NovelOnline Chapter 672: The Magical Weaver Industry Association's Punitive Sanctions
Chapter 672: The Magical Weaver Industry Association's Punitive Sanctions
The same thing was happening at a seminar hosted by Solas Light Foot (30K). During their most recent market analysis and review session, the group of wizard managers, wizard designers, and wizard manufacturers discovered, to their astonishment, that the wizard shoe brand that had won the Golden Crown Mountain collective procurement contract for First Circle wizard shoes this time around was one they had never seen before.The moon ring wizard executive of Solas Light Foot (30K) said irritably, "Purely plant-based wizard shoes? What on earth is this? This doesn't look like the kind of sub-brand those people at Melechi Magic Step would set up."
The moon ring wizard department head's expression was extremely ugly. Although this was only a First Circle market, and the transaction volume was only around twenty million magic stones, the problem did not appear to be especially severe on its face.
Compared to the overall market share and stock price of Solas Light Foot (30K), it was no more than a drop in the ocean.
But the issue was that Solas Light Foot (30K), as a large shop alliance, operated under a production model that was completely different from Locke's Augustus Wizard Shoes brand.
Locke's wizard shoe brand operated on a light-asset model. Aside from building the brand itself, both the distributors and the manufacturers were all handled through Arthas.
Solas Light Foot (30K), on the other hand, in order to avoid depending on a platform like Arthas, had to maintain its own distributors and manufacturers, while also pouring enormous resources into commercial upkeep and advertising at every moment.
To strengthen the name of Solas Light Foot (30K), they sponsored a great many sporting competitions and inter-wizard-academy contests every year.
The heavy-asset model that Solas Light Foot (30K) played was one of using massive upfront investment costs to maintain their moat.
As a result, Solas Light Foot (30K) carried a significant amount of leverage, which made their liquid capital relatively scarce.
Those twenty million magic stones already counted as a meaningful revenue figure for Solas Light Foot (30K).
Though compared to their fixed assets in the billions, it was still a trivial sum.
Heavy-asset shop alliances feared nothing more than falling into a death spiral of cash flow problems, and the Demon Realm War in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands was an excellent advertising platform.
The entire Demon Realm War, from top to bottom, bore the fingerprints of the White Wizard upper echelons, and all of it could be commercialized. So Solas Light Foot (30K), as a prominent wizard shoe shop alliance, had already invested considerable effort into competing for wizard shoe orders across the Five Great Wars of the Seven Major Academies.
Yet to their surprise, this time they had lost all the wizard shoe orders from Golden Crown Mountain. They lost the First Circle market to a small brand that had come out of nowhere, the Second Circle wizard shoe market to Melechi Magic Step, and the Third Circle market to Vicos.
Word had it that Vicos had focused its development on Third Circle wizard shoes this time around, which was why they had earned the recognition of Golden Crown Mountain's evaluators.
But a problem surfaced during the technical seminar, as the many wizards of Solas Light Foot (30K) pored over the materials on the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand.
They all became aware of a single issue.
On the surface, Solas Light Foot (30K)'s greatest enemies in this defeat at Golden Crown Mountain were Melechi Magic Step and Vicos, since those two had beaten them in the Second Circle and Third Circle wizard shoe markets.
But in the other six battles across the wars, Solas Light Foot (30K) had products that surpassed those two shop alliances in certain areas.
After all, Solas Light Foot (30K) had submitted a total of twenty-one design proposals and physical samples to each of the seven top academies.
The real crux of the matter was this: if Augustus Wizard Shoes had been a wizard shoe brand made by magical weavers, that would have been one thing.
They could have simply spent money afterward to acquire the brand, offering the kind of sum that a First Circle wizard would never see in their entire life, and bought up the whole brand along with its associated technical direction.
But the problem was, this was a purely plant-based wizard shoe.
At the Solas Light Foot (30K) technical seminar, a roomful of Second Circle and First Circle wizards looked at one another, all recognizing the gravity of the situation.
The Second Circle chief designer of Solas Light Foot (30K) said quietly, "A shop alliance operating on a heavy-asset model, once established, becomes extremely difficult for latecomers to replicate."
