Wizard: Starting With Synthesized Gems

In the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, at Solas Light Foot's technical review meeting, the shop alliance's various high-ranking members all had their heads lowered, holding their Lingzhi magical plants and checking the Arthas sales rankings. When they saw the Augustus Wizard Shoes release their fifth product actually available for purchase, opening pre-orders, with sales rapidly climbing to third place, quite a few of the Solas Light Foot wizards simply closed their eyes.

Solas Light Foot's Second Circle designer showed a cold smile, while the many crystallization, liquification, and gasification wizard designers at Solas Light Foot, who had been permitted to attend the technical review meeting as observers, all lowered their heads with expressions of dejection.

The moon ring director was nearly grinding his back teeth to dust.

"It is second place now. At this moment on Arthas's sales rankings, the top two wizard shoe spots are both Augustus Wizard Shoes."

"Those traditional wizard shoe shop alliances and wizard shoe brands are so useless. Before we at Solas Light Foot left Arthas, none of them could break into the top five. Now that we and Melechi Magic Step have left Arthas, they have surrendered the top two positions."

The moon ring director furrowed his brow. If this continued, the people above would take notice.

The mainstream wizard shoe shop alliances of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands all pointed back to one source, the Rose Council and the Rose Witch.

Wizard shoes were the private domain of her and her two Third Circle wizard students. That had always been common knowledge.

The trouble was that even bringing the larger picture to bear against Locke Augustine was complicated, because behind Locke Augustine stood the Red Dragon Witch, Witch Yekaterina.

The Red Dragon Throne and the Rose Throne had always been rivals.

Only now did the moon ring director begin to feel that something was off. They had perhaps already been drawn into a battle between Thrones.

No... that could not be.

The moon ring director lowered his head and showed a contemplative expression.

"It would not be a battle between Thrones. The two Thrones are positioned too closely in the Truth Ladder. If war were to break out, the ramifications would be far too vast, and would even trigger... a rather significant internal conflict within the botanical discipline."

"So this is simply normal commercial competition?"

The moon ring director began to think about how complex the current situation truly was.

The Rose Throne's foundation lay in the language of roses, but her two Third Circle wizard students had their foundation in wizard shoes.

Solas Light Foot and Melechi Magic Step each had a Third Circle wizard standing behind them.

And so those two shop alliances would remain as stable as a mountain within the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

The two shop alliances represented different specialized technical routes within their respective sub-fields.

As long as Augustus Wizard Shoes failed to reach the level of a sun ring wizard for even one more day, it would be difficult to truly threaten the fundamental standing of the two shop alliances.

But at this moment, Locke had already become a Second Circle wizard, which meant he could now affect the two shop alliances in commercial competition.

In the current situation, they had initially paid insufficient attention to the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand, considering it nothing more than a flash in the pan, or at most something that would putter along without ever truly thriving.

And Locke Augustine himself would need at least five to ten years to become a Second Circle wizard.

But who could have anticipated that immediately after the Silent Chalice competition he would become a Second Circle wizard?

And by this point, the window for an assassination attempt had already passed.

The moon ring wizard director closed his eyes. The head of the former crisis management department had already been removed, and someone inside Solas Light Foot, an ordinary Second Circle witch, had been apprehended and sentenced by a court to ten years of imprisonment and fifteen years of compulsory labor.

Additionally, one crystallization wizard and two gasification wizards had been sentenced directly to death. Five liquification wizards who had participated were imprisoned for thirty years and sentenced to fifty years of compulsory labor.

Because of this affair, Solas Light Foot had not only lost at least hundreds of millions of magic stones in talent cultivation costs, but had also lost an entire reserve of personnel.

After all, it was Golden Crown Mountain that had directly pursued accountability.

And so he himself had been severely penalized by those above, having at least half his salary reduced and many of his resources stripped.

Looking back on it now, the director already regretted it. Had he known, he should have agreed from the start to purchase an unused World Stone for Locke.

The moon ring director let out a quiet sigh.

Had he agreed at that time, he could have saved Solas Light Foot losses of at least two hundred million magic stones.

Even for Solas Light Foot, losing this much money was something they could weather for the moment given their thick reserves, but if it kept happening, problems would eventually emerge.

And he was only a senior administrative director at Solas Light Foot.

His personal reserves were nowhere near that thick.

If this continued, he feared that those above would come after him for accountability.

The moon ring director, Hormuz, furrowed his brow. As Solas Light Foot's administrative director, with an expression that had always carried an air of arrogance, a trace of regret finally appeared on his face.

He tapped the table, his fingers striking out a rhythm that seemed to resonate in the ears of every First Circle designer at Solas Light Foot.

"So I said it long ago. Our Solas Light Foot is not a brand that sells gimmicks. Gimmicks are needed, the product service line is needed, but quality, and the pursuit of technical progress, are equally needed."

