Chapter 596: Magic Weavers and Wizard Shoes |
Locke flipped through the materials Witch Scarlett handed over. "There are 32 First Circle level events at Sports Festival, 27 apprentice-level competitions, 17 Second Circle level competitions, and 3 Third Circle level competitions."
"According to Golden Crown Mountain tradition, this event will be presided over by a Fourth Circle Truth wizard. At least one of Golden Crown Mountain's three deans will attend."
"On that day, most of Golden Crown Mountain's wizard mentors, senior wizard mentors, chief wizard mentors, Throne wizards and Truth wizards, rising star wizards and sun ring wizards in the wizard world will attend."
"Similarly, wizards from most wizard organizations in the Golden Crown Mountain region will be invited."
Locke was surprised by this scale.
The wizard world of the southeastern quadrant and Land of Six Towers, compared to this sports competition in the Golden Crown region of Cloud Marsh Wetland, seemed so small and laughable.
This was a grand event that only wizard lands standing at the forefront of the wizard world were qualified to hold.
Just for one festival, they could go to such great lengths.
Locke looked at Arthas's ace products from previous years on this day. Ranked first were various magic garments.
For those wizard apprentices who hadn't developed magic pressure structure, or wizards whose magic pressure was really too weak, there would be certain harm.
Therefore, many wizard organizations would proactively purchase some magic garments to distribute to those weak wizards watching the competitions.
Moreover, for competing athletes and many spectators, they also didn't want excessive concentrated magic pressure to have slight effects on their physical condition, causing them to lose a match or, after returning, causing some experiment to fail as a result.
So, various magic garments that could isolate magic pressure radiation would sell very well on that day.
Magic garments made from matte spider silk fabric had always been a blockbuster product at Sports Festival.
Locke quickly flipped through the materials. "Besides magic garments, what sells best are magic wristbands, wizard knee pads, soul artifact protective gear, and... wizard shoes!"
Witch Scarlett heard Locke focus on the key point. Her eyes also brightened as she took a sip of duck head tea. "Even if not on Sports Festival day, wizard shoes have always sold best among sporting goods."
"Even easier to sell than those magic garments."
"Having a good pair of wizard shoes can maximally improve one's athletic ability, allowing one to achieve better rankings in competitions."
"Among the thirty-two First Circle level wizard competitions, there are large numbers related to running—100-meter Elemental Track Sprint Competition, Phantom Mirror Maze 30,000-meter Life-and-Death Speed Race, Magic Pet 3000-meter Relay Race. Even wizards in the Spell Combat Tournament can use a good pair of wizard shoes."
"This will be very helpful to them."
"Among all sports competitions in the Three Marsh Lands, spell combat competition's viewership ratings and commercial value are also unparalleled. So, spell combat competitions exist from apprentice level, First Circle, Second Circle, to Third Circle."
"Each stage has its own different major grade classification competitions."
"There are even dedicated major leagues, minor leagues, and various top combat clubs, with their own exclusive markets."
Witch Scarlett said, "In any case, wizard shoes have always dominated among athletic goods and are the economic engine."
Locke nodded slightly.
However, there wasn't enough time now.
If he wanted to get a piece of the pie, obviously designing products and manufacturing products from scratch wouldn't be in time.
He quickly searched through the two major magical sporting goods, magic garments and wizard shoes, looking for suitable targets.
Locke flipped through some magic garment materials Witch Scarlett compiled, pointing at a product called [Ranger's Strider Cloak]. "This product seems to sell very well. Its main materials are fire salamander skin, plus storm bird feathers and petrified lizard scales, with three mixed and sun-dried Gurad grass as raw materials."
"In the 100-meter Elemental Track Sprint Competition, a First Circle wizard wearing it once won the championship, so there's a series of follow-up works. I seem to be able to slightly improve Gurad grass..."
"Cooperate with the magic weaver producing the Ranger's Strider Cloak series."
Witch Scarlett shook her head slightly. "Locke, your idea is indeed very good. Cooperating with this champion product series can give our product a sales guarantee, and you're very capable."
"But the developer of the Ranger's Strider Cloak series magic garments only cooperates with fixed breeders. Even if there are more excellent breeders."
"I know the wizard behind this product. He's a stubborn ordinary Second Circle wizard from Bonifacius University. He only cooperates with those breeders he knows. Moreover, he himself looks down on breeding studies, believing the product mainly depends on his eye for material selection as a magic weaver, and weaving ability."
