Wizards: Starting with Synthetic Gems

Chapter 674 Punishment and Sanctions by the Magic Weavers' Guild
The same thing happened at the Solas Barefoot (30k) seminar. In the most recent market analysis and review, this group of wizard managers, wizard designers and wizard manufacturers found that in the Golden Crown Mountain centralized procurement, the winner of the first round of wizard shoes was a wizard shoe brand that had never been seen before.

Solas, the Moon Ring Wizard Supervisor of the Barefoot (30k) line, said angrily, "Pure Magic Plant Wizard Shoes? What is that? This doesn't seem like a sub-brand that the Melochy Magic Step guys would set up."

The head of the Moon Ring Wizard Department looked extremely grim. Although it was only a first-ring market and a transaction volume of just over 20 million magic stones, the problem didn't seem too serious.

Compared to their overall market share and stock price, Solas Lightfoot (30k) is just a drop in the ocean.

The problem is that Solas Barefoot (30k), a large store alliance, adopts a completely different production model from Locke's Augustus Wizard Shoes brand.

Locke's Wizard Shoes brand adopts a light-asset model. Apart from branding, both distributors and manufacturers rely on Arthas.

In order not to rely on a platform like Alsace, Solas Lightfoot (30k) will certainly need to maintain its own dealers and manufacturers, and at the same time, it will need to invest a lot in business maintenance and advertising at all times.

To enhance the reputation of Solas Lightfoot (30k), they sponsor numerous sporting events and competitions with other wizarding schools every year.

Solas's asset-heavy model (30k) involves using huge upfront investment costs to maintain its competitive advantage.

Therefore, Solas's barefoot (30k) fund has a lot of leverage, so its liquidity is relatively tight.

For Solas's 30k fund, 20 million is already a considerable amount of revenue.

Although it is insignificant compared to Solas's fixed assets of over a billion dollars (30k).

The biggest fear for asset-heavy store alliances is falling into a dead cycle of cash flow problems, while Yunze Wetland's Demon World War is an excellent advertising platform.

The entire Demon Realm War, from top to bottom, is full of traces of the White Wizards' upper echelons' interference, and it can all be commercialized. Therefore, Solas Barefoot (30k), as a famous wizard shoe shop alliance, has spent a lot of effort to compete for wizard shoe orders in the five wars of the seven academies.

Who knew that this time, they would lose all the wizard shoe orders from Golden Crown Mountain. They lost the first ring to a small brand that appeared out of nowhere, the second ring to Melochy Magic Steps in the wizard shoe market, and the third ring to Vicos.

It is said that Vicos focused on developing the third-ring wizard shoes this time, which is why it won the approval of the Golden Crown Mountain reviewers.

But here's the problem: at the technical seminar, many Solas barefoot (30k) wizards were looking through information about the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand.

They all realized there was a problem.

On the surface, Solas's Barefoot (30k) defeat at Golden Crown Mountain was largely due to the fact that Melochy's Magic Step and Vikos defeated Solas's Barefoot (30k) in the second and third ring wizard shoe market.

However, Solas's barefoot (30k) also outperformed the products of these two shop alliances in the other six wars.

After all, Solas had submitted 21 design proposals and physical prototypes to the seven top colleges (30k).

The key issue is that if Augustus's Wizard Shoes were a wizard shoe brand made by a magic weaver, that would be one thing.

At most, Solas would simply buy the brand out of his own pocket (30k) afterward—a sum that no first-ring wizard had ever seen in his life—and acquire the entire brand and related technology.

The problem is, these are pure magical plant wizard shoes.

At the Solas Lightfoot (30k) technical seminar, the second-circle wizards and first-circle wizards looked at each other, all realizing the seriousness of the problem.

Solas, the chief designer of the second ring road of the barefoot (30k) shop, whispered: "A shop alliance, using a heavy asset model, once built, will be difficult for later entrants to replicate."

