Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 598 The Magic Weaver and the Wizard's Shoes

Locke flipped through the documents Scarlett the Witch handed him. "There are 32 events at the first level of the sports festival, 27 at the apprentice level, 17 at the second level, and 3 at the third level."

"According to the tradition of Golden Crown Mountain, this event will be presided over by the Four-Ring Truth Wizard, and at least one of the three deans of Golden Crown Mountain will be present."

"On that day, most of the wizarding mentors, senior wizarding mentors, chief wizarding mentors, throne wizards, truth wizards, green wizards, and sun ring wizards from the wizarding world of Golden Crown Mountain will be present."

"Similarly, wizards from most of the wizarding organizations in the Golden Crown Mountain region will also be invited."

Locke was amazed by the scale.

The wizarding world of the Southeast Corner Region and the Land of Six Towers seems so small and laughable compared to the sporting events in the Golden Crown District of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

This is a grand event that only a wizarding land at the forefront of the wizarding world is qualified to host.

Such a grand undertaking is possible just for a single celebration.

Locke looked at Arthas's top-selling items of the day, and the number one item was various magical garments.

These magical garments are similar to sun protection clothing, mainly because on the day of the sports festival, too many wizards will gather in one place.

This can cause some damage to wizard apprentices who have not developed a magical pressure structure, or wizards whose magical pressure is too weak.

Therefore, many wizarding organizations will proactively purchase some magical robes and distribute them to the weaker wizards watching the games.

Furthermore, neither the contestants nor many viewers want the excessive magical pressure to have any impact on their physical condition, which could lead to losing a match or causing an experiment to fail.

Therefore, magical garments that can block magical pressure radiation will sell very well on that day.

Magical garments made from matte spider silk fabric are always a hot-selling item at sports festivals.

Locke quickly flipped through the documents. "Besides magic robes, the best-selling items are magic bracers, wizard knee pads, magical protective gear, and... wizard shoes!"

Scarlett the Witch's eyes lit up when she heard Locke focus on the key point. She took a sip of her duck head tea and said, "Even if it's not on the day of the sports festival, wizard shoes are the best-selling sporting goods."

"They're even easier to sell than those magic robes."

"Having a good pair of wizard shoes can maximize your athletic ability and help you achieve a better ranking in competitions."

"Among the thirty-two first-level wizard competitions, there are a lot of running-related competitions—the 100-meter elemental track sprint race, the 30,000-meter life-or-death race in the Mirror Maze, the 3,000-meter relay race for magical pets, and even wizards in the spell fighting competition need a good pair of wizard shoes."

"This will be very helpful to them."

"Among all the sports competitions in the Three Swamps, the viewership and commercial value of magic fighting competitions are unique. Therefore, magic fighting competitions are held at all levels, from apprentice level to first ring, second ring, and third ring."

"Each stage is divided into different major levels and tiers of competitions."

"They even have their own dedicated major leagues, minor leagues, and top-tier fighting clubs, along with their own exclusive markets."

Scarlett the Witch said, "In short, wizard shoes have always been the top choice among sporting goods and are an economic engine."

Locke nodded slightly.

However, there is no time now.

If you want to get a share of the market, it's obviously too late to design and manufacture products from scratch.

He quickly searched for suitable targets among the two major magical sports items, magical clothing and wizard shoes.

Locke flipped through the information Scarlett had compiled on some magical garments, pointing to one called the "Ranger's Windrunner Cloak," and said, "This product seems to be selling very well. Its main materials are fire salamander skin, stormbird feathers, and petrified lizard scales, all mixed with dried Gulard grass as raw materials."

"In the 100-meter elemental track sprint competition, the one-ring wizard wearing it won the championship, hence the series of sequels. I think I can slightly improve the Gurad Grass..."

"A collaboration with the Magic Weaver, who produces the Windrunner Cloak series for Rangers."

Scarlett the Witch shook her head slightly. "Locke, your idea is indeed very good. Partnering with this champion product line can guarantee our product's sales, and you are very capable."

"But the developers of the Ranger's Windrunner Cloak series of magic robes only collaborate with a fixed number of breeders. Even if there are better breeders."

"I know the wizard behind this product. He's a stubborn, ordinary second-circle wizard from Bonifaceus University. He only works with breeders he knows. And he himself looks down on breeding, believing that the most important thing about the product is his eye for materials as a magic weaver and his weaving skills."

Scarlett the Witch shook her head and said, "Magic clothing is the domain of textile wizards. And textile workshops have a characteristic: they are relatively small and closed circles, so I think it would be a bit difficult to do business with them."

