn't some clandestine organization plotting grand schemes, it's not immune to having its own little schemes.
If these two things conflict, not to mention "betrayal" or "reporting," the detective agency's efficiency may be affected by "going through the motions" or "failing to report the facts in a timely manner."

Wayne briefly explained his thoughts: "Considering the expansion of our staff, the detective agency's missions may gradually shift to a phased execution model. We might design a set of confidentiality rules to gradually prohibit agents from discussing or inquiring about the missions they or other agents have carried out—this also aligns with the professional ethics of private detectives, who, in principle, should not disclose their clients' personal privacy without authorization."

"In addition to this, in order to ensure the integrity of the detective agency, some news and mission progress can be disclosed internally on a regular basis after review. I think such shared content and internal conversation topics are still meaningful. For example, many townspeople's consensuses in Blackrock Town are actually based on small things that everyone knows, and that's how they achieve unity."

Seeing that Inessa and Lina both nodded, Wayne recalled some movies and TV shows he had watched and continued to speak on the spot:
"Some prior experience may be very helpful in completing new tasks. Many organizations require summaries, reports, and archives afterward. We can gradually standardize this process and design regulations such as 'confidentiality levels' and 'access scope,' including specific matters and extraordinary knowledge."

"This way, in addition to promotion and honor, we also give the agents a direction to strive for. Some of the agents' contributions are not easy to define in monetary terms, so we compensate them in terms of their right to know and their extraordinary knowledge."

It must be said that although the American system has its problems of overlapping systems and conflicting policies, some of the Founding Fathers' experiences are still worth learning from. Wayne has now had considerable contact with large institutions such as churches and city halls, and he can copy the systems that are useful.

Inesa thought for a moment, "If we do that, won't some agents feel neglected or ostracized?"

“Then we can only make up for it from other places.” Wayne was quite knowledgeable in this regard. “For example, in principle, all agents and even partners are equal in personality, only with different divisions of labor; the training courses for agents should be as equal as possible, and in principle, everyone is eligible to participate; agents with similar character and beliefs should be put together to carry out missions as soon as possible, and when there is no emergency, let them get used to each other through daily work.”

Lina was more experienced in these kinds of things: "Then I'll go back and sort it out a bit. These things are more important to the intelligence team."

She then briefly mentioned the activities of the gangsters in the dock area over the past few days. After finishing, Lina seemed a little conflicted, "I've been feeling that the atmosphere between 'Softening' and Alicia is a bit off lately. I'm thinking about whether I should stop letting 'Softening' come to teach her and just have other members come instead."

Ah this...

The union of an indigenous person, whose appearance is almost like that of an immigrant, and a beautiful young Black woman would be considered a forbidden love these days.
Wayne immediately switched to gossip mode, asking, "Who's pursuing whom?"

Lina seemed to be giving an irrelevant answer, but she actually got straight to the point: "But Alicia seems to be troubled. She actually has a partner in the plantation—the one who comes in the earliest every morning recently. Do you remember? They ran away together."

Oh right.

Wayne continued to observe, "What's going on on his end? Who has the advantage, him or 'softening'?"

“After his last escape attempt, he was imprisoned for a while, but he's been coming every day since he recovered from his injuries.” Lina hesitated slightly. “Their strengths aren’t aligned.”

Wayne understood: "How about this? If you think Alicia is alright, you can ask her if she wants her young couple to come along. They can be specifically responsible for organizing the slaves who assist in the workshop's production—the plantation probably doesn't value male slaves as much as it values ​​pretty female slaves. It shouldn't be difficult to discuss it with the Beaton family. We can advance the purchase funds and then deduct it from their salaries."

“What about ‘softening’?” Lina asked.

Wayne didn't think it was a big deal: "It's just free competition. You can't force matters of the heart, and the classes can stay the same for now. Everything will proceed as usual; we don't need to interfere too much."

If all else fails, let "soften" go to the Rabbit Gang's territory to broaden his horizons. Why be hung up on just one flower?

Hmm... the Rabbit Gang is too close, it might be better to go somewhere else. Liam should be good at this, but I'm afraid he might mess up the "softening" technique.

Inessa seemed uninterested in this kind of gossip and did not participate in the discussion.

After Wayne and Lina had both put their minds at ease, it was she who remarked, "I hadn't paid attention to these things before. It seems I need to keep a close eye on their progress from now on."

babble?!

Wayne recalled the emotional analyses Inessa had done for several men before and worried that she might go astray because of them. "It's not anything too important. Actually, Lina can keep an eye on things..."

Inesa blinked. "But it sounds interesting. I'm a little curious."

alright,

as long as you are happy.

(End of this chapter)