"So we're not particularly afraid of Melechi Magic Step. As for Vicos, well, they just happened to slip one order through our fingers by coincidence."
"There is an enormous technological and asset gap between Vicos and us. They're no more than small-time players," the Second Circle chief designer said quietly. "As I've always said, the moat built by a heavy-asset model is like a heavily armored giant marching forward. It is very hard to bring down, and it has already claimed the lion's share of the profits on this particular route."
"But..."
The moon ring wizard executive picked up the thread. "But, that only holds true on the existing path. We at Solas Light Foot (30K), as that heavily armored giant marching forward, are unbeatable on this established road. The moment a second or third path appears, however, the heavily armored giant becomes clumsy and constrained at every turn."
"Purely plant-based wizard shoes were never a possible threat to us before. And we do allocate some budget to identifying research directions that might potentially threaten our shop alliance early on, having specifically established a Crisis Pre-Processing Department to go and persuade those wizards in advance to abandon those research directions."
"To ensure that no talented wizard would ever pursue those research directions."
"We could even pay those wizards directly to get them to walk away voluntarily."
"But look at this purely plant-based wizard shoe, the Big Snow Crown Bromeliad 02 Edition's magical plant performance. The performance across all metrics of this wizard shoe has already caught up with our top-tier First Circle wizard shoes."
The moon ring wizard executive said, "Where is the head of our Crisis Pre-Processing Department? What exactly have you been doing? How did you let such a mature purely plant-based wizard shoe reach the market?"
At the technical seminar, the First Circle crystallization-stage wizard sitting at the far end of the long table immediately stood up, bowed to the executive, and said, "I apologize. Executive. This wizard brand was established within the past six months, and our department did observe it for a period of time."
"The wizard behind this brand is a researcher at Golden Crown Mountain with close ties to a Third Circle Throne Wizard. So we did not act rashly, and were instead in the process of assessing the level of threat it posed to Solas Light Foot (30K). As recently as one month ago, our assessment concluded that the threat was not particularly significant."
"At the time, the quality of their wizard shoes was only slightly below average, and there was also the possibility of a conflict with the Type 1 Tyrant Element industry. So our department had planned to take a gradual approach..."
The moon ring wizard department head's face darkened. "What do you mean, not a significant threat? What do you mean, take a gradual approach? Then tell me, why was the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand able to produce such a mature, top-tier First Circle wizard shoe in such a short period of time!"
"Have you considered what might happen to our shop alliance's stock price, whether our investments might decrease, whether our funding chain might be cut off? And most terrifying of all, where there is one, there will be two. Those breeders will come swarming in like sharks that have smelled blood."
"That is an unknown market, an unknown world, and we at Solas Light Foot cannot afford to be dragged into such a market, such a world. We will lose the advantage that has kept us at the top for so long."
"And this Demon Realm War is the best advertising platform there is!"
"That Augustus Wizard Shoes brand is now perfectly positioned to leap up and become a third-tier, or even a second-class wizard shoe brand, and it still has enormous potential!"
At the long table, one Second Circle wizard muttered, "There's never been a precedent for a First Circle wizard owning a wizard shoe brand that holds a second or third-tier standing in a fairly large market."
"This doesn't follow the rules, does it? I recall that if something like this occurs, a series of association bylaws can be invoked to separate this wizard from his wizard shoe brand, so that economic order and magical rank order remain aligned."
Another Second Circle wizard reminded him, "Have a look at this wizard's credentials. He isn't just an ordinary researcher at Golden Crown Mountain. He's also the champion of the Spell Combat Tournament and a participant in the Silent Chalice Competition. He is, for all practical purposes, already a Second Circle wizard."
"With all those credentials combined, he would very likely be regarded as a Second Circle wizard by the Sacred Judiciary. In short, trying to use the law as a tool to eliminate a rather promising rival for us, I think that's unlikely to work. If he had no standing, that would be a different story."
The Second Circle wizard smiled and said, "Young people should experience just how dark this world can be. Only this particular wizard genuinely has the standing, so that darkness is something he simply won't be seeing."
The head of the Crisis Pre-Processing Department offered a quiet apology. "Everyone, this was our department's failing."