"Has everyone forgotten how Solas Light Foot rose to where it is today?"

"Have we forgotten our shop alliance culture?"

The First Circle designers in attendance all lowered their heads and remained silent, while the Second Circle designers showed cold smiles one by one and made no move.

Hormuz was a shrewd person who knew that the more pressing moments like these were, the more urgently he needed to find someone to take the blame. He looked toward the First Circle technical chief at the review meeting, and was immediately about to deploy his well-practiced skill.

Blame-shifting had to be done early, had to be done at any opportunity. Being even one step slow could mean the blame would stick.

"Michael, you are the rising star we at Solas Light Foot have cultivated, a reserve cadre for technical leadership and the next generation of innovative magical weavers."

"You are a genius among our shoe craftsmen. Let me ask you: during this period, have you produced any new wizard shoes?"

Michael's expression turned unpleasant.

As an assistant wizard instructor at the Rose Council, a quasi-lecturing mage, he was a student of a sun ring wizard who was in turn a student of one of the Rose Council's Third Circle wizards.

He was therefore considered core lineage for both the Rose Council and Solas Light Foot.

Solas Light Foot internally had always had two advancement tracks. One was the direct promotion track reserved for members of their teacher-student lineage. The other was the regular employee advancement track.

Even ordinary employees who worked diligently found it difficult to be trusted, and their future accomplishments were limited. Whether they took the administrative track or the technical track, they were difficult to trust and difficult to cultivate.

But the moon ring director standing before him, Hormuz, had been appointed as the primary administrator of Solas Light Foot and was a member of senior management at the highest level precisely because he was himself a lecturing mage at the Rose Council, and had even signed a contracted wizard instructor role at the Rose Council, which was not officially recognized by the White Wizard Association. In essence it was an enhanced lecturing mage position, and after leaving the Rose Council the White Wizard Association could only acknowledge him as a lecturing mage.

This Hormuz was originally his laboratory senior fellow.

And so, after thinking it over briefly, Wizard Michael suppressed his anger, stood up, and proactively apologized. "Director Hormuz, I am sorry. I did not anticipate that the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand would release a second blockbuster product so quickly."

"And just now I also took a look at the performance indicators for his wizard shoes. All I can say is, if they are then..."

Wizard Michael sighed.

"Then they have reached the standard of the finest First Circle wizard shoes currently in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands. Without exception."

"That pure magical plant wizard shoes could reach this level, it is difficult to imagine."

Wizard Michael said, "Of course, if the figures were fabricated, then that would be another matter entirely."

Director Hormuz gave him a cold look. "How could there be any fabrication? Do not mistake your own complacency for a flaw in the enemy."

"Arthas's trader system is very comprehensive. The trader responsible for the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand is a gold-level trader. Since pre-orders have already been opened, the magical plant properties of this magical plant would certainly have been verified in advance."

Wizard Michael bowed his head. "That is indeed the case. It is true that our Solas Light Foot's research and development department has been somewhat complacent in the First Circle wizard shoe domain."

"Only... only... if the performance of these magical plant wizard shoes is then even if we had our Solas Light Foot First Circle wizard shoe research and development department working around the clock, we would not be able to surpass this level of performance in the short term."

The Second Circle chief designer suddenly spoke up. "Michael, would it not be possible even with thirty million magic stones of investment into your First Circle research and development department?"

Wizard Michael bowed and showed a look of difficulty.

"To the best of my knowledge, it would be difficult. Perhaps because he is a Second Circle wizard and I am only a crystallization wizard. I truly cannot imagine how, using the pure magical plant wizard shoe technical route, one could surpass the quality of wizard shoes designed by magical weavers."

"Especially shoes of our caliber as top-tier magical weavers."

Wizard Michael asked with sincerity, "Logically speaking, a pair of wizard shoes requires coordination across numerous specialized fields, from materials to structure to aerodynamics and many other disciplines, all working in coordination. A pair of wizard shoes is itself a magical artifact."

"In the earliest days..."

Wizard Michael paused, then looked around the room and began to recount what everyone at Solas Light Foot knew, the history of the shop alliance.

"Three hundred years ago, while there were some wizard shoe shop alliances, they were small in scale, and at that time there were no large shop alliances specializing exclusively in shoes."

"Wizard shoes were sold in shops as ordinary magical artifacts, and were not even considered mainstream among magical artifacts. But the Third Circle wizard behind our Solas Light Foot put forward the concept of speed, professionalism, and culture, and on the basis of these three ideas established a dedicated wizard shoe shop."

"And so the first shop alliance specializing exclusively in wizard shoes appeared. While there were also many shoe craftsmen at the time, those shoe craftsmen only treated their wizard shoes as ordinary magical artifacts to put up for sale."