Witch Scarlett shook her head. "Magic garments are the world of textile study wizards. Textile workshops have one characteristic—the circle is relatively small and closed, so doing business with them, I think is a bit difficult."
"Unless you know a textile study wizard, only then would there be possibility."
Witch Scarlett reminded Locke.
Obviously, as a gold trader, she could know many inside details Locke didn't know.
This was also her professional expertise.
Locke thought for a moment. "In the magic garment industry, as a breeder it's not good for me to interfere, right?"
This was an entire industrial system problem. Obviously magic weavers treated breeders as their downstream industry.
In the entire magic garment field, breeders' status wasn't very high.
This wasn't because of the relationship between two magic categories, purely because in the past in Cloud Marsh Wetland, the status of breeders who joined the magic garment field was relatively low.
So, this led to currently in Cloud Marsh Wetland, in the magic garment field, the status of related breeders participating in manufacturing was lower.
Locke looked at the wizard shoe materials.
Witch Scarlett said, "Wizard shoes, breeders don't participate very much either."
"However, in the wizard shoe field, you breeders have relatively higher status. This is mainly because currently, there happen to be several assertive Third Circle breeders with some research groups under them who have joined this industry."
"Of course, whether magic garments or wizard shoes, they're actually the world of textile study magic sub-direction wizards of the Alchemy School. They're the main characters."
Witch Scarlett said, "You can look at wizard balls. Among wizard ball products, many are magical plants cultivated by breeders. Many ball-type wizard competitions use wizard balls, like meteor ball competitions!"
"Of course, most useful wizard balls are still works of alchemists and magic weavers."
Locke flipped through, his eyes suddenly brightening, because several wizard shoe models weren't soul artifacts, weren't magic weaver works.
But shoe-shaped magical plants!
If this was the case, then indeed he could bypass magic weavers and directly sell wizard shoes himself.
Although wanting to use magical plants required at least some understanding of plant studies, otherwise it would be difficult to form magical power grafting relationships with plants. Even if barely usable, they wouldn't be used well.
But the wizard shoe market was huge. Even just focusing on making wizard shoes for plant study wizard athletes was a good option.
"Slipper orchid, snapdragon dried pod shoes, calla lily shoes, twin pod shoes..."
Witch Scarlett hadn't expected Locke would ultimately lock onto pure magical plant wizard shoes.
She frowned slightly. That wasn't a particularly large market.
However, Witch Scarlett quickly thought of something. "At the last Golden Crown Mountain Sports Festival, there indeed was a product that entered the top hundred daily total sales, exactly ranked one hundredth—a pure magical plant wizard shoe."
"Called Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad Shoes."
"That breeder indeed earned over a million magic stones with this wizard shoe model. At the time, some magic weavers had quite a few complaints about this wizard shoe stealing their spotlight, believing breeders shouldn't compete with magic weavers for the market."
"This shoe model was the pure magical plant wizard shoe with the best recent performance. Most importantly, this shoe model provided an approach for non-plant study wizards to use normally. Namely, having an enchanter enchant a plant study magic on its surface, then combining some simple textile techniques to turn it into a soul artifact."
"Wizards only need to activate the plant study magic enchanted on it, practice a bit, and can control this shoe model."
Locke smiled slightly.
This meant that wizard reversed the natural order in this product, taking breeding studies as primary, combining textile studies and enchantment studies.
But placed the original wizard shoe's two main characters, enchantment studies and textile studies, in auxiliary positions.
No wonder a whole pile of textile study wizards had opinions about this.
If it were wizards from wizard lands in other regions, perhaps they just needed to pretend not to see. But Cloud Marsh Wetland as the headquarters of textile study wizards, how could they turn a blind eye to this?
Witch Scarlett found this product's materials. "If Locke you want to improve this product, perhaps you can. You can read some related articles and patents for this product. This way, indeed you don't need to put up with those magic weavers' attitude."
Witch Scarlett smiled. "Otherwise cooperating with those magic weavers, even you would probably have to endure some of their torment."
"Just that pure magical plant wizard shoes are after all too niche. Won't sell that well, and this technical system isn't very complete."
"Of course, if just earning some money, it should be enough."
"I think your choice is still relatively reasonable and relatively easy to realize."
Locke nodded slightly. There might be some First Circle shoe-type magical plants, but they were inherently rare in number.
Compared to magic weaver wizard shoes with complete industry and completely different systematic methods, they couldn't compare even more.
But the problem was, he didn't have time to find a wizard shoe production studio and slowly cooperate with them.
