Chapter 817: The Loan and Seeking Trajan’s Advice

At this moment, at Melechi's own technical symposium, their original target was also Solas Light Foot, and someone at the symposium had also proposed inviting a famous void explorer or wizard university mentor to serve as an endorser for an advertisement.

The idea was to create an advertisement in which a wizard had saved up magic stones for a long time, sold all of their Solas Light Foot shoes, and finally bought a pair of Melechi Magic Step Second Circle wizard shoes.

At the technical symposium, Melechi's Second Circle wizards were also preparing to launch a major wizard athletic competition specifically aimed at Solas Light Foot in the near future.

But very quickly, someone at Melechi's technical symposium noticed that the Augustus Wizard Shoe Store Alliance had listed a pair of wizard shoes worth one million magic stones.

Melechi's moon ring supervisor wore a strange expression.

"How on earth was this done? This production cost is simply far too low."

He thought for a moment.

"But the ones who should be feeling the most troubled right now are Solas Light Foot's side."

"Who would have thought that into the battle between our two store alliances, a mouse would suddenly come charging in, and this mouse has been growing stronger and stronger, from a situation at the very start where it could be completely ignored, to later requiring a slight sideways glance, and now it has actually crashed into the Second Circle market."

"Let us first see how many people end up buying this Second Circle wizard shoe."

"I hope the numbers are few. Otherwise things will be troublesome. Golden Crown Mountain, tsk. If not for Golden Crown Mountain standing behind him, dealing with him would be considerably simpler. Confound it, this person is by no means a minor character, but someone from the Red Dragon Throne's lineage. Sigh."

...

On the magical carriage returning to Golden Crown Mountain, Locke was thinking, 'With the reputation I built at the Silent Chalice, the initial sales should have a reasonable foundation.'

'Try wading into the Second Circle wizard shoe market first, and if the results are sweet, a second and third wizard shoe product can be released.'

Locke said, "I can gradually elevate the level of the pure magical plant wizard shoes I am involved with as I release products. That way, as funds come in, the quality of my products will iterate step by step to the level that ordinary Second Circle wizard shoes in the Cloud Marsh Wetlands should be at, and may eventually surpass them. Then I can enter the star ring market."

"As long as I become a star ring wizard, I can enter the star ring market."

The differences among Second Circle wizards were enormous. The gap between a star ring wizard and an ordinary Second Circle wizard was roughly only slightly smaller than the gap between a Second Circle wizard and a First Circle wizard.

The entire Second Circle stage was, in essence, the ultimate height that most civilizations in the vast void could reach.

The so-called new power levels that many civilizations spoke of were nothing more than being carved out within the Second Circle range.

Forever trapped within the framework of the Second Circle.

After all, if it were simply a matter of increasing power, no matter how much it was increased, the Second Circle framework could contain it.

This also led to enormous differences between the four major sub-ranks within the Second Circle.

On the magical carriage, Locke took out a glass bottle containing the Dream Blossom's rose fragrance. The pale pink fragrance inside was dreamlike and ethereal.

He opened the bottle, released some of the fragrance, and within the Ephemeral Dream spell model, this fragrance combined with an ordinary climbing fern tree fern before him.

Locke closed his eyes. Within the dream space, he grafted the climbing fern onto the Stygian iron tree.

In the next moment, the wizard driver of the magical carriage looked at the hell war horse pulling the carriage with a puzzled expression.

"Strange. Why will the carriage not move?"

He frowned and used an enchanted magical whip to strike the hell war horse's back, but no matter how the hell war horse cried out, it would not move forward by even a single step.

This wizard frowned, recited a beast-taming spell, and the hell war horse was brought under a soul covenant, but still it could not advance.

"There is a Second Circle wizard riding inside. Why will you not move forward?" This wizard was sweating anxiously and changed to three different summoning-school spell models in succession.

Spell model after spell model landed on the hell war horse's back, three soul covenants enveloped the hell war horse, but nothing could make the horse move a single step forward.

Presently, Locke's voice came from inside the carriage.