By then, the wizards seated along the long table had no time to deal with him anymore, and had begun discussing how to respond to the situation.
A designer from Solas Light Foot (30K) proposed, "If we can't resolve this with force, then how about commercial suppression?"
"Suppress his production line, drive up the production cost of every pair of his wizard shoes, cut into his profits, and then we simply spend money to acquire his brand and technical direction outright. Isn't that what these First Circle wizards are after, a chance to earn some money? Then let him earn it."
"Let him earn big."
The Second Circle chief designer of Solas Light Foot shook his head and said, "Ha. A First Circle wizard? Do you think he's that easy to deal with? He is a top student from Golden Crown Mountain and a participant in the Silent Chalice Competition. I have every reason to believe that if he were not preparing to compete in the Silent Chalice, he would have already advanced to the Second Circle, or would be in the middle of doing so right now."
"If you treat him as some wizard who can be bought off with pocket change, you're likely to suffer a serious loss."
"And look at his production line. He partnered with Arthas. The distribution channels he uses are provided by Arthas, and the production channels he uses are provided by Arthas. How exactly do we go after him? With the size we have, we simply cannot touch the real capital that is Arthas."
One Second Circle wizard said with irritation, "Arthas? Capital? Who do they think they are! They're nothing but a bunch of landlords. Damn it, it hasn't even been long since we fell out with them, and before that, they used their platform status to fleece us every single day."
"We've already had a falling out with Arthas. If this kid were working with some other small shop alliance platform, we could just bribe that platform directly and have them cut off cooperation with him."
"We used to suppress small brands that way too, but now that this kid is a valued guest of Arthas, I'm afraid that door is closed."
The wizard continued, "How about cutting prices to squeeze him out? Actually, that won't work either. Our products are works of art, and they command a premium. How could we lower our prices? If we brought our prices down, the blow to us would likely be even more severe."
The group began discussing among themselves how to handle the situation.
At this point, the strongest reactions came from Solas Light Foot (30K) and Melechi Magic Step. The other second and third-tier wizard shoe brands did not react as intensely.
The main reason was that the other wizard shoe brands had always survived on whatever scraps were left behind by those two giants. Naturally, they had little motivation to overstep their place and act as industry heavyweights suppressing a newcomer.
At the same time, the Rose Council and the Magical Weaver Industry Association also had their reactions.
The Rose Council, as a transcendent top-tier wizard academy, naturally limited itself to more discussion. A group of magical weavers and flower-language wizards, in the course of their conversations, exchanged some information that had caught their attention, and in doing so, the topic of the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand came up.
The majority of Rose Council wizards were dismissive of it, and the matter had little to do with them.
However, some of the senior faculty wizards within the Rose Council were themselves major shareholders in traditional large wizard shoe brands, and at this moment they were naturally quite displeased.
But upon seeing that it was a brand established by a researcher from Golden Crown Mountain, none of them felt particularly inclined to do anything about it.
The Magical Weaver Industry Association, on the other hand, reacted very strongly. They began emergency discussions through the night, concluding that someone had seriously violated the bylaws of the Magical Weaver Industry Association.
Furthermore, the Augustus Wizard Shoes brand, from its founding to its rise, had not once sought the opinion of the Magical Weaver Industry Association, and had never applied to this industry association for the relevant asset review or production permit.
Of course, as the association's meeting went on, they discovered that Locke was a breeder and had absolutely no obligation to care about their association, and that producing wizard shoe products did not require any association production permit to begin with, nor did establishing a wizard shoe shop alliance require any kind of asset review.
All of these things were unwritten rules that this private association had developed on its own, and they had not the slightest connection to the White Wizard Association.
So, after meeting for a long while, the association found that they had absolutely no means of doing anything to Locke Augustine.
The association chairman was immediately furious. He had someone draft a letter of sanctions right away, printed four copies, and sent them respectively to the Breeder Industry Association, to Golden Crown Mountain, to Locke himself, and to Arthas.
At the meeting, a First Circle crystallization-stage magical weaver asked, "Chairman, how exactly are we going to sanction those who have violated the rules?"
The association chairman thought it over and said, "Let's start with a warning. As for the specific sanction, from this point forward, Locke Augustine is permanently banned from joining our association."