"But Lord Solas believed this sales model was difficult to elevate the status of our shoe craftsmen and difficult to improve the level of specialization in wizard shoes at that time. And so he established Solas Light Foot, and ultimately through specialized differentiation achieved victory. Today, Aulebur, the department wizard alliance shop that once tried to suppress us, has relatively declined, while our Solas Light Foot grows stronger with each passing day."

"By virtue of our culture as a specialized wizard shoe shop alliance, we have always maintained wizard shoes of superior quality, always stronger performance than everyone else, and have established numerous cultural barriers. But..."

Wizard Michael furrowed his brow. "We never expected that our competitor would not come from within the magical weaving profession, but from a domain we have no influence over."

The Second Circle chief designer kept his eyes closed, unimpressed.

"In those days, Aulebur was unwilling to abandon the wizard shoe domain. But in the end, through Lord Solas's efforts, they had no choice but to give it up."

"Solas Light Foot achieved victory through specialization, and so the degree of specialization is actually the most important of all our many barriers."

"However, every field will occasionally produce a genius. A genius relying on individual ability can suddenly reverse the dynamics of an industry, causing a field to undergo a stage-level leap."

"In three hundred years, Solas Light Foot has also encountered some geniuses within the magical weaving domain. Only as long as these geniuses chose the shoe craftsman route, they would eventually join the Rose Council, and then they were all on our side. Even if some of them went on to establish their own small brands, we only needed to quietly acquire them. And this time, the person challenging us is not a magical weaver in the shoe craftsman field, but a breeder..."

"That is precisely the reason we were caught off guard. But the problem is not actually that serious."

The Second Circle chief designer deliberated before saying, "The wizard shoe domain has been built up over a thousand years of accumulated development into a mature technical route. The opponent's First Circle wizard shoe designs have drawn on our magical weaver shoe technical standards and technical routes in every aspect. But there is one point the opponent will find difficult to cross."

"What is the greatest difference between a magical plant and a magical artifact? A magical artifact is merely an object, while a magical plant is a living organism. It is relatively straightforward for an object to reach Second Circle-level magic pressure, but for a living organism to reach Second Circle-level magic pressure is considerably more difficult."

"Virtual roots... if the opponent could produce a Second Circle-level wizard shoe right now, they would have already done so."

"But since they cannot, that means the opponent is stuck on virtual roots."

The moon ring director's eyes lit up.

"So as long as the opponent has not overcome the cost-scaling problem of virtual roots, there is no way to mass-produce wizard shoes at the Second Circle level. They will remain trapped at the First Circle stage."

"They will never truly become a significant force. Worthy of a sun ring great wizard. Your insight is truly remarkable."

"In that case, if this is how things stand, as long as we hold firm in the First Circle wizard shoe market and continue to suppress them within it, that so-called wave of pure magical plant wizard shoes will never truly arrive..."

The Second Circle wizard chief designer gave a slight nod, neither speaking nor making any explicit statement.

Wizard Michael's eyes also brightened.

That made sense.

Many breeders were currently watching from the sidelines, waiting to see what the final outcome of Augustus Wizard Shoes would be. If the outcome was good, many of them would enter this industry.

That was what Solas Light Foot feared most.

But if that great wizard Augustine could not overcome the problem of mass-producing virtual roots, things would be different.

Perhaps many breeders were still watching from the sidelines rather than entering the fray precisely for this reason.

Wizard Michael said, "Then our First Circle technical research and development department should quickly develop a new product that can stabilize the market. Even if the performance cannot compare with that Black Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad, we can strip out many unnecessary features, keeping only the core functions, and then rely on the trust our brand has accumulated in the past and strong offline sales efforts. The problem should not be significant."

"Of course, the follow-up maintenance services still cannot be cut..."

Solas Light Foot's Second Circle wizard chief designer maintained his air of calm detachment. He had initially viewed this whole affair as something to observe from the sidelines, with no expectation that the wind would keep blowing stronger.

But as long as Augustus Wizard Shoes had not truly entered the Second Circle market, the problem was in fact manageable.

Director Hormuz gave a nod of agreement.

"A modest adjustment on our part should be sufficient to handle the current crisis."

At this moment, his Lingzhi magical plant vibrated, and an expression shift crossed his face, because it was actually the wizard board of directors reaching out directly.

Director Hormuz hesitated for a moment, then chose to accept the visual communication.

A sun ring wizard director appeared and said, "Hormuz, Solas Light Foot's share price has not been stable for long before dropping for a second time. The board of directors is extremely displeased with you."

"After discussion, the board has made a decision. It is dispatching an acting administrative director to Solas Light Foot's headquarters."

Hormuz's body jolted. "Please wait, lords, could I have one more chanc..."