"Unless you know a textile wizard, then it's not possible."

Scarlett the Witch reminded Locke.

Clearly, as a top-notch trader, she knows many inside stories that Locke doesn't.

This is also where her expertise lies.

Locke thought for a moment and said, "As a breeder, it's not appropriate for me to get involved in the magic clothing industry, right?"

This is a problem with the entire industry system. It's clear that the magic weavers consider the breeders to be a subordinate industry.

Throughout the entire realm of magical clothing, breeders do not hold a very high status.

This is not due to the relationship between the two magic categories, but simply because in the past, the breeders who joined the magic clothing field in Yunze Wetland had a relatively low status.

Therefore, in the Yunze Wetland, the status of the breeders involved in the production of magic clothing is currently relatively low.

Locke looked at the information about the wizard shoes.

Scarlett the Witch said, "The wizard shoes, the breeders aren't involved much either."

"However, in the field of wizard shoes, you breeders have a relatively high status. This is mainly because currently, there are several powerful third-ring breeders with research groups under their command who have joined this industry."

"Of course, whether it's magic robes or wizard shoes, they are actually the domain of wizards specializing in textile magic within the alchemy school. They are the real protagonists."

Scarlett the Witch said, "You can take a look at Wizard Balls. Many Wizard Ball products are magical plants cultivated by breeders. Wizard Balls are used in many ball-based wizarding competitions, such as the Meteor Shower!"

"Of course, most of the useful Wizard Balls are the creations of alchemists and magic weavers."

Locke flipped through the papers, his eyes suddenly brightening, because several of the wizard shoes were not magical artifacts, nor were they the work of a magic weaver.

It was actually a shoe-shaped magical plant!
If that's the case, then they could indeed bypass the magic weaver and sell wizard shoes directly.

To use magical plants, one needs at least some understanding of botany; otherwise, it is difficult to establish a magical grafting relationship with the plants, and even if one can barely use them, one will not be able to use them well.

However, the market for wizard shoes is huge, and even wizard shoes that focus on botanical wizard athletes are a good option.

"Slipper orchids, snapdragon dried bean pods slippers, calla lily slippers, twin bean pods slippers..."

Scarlett the Witch never expected that Locke would ultimately target the Pure Magic Plant Wizard Shoes.

She frowned slightly; that wasn't a particularly large market.

However, Scarlett the Witch quickly realized something. "At the last Golden Crown Mountain Sports Festival, there was indeed a pair of pure magic plant wizard shoes that made it into the top 100 of the day's total sales chart, exactly number 100."

"It's called the Hummingbird Pineapple Shoes."

"That breeder did indeed earn millions of magic stones with these wizard shoes. At the time, some magic weavers were quite critical of these wizard shoes that stole their thunder, believing that breeders should not compete with them, the magic weavers, for the market."

"These shoes are the best-performing pure botanical wizard shoes recently. Most importantly, they offer a solution that non-botanical wizards can use normally. An enchanter can enchant the shoe with a botanical spell, then combine it with some simple textile techniques to transform it into a magical artifact." "Wizards only need to activate the botanical spell enchanted on it and practice a little to be able to manipulate these shoes."

Locke smiled.

This means that the wizard reversed the natural order in this product, focusing on breeding science while incorporating textile science and enchanting science.

However, the two main elements of the original Wizard Shoes – Enchanting and Weaving – have been relegated to supporting roles.

It's no wonder that a large number of textile wizards have objections to this.

If it were wizards from other regions, they might simply pretend not to see it. But how could they turn a blind eye to the fact that Yunze Wetlands was the stronghold of textile wizards?

Scarlett the Witch found the information on this product. "If Locke wants to improve this product, perhaps you can. You can read some articles and patents related to this product. That way, you won't have to put up with those magic weavers anymore."

Scarlett the Witch laughed and said, "Otherwise, even if you were to cooperate with those magic weavers, you would probably suffer some torment from them."

"Wizard shoes made entirely of magical plants are too niche. They won't sell that well, and the technology behind them isn't very advanced."

"Of course, if it's just about making some money, it should be enough."

"I think your choice is quite reasonable and relatively easy to implement."

Locke nodded slightly. There might be some magical plants in the first ring of shoes, but their numbers are quite small.

Compared to the Magic Weaver Wizard Shoes, which has a complete industry and a completely different system of methods, it is incomparable.

The problem is that I don't have time to find a studio that makes wizard shoes and work with them gradually.

Moreover, acting as a downstream supplier to those studios, providing magical plant materials as resources for developing new magical threads, doesn't actually earn much money.