"It is fine. Go ahead as normal."

In the next moment, the hell war horse actually stepped forward.

The wizard attendant driving the magical carriage looked at Locke sitting inside the carriage in astonishment, his eyes filled with awe. He then turned and continued to drive the hell war horse forward.

Inside the carriage, Locke looked at the ordinary First Circle climbing fern tree fern in his hand.

"It failed."

"The shared virtual root system I set up, the Stygian iron tree connected to the Dream Blossom, can only provide a virtual virtual root to the wizard shoe magical plants."

"After all, I do not fully possess the power of the Stygian iron tree. I only fished out a portion of its energy by grafting a Time Shadow Fern onto it. And this portion of energy has an upper limit, because of the grade of the Time Shadow Fern's virtual roots. The energy being drawn each moment is maintained at the level of an ordinary Grade Four virtual root."

"Therefore, the shared virtual root is only at the level of an ordinary virtual root and cannot provide a star ring magical plant with a shared virtual root."

"That much is fine. But the energy my Time Shadow Fern draws has become adapted to being converted into energy for the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes. So once I try to channel that energy to other types of magical plants, it causes energy confusion, the botanical rhizosphere becomes disrupted, and the Stygian iron tree's endless downward force causes the magical plants using its energy to keep sinking downward."

"Just now this magical carriage could not move forward, and the hell war horse was frightened and would not advance. That was the reason."

Locke let out a sigh.

"I had thought that when cultivating other magical plants, I could also use this shared virtual root system. Who would have known it would not work. Well, this is already very good. I should be satisfied."

"This system can be used for wizard shoes. There is still much I do not know about the Stygian iron tree's secrets. In the future I can gradually research it further, and it may not be impossible to fish for more energy to provide to more magical plants."

Locke calculated his recent spending. In total, his large expenditures externally had amounted to seven million magic stones. Adding up the smaller expenses, he had just about consumed all of his income over these past several months.

But the twenty-two million magic stones he had earned from selling the two batches of First Circle wizard shoe super bestsellers on two previous occasions, he still had fifteen million left in hand.

"This fifteen million is just right to serve as the production capital for my Second Circle wizard shoes."

Locke had previously calculated that the cost of a single pair of his Second Circle wizard shoes was approximately five hundred thousand magic stones, which meant his fifteen million magic stones would only be enough to produce thirty pairs.

That was sixty Second Circle Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoe plants.

"Let me try pre-selling thirty pairs first," Locke thought. "My production capital is not enough right now."

"If sales are really that good, I could try borrowing fifteen million magic stones and pre-selling another thirty pairs."

At the First Circle level, the cost per pair was around six thousand magic stones, and two hundred pairs would only come to just over a million magic stones.

So a large portion of the previous production capital had been pre-advanced to him by Witch Scarlett through Arthas.

But at the Second Circle level, things were entirely different.

The cost of a pair of shoes, even after Locke had compressed it, reached five hundred thousand magic stones. A sum this large would be very difficult for anyone to prepay without a loan.

It was only at this moment that Locke truly understood why so many Second Circle wizards could easily go bankrupt.

The bigger the business, the easier it actually was to go bankrupt.

The costs at the Second Circle level were simply too high. Although prices were also high and profits were large, the scale of cash flowing in and out was simply enormous.

This caused a Second Circle wizard to be very dependent on bank loans and market financing, and once a Second Circle wizard misjudged a situation or was controlled by greed and made a reckless investment, things could go very badly.

It was easy to gamble everything away.

Locke thought for a moment.

"This is exactly the situation I am in now. I must try to be as careful as possible."

"Do not take a loan."

"Because right now I still have three places where money is needed. First, completing the Golden Spike Wheat project Teacher Sophia gave me, and granting my Grand Magic the Atavistic Evolution ability."

"Second, organizing a group of people to carry out a planar exploration, with the wedding ring testing to be done at the same time. Third, finding a project eligible for a special-grade grant application."

