Chapter 266

Chapter 266

Garrett only flipped through a few pages and realized that this statistical work was far from something he could complete alone. Even with Aurora’s help, it was practically the same as not having any help at all...

January 1st, death toll: 42.

February 8th, death toll: 53.

March 15th, death toll: 47.

...July 6th, death toll: 59.

Roughly sampling the results, the daily death toll fluctuated between 40 to 60 people, meaning the annual death toll ranged from approximately 14,000 to 20,000. If he expanded the statistical scope to 20 years, he would have to input data for a minimum of 280,000 people, and a maximum of 400,000 people.

If each person’s death was recorded with their year of death, month, gender, age range, income range, residential area, and cause of death, then a total of 1.4 to 2 million values would need to be processed...

If Garrett were a statistician or a social scientist, he could take his time and spend a year, two years, or even more organizing this data. But he didn’t have that luxury. From now until mid-December, when he requested a hearing, he had only a little over two weeks.

And Garrett set himself a deadline of 5 days for this population census work.

After some thought, Garrett decided to start with the basic work. He rolled up his sleeves and made a table himself:

Each death information would include gender (male or female), age range (0-6 years as one interval, and every 10 years thereafter),

Income would be categorized into four ranges: low income, low-middle, middle-high, wealthy.

Residential areas would be categorized into four ranges: slums, small artisans, middle-class areas, wealthy areas.

There were many causes of death, divided into several major categories such as epidemic, acute illness, chronic illness, accidents, suicides, difficult childbirth, etc., with several subcategories under each major category...

In the dimly lit database, Garrett sweated profusely as he made the table. After finishing it, he started inputting the data himself, timing himself as he went. After inputting one page, he calculated that he could only input information for 6 people per minute on average.

In other words, if he diligently and without error maintained his attention for 8 hours a day...

It would take approximately 100 to 140 days to complete?N/nêw n0vel chap/ers are published o/n n0v/e/(lb)i(n.)co/m

...Well, that’s fine. It meant that to complete it within five days, he needed 20 to 28 clerks... and that didn’t even account for the manpower needed for verification, supervision, and statistics...

So where could he hire, or rather, exploit a group of people?

Garrett pondered for a moment with his chin resting on his hand. He spread out a new piece of parchment and took out the Endless Ink Pen, starting to write a letter:

"Respected Master Edgar..."

Hmm, he could recruit a batch from Black Crow Swamp and another from the Nature God Cult. Anyway, this job wasn’t difficult, as long as they could read and write neatly on the form and count properly. Oh right, they also needed to be patient and careful. Those who could become aspiring spellcasters should possess these qualities, right?

Aurora would go to the School of Necromancy to run errands, while Bernard would go to Oak Ridge. That afternoon, the two of them gradually returned, bringing back replies from the two schools:

Elder Wood stated that it was winter now, and many diseases were rampant among the poor. The cult couldn’t spare many hands. Sending him 10 priest apprentices to work for five days was already the limit. They would arrive tomorrow and would leave after working for five days. Adding one more person or one more day was not allowed!

As for Black Crow Swamp, Master Edgar generously expressed his willingness to help him with this favor. It was no problem to send over 20 newly recruited apprentices to work. Just remember to find some time to teach the children anatomy.

"30 people huh..."

Garrett sighed deeply.

It still wasn’t enough, it would be even better to have 10 more—20 would be even better.

His eyes wandered over to Aurora, considering whether to go find Archmage Carlisle himself or send Aurora to make another trip and recruit a few more people from the Archmage’s place. After some thought, he rummaged through his spatial bag and pulled out a handwritten scroll.

"Brad, male, 18 years old, sailor. No address. Cause of death: drowning at sea."

"Julia, female, 22 years old. Address: Foulitt Street. Cause of death: ulcer."

One person read aloud while the other wrote, the reader not needing to divert attention, the writer not needing to look up. Garrett saw with satisfaction that the efficiency of this data entry was more than double what he could achieve alone.

He mentally commended himself, took a sip of water, and pulled out a book of magic to read. However, before long, the harmonious atmosphere below began to collapse, with the young men and women chattering noisily:

"You filled in the wrong box! The age of 35 goes in the box on the right!"

"You missed a line! Go back and reread!"

"She’s not wealthy! Cross it out and move two boxes to the left!"

"What are you doing? She lives on Foulitt Street, how could she not be wealthy?"

"Are you crazy? Female, lives on Foulitt Street, died of an ulcer—clearly she’s a flower seller! How could she be wealthy?!"

"Mr. Nordmark, what do we check if there’s no address?"

"Mr. Nordmark—"

"Master Nordmark?"

Garrett: "Stop! Everyone stand up, move one table to the left, the table on the far left moves to the far right! Start over, one reads aloud, one verifies, and let’s see how many mistakes there are!"

Another round of chaos ensued. Garrett stepped down from the platform, pacing between the tables, occasionally peering over. In less than ten minutes, in front of the recorders responsible for verification, there were dozens of "correct" marks on the large sheets of paper...

This error rate simply won’t do!

I was wrong, manually inputting data, the possibility of errors is just too high, it’s completely unusable as a statistical basis...

John Grant, how did you manage to write "Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality" purely based on manual statistics from London for decades, back in 1662? Forget about statistics, just inputting data correctly is so incredibly difficult!

Garrett struggled to contain his worries, watching the apprentice mages read, record, and check diligently. From 8 a.m. to noon, with a one-hour lunch break, then from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. After dinner, he sent everyone home, and Garrett sat alone in front of the table full of record books, his brow furrowed.

"Garrett, what’s wrong?" Aurora Worton sat down beside him. Garrett sighed, "There are too many mistakes... it’s completely unusable..."

"Well... why not call in more people and double-check multiple times?... Have them work more slowly?"

Garrett just shook his head. As the questions kept coming, he clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back:

"If only there were an automatic scanning and input system..."

"That... isn’t impossible..."

Aurora Worton suggested cautiously. Garrett jumped up suddenly, "What can we do? What magic can accomplish that?!"

"Um, it’s not magic. The Tower Spirits sort papers automatically, scanning and assigning them. I mean, you could ask if Tower Spirits could do this?"

"That’s great!" Garrett lit up. He grabbed Aurora, bombarding her with questions:

"Who should I apply to? What are the requirements?—Ah, you should have mentioned Tower Spirits earlier!"

"The Tower of Heaven has dedicated calculation rooms, which Archmages can apply for—I can use my teacher’s authority—" Aurora was being shaken so vigorously that her voice was breaking. When it came to the last question, she suddenly faltered:

"Well, um, it’s just that... using Tower Spirits might be too expensive..."

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