The wizard director said, "This acting administrative director is the eldest daughter of the Tacitus family and is also the Rose Throne's granddaughter. This time she comes not only as acting administrative director of Solas Light Foot, but has also been appointed acting director by Melechi Magic Step."

"That is to say, she is simultaneously the acting director of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' two top wizard shoe shop alliances."

"She will coordinate the resources of both shop alliances."

Every wizard at the technical review meeting straightened up, sensing something out of the ordinary.

That meant the Rose Council's response to a breeder's incursion into their territory was actually this significant.

Was she here to gild her reputation?

Or did those above believe that a just-developing wizard shoe brand could threaten the mature magical weaving shoe industry?

Director Hormuz was silent for a moment, then asked, "May I ask, lord, when will this person arrive, and approximately what magical level do they possess?"

The wizard director said gravely, "Magical level is not the important point. But this represents the will of those above. This person has already entered your two shop alliances and is currently conducting an informal inspection. For now, you do not need to change anything. Simply continue doing your work as normal."

"This person will observe your working style and read through our Solas's documentation to formulate a complete plan for restructuring Solas Light Foot."

"She is a researcher at the Rose Council's advanced Origin Academy, of distinguished status and deep family background. She will certainly be able to help our Solas Light Foot reestablish dominance."

The wizard director pulled up the current First Circle wizard shoe annual sales report for the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.

"Look. One year ago, among the truly top ten First Circle wizard shoe annual sales rankings in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands, six were ours from Solas Light Foot, and the remaining four were Melechi Magic Step products."

"But the situation has changed now."

"In today's hidden rankings, for the first time a pair of Demon Realm Bromeliad wizard shoes has appeared on the list, ranked seventh. It is anticipated that next year, Augustus Wizard Shoes will have more styles entering the hidden top ten of these rankings."

"And so we do have reason to make certain changes to prevent this from happening."

Director Hormuz gritted his teeth.

"Yes."

The wizard director's image disappeared.

At the technical review meeting, many wizards were exchanging whispers and muttering to each other, not having expected those above to suddenly dispatch someone, and to conduct an informal inspection at that.

...

At Golden Crown Mountain, in a wizard town at the mountain's midpoint, Locke found that Witch Yekaterina had chosen the entire wizard town as the venue for his celebration banquet.

Wizards from various parts of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had all come to this town and were in the central square of the town conversing with Witch Yekaterina.

This was undoubtedly a gathering of her teacher-student lineage, as well as a banquet at which Golden Crown Mountain declared its dominant decade ahead.

And so Locke understood that he was not truly the main attraction, and so he quietly exchanged greetings with the many wizard guests who had come to the banquet, walking silently through this wizard town.

Many wizards who had once been favored by Witch Yekaterina, or who had currently reached agreements with her, had all come to this wizard town.

All seven of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands' premier wizard universities had sent Third Circle wizards to represent them and offer their congratulations.

The Cloud Marsh Wetlands' ten top shop alliances had also sent Third Circle-level wizard directors to attend.

Beyond that, the heads of various Cloud Marsh Wetlands organizations, bureau directors of the White Wizard Association, and representatives of wizard powers from the Three Marshes outside the Cloud Marsh Wetlands had all come.

Witch Yekaterina seemed extraordinarily adept at managing these interpersonal relationships.

Locke was guided into a smaller social circle, which was the inner circle of Witch Yekaterina's true personal disciples.

This circle was considerably smaller.

Inside a villa, five wizards in total were gathered. They were Witch Yekaterina's personal disciples, in the strict sense of the term her teacher-student bond, not the student-instructor relationship of the academy's mentorship system. It was more akin to the kind of teacher-student relationship that existed in ancient times.

And students of this kind numbered only five to date.

After all, neither Wizard Cis nor Wizard Kelt were anything more than Witch Yekaterina's subordinates, part of her academic lineage, but only as academy students or colleagues.

Even Witch Scarlett was only in the student-instructor relationship under Golden Crown Mountain's academic system, and could not truly be considered Witch Yekaterina's personal student.

At most it was the kind of relationship he shared with Williams.

But this private gathering represented an even smaller circle.

Within this circle were Witch Yekaterina's true core connections, her teacher-student disciples.

Locke understood that simply being brought into this circle was itself a form of affirmation.

This was an extremely core treatment.

Only a question arose in Locke's mind.

On what grounds?

He was only Witch Yekaterina's cooperating wizard, or perhaps a dragon-blood wizard, but even that should not have been sufficient to bring him into this circle.

Locke looked at the five wizards before him. Among the five, four were actually Third Circle wizards. The last one, who appeared to be a young wizard, was a sun ring wizard.

The five were conversing and laughing warmly with one another. When they sensed Locke walking in, they all looked toward him.

One of the Third Circle wizards said, "So this is our little junior? Come in. Our teacher has mentioned you to us."

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