"So, we're not too afraid of Melochy's magic steps. As for Vicos, well, it just so happens that they managed to slip an order through our fingers."

“Vicos has a huge technological and asset gap with us, so this is just a minor skirmish,” the chief designer of the Second Ring Road said in a low voice. “I’ll say it again: the moat built by the heavy asset model is like a heavily armed giant, hard to fall, and it has already seized most of the benefits of this route.”

"but……"

The Moon Ring Wizard Chief continued, "But... this is only based on the existing model. We, the Lightfoot (30K) of Solas, are invincible as heavily armed giants only on this existing path. But once a second or third path appears, then as heavily armed giants, we will be hampered and restricted in many ways."

"Pure magic plant wizard shoes have never been our enemy before. We also have some funds to spend on research routes that we discover in advance that may threaten our shop alliance, and we have specially established a 'crisis pre-treatment department' to persuade these wizards to abandon these research routes in advance."

"To ensure that these research paths will never be explored by talented wizards."

“We could even give money directly to those wizards to get them to give up on their own.”

"But look at these pure magical plant wizard shoes, the magical plant performance of the Snow-capped Pineapple 02 version... The performance of these wizard shoes is already on par with our top-tier first-level wizard shoes."

The Moon Ring Wizard Supervisor said, "Where is our Crisis Pre-Management Department Director? What are you good for? Why did you release such mature, pure magical plant wizard shoes?"

At the technical seminar, the wizard at the very end of the long table, who was in the first stage of crystallization, immediately stood up, bowed to his supervisor, and said, "I'm sorry, supervisor. This wizard brand was established within the last six months, and our department has indeed been observing it for some time."

"The wizard behind this brand is a researcher at the Golden Crown Mountain, with close ties to the wizards of the Third Ring Throne. Therefore, we haven't acted rashly, but rather are assessing the level of threat to Solas the Lightfoot (30K). A month ago, our assessment concluded that there wasn't a significant threat..."

"At the time, the quality of their wizard shoes was only slightly below average, and there was also the possibility of conflict with the No. 1 Overlord Essence industry. Therefore, our department planned to proceed gradually..."

The Moon Ring Wizard Minister's face darkened. "What do you mean by 'no threat'? What do you mean by 'gradually taking action'? Then tell me, why is it that the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand can produce such sophisticated, top-tier first-ring wizard shoes in such a short time!"

"Have you considered whether our store alliance's stock price will plummet, whether our investment will decrease, and whether our cash flow will be disrupted? The most terrifying thing is that once it happens, it will happen again. Those breeders will swarm in like sharks smelling blood." "It's an unknown market, an unknown world. We, Solas, cannot afford to get involved in such a market, such a world. We will lose the advantage that has allowed us to thrive for so long."

"And this war in the demon realm is the best advertising platform!"

"That Augustus Wizard Shoes brand could easily leap to become a third-tier, or even second-tier, wizard shoe brand, and it has great potential!"

At the long table, a second-ring wizard muttered, "There's never been a first-ring wizard who owned a second- or third-tier wizard shoe brand in a fairly large market before."

"This doesn't make sense. I remember that if this happened, a series of association rules and regulations could be invoked to separate the wizard from his wizard shoe brand, so that the economic order could be aligned with the magical hierarchy."

Another second-circle wizard reminded him, "Take a look at this wizard's credentials. He's not just an ordinary researcher at Golden Crown Mountain, but also the champion of the Spellfighting Tournament and a participant in the Silent Grail. He's basically definitely a second-circle wizard."

"These identities combined would likely make him a second-circle wizard in the Holy Wizard Court. In short, expecting the Law to become our ally and eliminate a potentially formidable opponent... I think that's unlikely. It would be much easier if he didn't have any identities."

The second-ring wizard chuckled, "Young people should always experience how dark this world can be. But this wizard certainly has a certain status, so he will never actually witness this darkness."

