Jiang Ye sat before the panel, checking his account balance.
The prize money from the previous period's ranking had been disbursed, and with recent income, his current balance was 1.387 billion yuan. Less than 1.4 billion.
He still owed the girls a lot of money, so Jiang Ye decided to wait. It wasn't as if the loan period was long.
He opened the functions for constructing factories and attracting investment, but both the commercial factory and enterprise resume sections were empty, which greatly disappointed him.
Jiang Ye opened the settlement's information board.
The territorial area had increased to 16,010 square kilometers, with ninety-nine percent of it being wasteland.
The current population had grown to 18,075 people. In addition to the newly introduced immigrants during this period, there were also many people who had moved with the alien enterprises.
The number of residential buildings was still low, only 3,804 units, and many of these were bought by wealthy individuals who purchased several units at once.
This meant that the vast majority of residents were still sleeping in their base vehicles or paying rent to live in others' houses.
It was said that some were cohabiting, but this was an isolated situation.
From the satellite map, the area around Binhai City was surrounded by green, and so was Shale Town.
The green areas were either artificial forests or farmlands.
The settlement still had several thousand people engaged in agricultural production. After all, without better jobs for them, farming was their only means of sustenance.
There were also many engaged in animal husbandry, especially near Shale Town, where there were many chicken and duck farms built with adobe walls.
Despite the existence of food printers, natural food was still highly sought after. It was said that natural food contained trace elements that printed food lacked. Therefore, agriculture and animal husbandry still had value, and the market was even quite good.
Jiang Ye remembered that when he visited Jie Dian Star, all restaurants that used natural food had a small green leaf logo on their trademarks. This allowed them to increase their prices by three times, and they were still very popular with customers.
After reviewing the settlement's information, Jiang Ye fell into a state of confusion.
It seemed there was no way to quickly improve the development index.
He could only try to upgrade the base vehicle and see if there was an opportunity after the upgrade.
Jiang Ye clicked on the [Base Upgrade] function.
The base vehicle was already level 25, and the cost to upgrade to level 26 was 700 million!
Jiang Ye was quite hesitant; this price was outrageous.
The last upgrade had cost nearly 500 million, and it only unlocked a sex doll manufacturing machine.
The cost of making a sex doll was in the five figures, and the residents of the settlement couldn't afford it at all. It was meaningless to use it himself.
It was quite a rip-off.
After much deliberation, he gritted his teeth and clicked to upgrade!
[Congratulations! Your base level has been upgraded to Level 26]
[A discount of 20 million yuan has been applied, with an actual payment of 680 million yuan.]
[New items unlocked with this upgrade are:]
[New Basic Function: Vocational Training]
Jiang Ye narrowed his eyes and waited for a moment. Seeing no new subtitles appear, he returned to the basic function panel and found [Vocational Training] at the end. He clicked to enter.
As usual, as soon as it opened, there was a lengthy explanation of the function.
[This function will help you establish different vocational training schools to cultivate professional talents.]
[Different vocational training schools will periodically post school resumes here.]
[You can view these resumes, select suitable schools, reach an agreement, and proceed with construction.]
Jiang Ye understood instantly. This function was very similar to attracting investment, except that attracting investment was about recruiting enterprises to settle, while this function was specifically for recruiting schools to settle.
It was a practical function. Although it might not have much immediate impact, over time, it would allow residents to engage in more specialized work.
Moreover, if nothing unexpected happened, building a school would also slightly increase the development index.
Jiang Ye double-clicked the screen, and the subtitles disappeared.
Two school resumes appeared!
[School Name: Spark Electromagnetic Professional Training School]
[Preset Scale: 200 faculty and staff, capable of training approximately 3,000 students simultaneously.]
[Training Directions: Electromagnetic Experts, Power Engineers, Electronic Warfare Engineers, Senior Electricians, Electromagnetic Equipment Maintenance Technicians, Electromagnetic Field Engineering Designers, etc.]
[Training Duration: 0.5 to 5 years.]
[School Qualification: Three-star.]
Compared to the first school resume, the second resume was more grounded:
[School Name: Mishan Agricultural Professional Training School]
[Preset Scale: 300 faculty and staff, capable of training approximately 5,200 students simultaneously.]
[Training Directions: All-around Agricultural Experts, Pest and Disease Experts, Desertification Control Experts, Genetically Modified Crop Research Experts, Senior Farmers, etc.]
[Training Duration: 0.5 to 5 years.]
[School Qualification: Five-star.]
Jiang Ye was immediately moved.
Both schools seemed very useful!
After all, which city didn't need electricians? Where were farmers not needed?
He decisively clicked "agree" on both resumes and started chatting with the school representatives.
After more than an hour of communication, he finally understood.
The cooperation methods for both schools were consistent: the schools would fund the construction of the schools, bring in teaching equipment, and transfer teachers and staff from other planets.
Jiang Ye needed to allocate land for the campuses and pay the monthly salaries of the faculty and staff.
The schools would have a principal in charge, and Jiang Ye would become the honorary principal, also possessing significant authority.
The tuition fees paid by students would be split equally between the school and Jiang Ye.
After some discussion, Jiang Ye also inquired about the monthly salaries of the faculty and staff and the tuition fees for the students.
For the Spark Electromagnetic Professional Training School, the average monthly salary per teacher was 60,000 yuan. With 200 teachers, that amounted to 12 million yuan.
The student tuition was 10,000 yuan per month. With a maximum of 3,000 students enrolled, that would be 30 million yuan. After a 50/50 split, Jiang Ye would receive 15 million yuan.
This meant that this school could bring Jiang Ye a maximum profit of 3 million yuan per month.
Basically, it was a break-even business. If the number of enrolled students was low, it might even incur losses.
The Mishan Agricultural Professional Training School was similar. It required 16 million yuan in monthly salaries for teachers. Once all students were enrolled, the total profit would be 40 million yuan. After a 50/50 split, Jiang Ye would earn a maximum of 4 million yuan per month.
After calculating these figures, Jiang Ye lost his enthusiasm.
It felt like a losing business.
Moreover, with a total population of over 18,000 people in the settlement, assuming everyone was willing to attend school, it wouldn't take long for everyone to have received an education. The schools would then become unsustainable.
At that point, the losses would be substantial.
Jiang Ye sadly explained his thoughts to the school representatives, stating that he also wanted to establish schools but couldn't due to the lack of students.
As a result, the next sentence from the school representatives made him almost jump up in excitement:
"It's alright, we can bring students from other planets ourselves."