Moreover, serving as the downstream for those studios, providing magical plant materials as new magic silk thread development resources, actually couldn't earn much money.
Both were innovative products, but if the wrong direction was chosen, it would just be making wedding clothes for others.
And he had Tyrant-ization technology on hand.
After comprehensive consideration, taking a pure magical plant wizard shoe that in the last Sports Festival had killed its way into the top hundred total sales like a dark horse, Tyrant-izing it.
After comprehensive strengthening, then making it his own product, as wizard shoes, selling them on Sports Festival day, for him was actually more realistic.
Locke asked, "However, will that wizard still sell the same model wizard shoes this Sports Festival? I see he seems to have made the Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad wizard shoes patent public."
"Coincidentally, I've recently gained quite deep understanding of bromeliad-type magical plants."
Witch Scarlett shook her head slightly. "Unfortunately, not only will he not sell any products at this Sports Festival, but he won't sell any products in the future either."
"He's already dead."
Locke was stunned.
Witch Scarlett said, "This wizard named Bido already reached magic pressure 9999 three years ago, and every moment, magic pressure dissipated from his soul. He entered the most dangerous stage before breaking through to Second Circle—soul decline period."
Locke's expression became serious.
Because in the not-distant future, he would also enter the soul decline period.
That was the most terrifying aspect of breaking through Second Circle, like a quagmire. No matter how great one's abilities, there was nowhere to exert force.
Witch Scarlett said, "Later, in order to advance to Second Circle wizard, he boarded a void warship and went to the distant void for plane conquest. From then on, he never returned. He should have died in plane conquest."
Locke thought for a moment, remembering last time Grand Wizard Sulla and another black wizard were both schemed against by the world will of the Mage Plane.
Basically both sides suffered.
Plane conquest was very dangerous.
Moreover, recently reviewing Grand Wizard Sulla's advancement experience, he always felt something seemed problematic.
One must know, Grand Wizard Sulla's was a failed experience, not a successful one, so he couldn't completely learn from him.
But rather needed to reflect on why he failed.
Locke said, "According to the White Wizard Association, works of wizards who have already died will have their patents made public, right? I understand."
"Then, Witch Scarlett, let's leave it at that. I'll first try improving the Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad magical plant. By the way, this wizard shoe model needs cooperation with alchemists. Do you have recommendations?"
Witch Scarlett shook her head. "This requires you to find yourself, Locke. However, I can provide you with a small-scale plane production base specifically for producing magical plants."
"There's abundant cheap labor there. One magic stone can hire over ten wizard apprentices to work hard for you for a whole year..."
"There are also magic fields that basically don't cost money. Sky's the limit—as long as you reclaim land and cultivate magic fields, that field is yours."
Locke was stunned. "This works too?"
"The labor cost is also too low. In Cloud Marsh Wetland, hiring a first-class wizard apprentice costs about 1000 magic stones per month. Hiring a second-class wizard apprentice, per month, at least requires giving them 100 magic stones."
Third-class wizard apprentices couldn't do work and could only cause trouble, so Locke didn't mention them.
Locke asked, "Exploiting like this, won't the Ethics and Morals Review Committee manage this kind of thing?"
"What's there to manage about this? These rules were originally established by those Divine Masters." Witch Scarlett said unconcernedly, "For those natives, magic stones have high value. Moreover, being able to work for our Arthas, they're already very satisfied."
"Arthas has many such colonial worlds in hand. Arthas has large amounts of industry that have already moved from the main world to various colonial worlds. For those worlds, they still gain quite a few benefits, can improve those worlds, perfect world rules..."
"So, the colonial worlds themselves also welcome Arthas."
Locke said, "I see."
Locke talked with Witch Scarlett for a few more sentences, then the two separated.
He didn't understand the details of the relationship between Arthas and colonial worlds. This also wasn't something he could manage.
However, developing Tyrant-ized Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad Shoes was indeed a project worth trying.
Late night, Locke went to the Goblin Family Bank in Dragon Blood Market Castle. Wanting to quickly develop a project while also using the Queen's Chessboard.
The magic stones on hand currently weren't enough temporarily, so he still needed to make another 500,000 magic stone loan.
Giant Hummingbird Bromeliad Shoes themselves had sales guarantee, so Locke dared to make a loan to accelerate research and production.
Figured even if losing money, at least he could guarantee a bottom line.
And if missing Sports Festival, then the next Sports Festival would require waiting another five years.
For his current self urgently needing large amounts of resources to break through to Second Circle wizard, that would be too regrettable.
So, he could work hard and try.