Even with innovative products, choosing the wrong direction can only benefit others.

He possesses the technology to dominate the market.

After careful consideration, we decided to transform the Pure Magic Plant Wizard Shoes, which had already emerged as a dark horse in the previous sports festival and entered the top 100 in total sales, into a dominant force.

After fully enhancing the product, it would be more realistic for me to sell it as my own product, the Wizard Shoes, on the day of the sports festival.

Locke asked, "But will that wizard still sell the same style of wizard shoes at this year's sports festival? I think he has published the patent for the Hummingbird Pineapple Wizard Shoes."

"Coincidentally, I've recently come to know quite a bit about pineapple-type magical plants."

Scarlett the Witch shook her head slightly. "Unfortunately, he will not only not sell any products at this year's sports festival, but he will not sell any products in the future either."

"He is dead."

Locke paused for a moment.

Scarlett the Witch said, "This wizard's name is Pido. Three years ago, he had already reached a magic pressure of 9999, and every moment, the magic pressure was dissipating from his soul. He has entered the most dangerous stage for wizards before breaking through to the second ring—the soul decay period."

Locke's expression was serious.

Because I myself will also enter a period of spiritual decline in the near future.

That's the most terrifying part of breaking through the second ring; it's like a quagmire where no matter how capable you are, you have nowhere to exert your strength.

Scarlett the Witch said, "Later, in order to advance to the second-circle wizard, he boarded a void warship and went to the distant void to carry out planar conquest. He never returned and must have died during the planar conquest."

Locke pondered for a moment, recalling the last time that Grand Wizard Sura and another dark wizard were both plotted against by the world's will in the wizarding plane.

It's basically a lose-lose situation.

Dimensional conquest is an extremely dangerous undertaking.

Moreover, when he recently recalled his experience of becoming a high priestess, he always felt that something seemed wrong.

You must understand that the experience of the Great Wizard Sura was a failure, not a success, so you cannot completely emulate him.

Instead, we should reflect on why he failed.

Locke said, "According to the White Wizard Association, the works of wizards who have died are publicly patented, right? I understand."

"Well then, Scarlett the Witch, let's leave it at that for now. I'll try to improve the Hummingbird Pineapple Magic Plant first. By the way, these wizard shoes require collaboration with an alchemist. Do you have any recommendations?"

Scarlett the Witch shook her head. "You'll have to find that yourself, Locke, but I can provide you with a small-scale dimensional production base specifically for producing magical plants."

"There's a huge pool of cheap labor over there. One magic stone can hire a dozen wizard apprentices to work hard for you for a whole year..."

"And there are magic fields, which don't cost any money at all. The world is vast, and as long as you clear the land and cultivate a magic field, that field is yours."

Locke was stunned. "That works?"

"The labor cost is too low. Hiring a first-class wizard apprentice in Yunze Wetland costs about a thousand magic stones a month, and hiring a second-class wizard apprentice would cost at least a hundred magic stones a month."

Third-class wizard apprentices are useless and can only cause trouble, so Locke didn't mention it.

Locke asked, "Won't the ethics review committee intervene in such a harvesting?"

"What's there to worry about? These rules were set by those holy wizards anyway," Scarlett the witch said nonchalantly. "To those natives, magic stones are very valuable. Besides, they're already quite satisfied that they can work for us, Arthas."

"Arthas has many such colonized worlds. He owns a vast amount of industry that has been moved from the main world to various colonized worlds. These worlds will also benefit from this, as it can improve them and refine their rules..."

"Therefore, the colonial world itself also welcomed Arthas."

Locke said, "I see."

Locke and Scarlett the Witch exchanged a few more words, and then they parted ways.

He didn't understand the details of the relationship between Arthas and the colonized world, and that wasn't something he could control.

However, developing a giant hummingbird pineapple shoe is definitely a project worth trying.

In the middle of the night, Locke went to the Fairy Family Bank in Dragonblood Market Castle, wanting to quickly complete a project and use the Queen's Chessboard.

I don't have enough magic stones right now, so I need to take out another loan of 500,000 magic stones.

The Hummingbird Pineapple Shoes already had guaranteed sales, which is why Locke dared to take out a loan to accelerate research and development and production.

Even if we lose money, at least we can at least break even.

If you miss the sports festival, you'll have to wait another five years for the next one.

For someone like me who urgently needs a large amount of resources to break through to the second-circle wizard level, this is a pity.

So, I can give it a try.

　I had some things to do today, but I'll still maintain an update of over 14,000 words. The last two chapters will have to wait.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)