The head of the crisis management department apologized in a low voice: "Everyone, this is a problem within our department."

At this point, the wizard capitalists at the long table had no time to pay attention to him and began to discuss how to deal with the situation.

One of the designers at Solas Barefoot (30K) suggested, "Since we can't solve this with violence, why not try commercial suppression?"

“Suppress his production line, raise the production cost of each pair of his wizard shoes, reduce his profits, and then we can simply pay to acquire his brand and technology. These first-tier wizards just want to make a quick buck, so let them make it.”

"Let him make a fortune."

Solas, the chief architect of the second ring, shook his head and said, "Heh. A first-ring wizard? You think he's easy to deal with? He's a top student of Mount Golden Crown, a contestant in the Silent Grail War. I have reason to believe that if he weren't participating in the Silent Grail War, he would probably have already advanced to the second ring, or be in the process of advancing to the second ring by now."

"If you treat him as a wizard who can be easily dismissed, you're likely to suffer a great loss."

"Moreover, look at his production line. He's partnering with Arthas. The distribution channels and production channels are provided by Arthas. How can we compete? With our size, we can't really touch the real capital of Arthas."

A second-ring wizard complained, "Arthas? Capital? They don't deserve it! They're just a bunch of landowners. Damn it, we only recently turned against them, but before, they used to take advantage of their platform to exploit us every day."

“We’ve already fallen out with Arthas. If this kid is partnering with another small shop alliance platform, we can directly bribe that platform to prevent them from cooperating with him.”

“We used to suppress those small brands in the same way, but now that this kid is a guest of honor in Alsace, I’m afraid it will be difficult.”

The wizard continued, "How about lowering prices to suppress prices? Well, that's unlikely. Our products are works of art, so expensive, how can we lower prices? Lowering prices would probably have an even more severe impact on us."

A group of people started discussing how to deal with the situation.

At this time, Solas Barefoot (30k) and Melochy Magic Step reacted the most, while other second- and third-tier wizard shoe brands did not react too strongly.

The main reason is that other wizard shoe brands are just eating the leftovers from these two companies, so they have no incentive to overstep their bounds and suppress newcomers as industry giants.

Meanwhile, the Rose Council and the Magic Weavers' Guild also reacted.

As a transcendent and top-tier wizarding academy, the Rose Council naturally had much to discuss. A group of magic weavers and flower language masters exchanged some information they cared about during their conversation, and thus the topic of the Augustus wizard shoe brand came up.

Most of the wizards in the Rose Council spoke negatively about it, but it had nothing to do with them.

However, some of the senior wizards in the Rose Council are major shareholders of traditional wizard shoe brands, so they are naturally very unhappy at this moment.

But after seeing that it was a brand founded by researchers from Jinmianshan, I didn't have any ideas about what to do.

The Magic Weavers' Guild reacted very strongly, and they began an emergency discussion overnight, concluding that someone had seriously violated the Guild's rules and regulations.

Furthermore, from its inception to its rise, the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand never once sought the opinion of the Magic Weavers Association, nor did it apply to the association for relevant asset verification and production licenses.

Of course, as the association continued its meetings, it was discovered that Locke was a breeder and didn't need the association at all. Furthermore, producing wizard shoes didn't require any production license from the association, and establishing a wizard shoe shop alliance didn't require any asset verification.

These are all unspoken rules that spontaneously formed within this informal association, and have absolutely nothing to do with the White Wizard Association.

So, the association held a meeting for half a day and found that they were completely helpless against Locke Augustine.

The association president was immediately enraged and had a letter of sanctions written. Four copies were printed and sent to the Breeders Association, Jinmianshan and Locke himself, and Alsace.

During the meeting, a magic weaver at the first crystallization stage asked, "Chief, how should we punish these rule-breakers?"

The association president pondered, "Let's start with a threat. As for specific sanctions, let's ban Locke Augustine from joining our association from now on."

(End of this chapter)