Locke thought for a moment. "Perhaps I can contact my senior. My experience as an ordinary Second Circle wizard is limited, but Senior Trajan, Team Leader Cis, and others might be able to give me better advice."

"And I need to complete some Second Circle-level projects as quickly as possible in order to obtain Tourmaline King Peaches, rapidly increase my magic pressure, and bring myself one step closer to the star ring level. All beginnings are hard, but I imagine that once I have completed my first Second Circle project, the rest will come to me one after another."

Locke first contacted Wizard Trajan, and very shortly Wizard Trajan answered his video call request.

Locke paused, because on Trajan's side there was nothing but pitch darkness. Everything was silent, as though it were an eternal darkness.

Locke opened by asking, "Senior Trajan, is that the Dark Great World on your side? Have I caught you at a bad time?"

Wizard Trajan said, "Yes, this is the Dark Great World. This is my fourth time entering it. It is fine. I am currently in a safe zone of the Dark Great World."

Locke frowned, because from the video call he could only see complete darkness on Trajan's side.

Wizard Trajan explained, "The Dark Great World has over ten thousand distinct shades of darkness. Some shades are relatively dangerous and some are relatively safe. I am currently in a safe shade."

Locke was at a loss for words.

"Over ten thousand different shades of darkness?"

"All right then."

Locke quickly summarized the problems he was facing.

Wizard Trajan considered carefully and said, "I did not expect you to actually succeed in reducing the virtual root cost. That surprised me."

"Listen to what I have to say. You are actually in a very dangerous situation right now. One wrong step and you could be shattered to pieces. One right step and you could win across the board."

"First, let us talk about your wizard shoes. Your shoes are creatively unique and have opened up a new market, the Second Circle pure magical plant wizard shoe market. But they cannot be used to apply for a Second Circle grant project."

Locke's heart sank. "Senior, why not?"

Were Second Circle grants really that difficult?

Wizard Trajan said, "I know what you are thinking. However, when a Second Circle wizard applies for their first Second Circle grant, they receive a corresponding weight bonus, so even if the quality of their project application is somewhat lacking, there is a chance of it passing."

"But the problem is that what your wizard shoes have achieved is difficult to characterize as innovation. It is not even a technical innovation or a combinatorial innovation."

Locke immediately understood what Wizard Trajan meant.

The reason his shared virtual root could be realized was entirely because he had by chance and coincidence encountered the peculiar encounter of the Stygian iron tree.

He told Wizard Trajan about it without reservation.

After all, there were far too many secrets below the Stygian River's surface. Who knew what else lay beneath it?

There was absolutely no reason for him to keep this secret.

As long as he did not tell Wizard Trajan exactly which stretch of the Stygian River the tree was in, that was fine.

Locke said in a quiet voice, "Indeed. This is more akin to a commercial development. Doing it as a lateral project is fine, but doing it as a vertical project, it would be difficult to get a project application approved."

Wizard Trajan offered some comfort. "While that is so, this lateral project of yours is something that many Second Circle wizards, even some relatively poor star ring wizards, would envy."

"Pure magical plant wizard shoes, even if they only capture a small portion of the existing wizard shoe market, can fill your pockets to overflowing."

"But that teacher of yours from your apprentice stage, she went to the Star Domain Sea, did she not? Quite impressive. I would not have expected her to be able to go to the Star Domain Sea."

Wizard Trajan could not help but express his admiration.

"The project she gave you can indeed be used to apply for a special-grade grant."

"It is a very complete project. I think just presenting the preliminary experimental data alone would be very compelling."

Wizard Trajan coughed once.

"I would not have thought that you could maintain such a good relationship with your mentor from your apprentice stage. She essentially completed eighty percent of the project and then handed it to you."

"This... I find it hard to imagine."

Wizard Trajan said honestly, "I had a falling out with my apprentice-stage mentor long ago."

"It is very rare for a wizard to maintain such a good relationship with their apprentice-stage mentor as you have."

"However, I would advise you not to use this project for a special-grade grant application."

Locke looked at Wizard Trajan with puzzlement.

Wizard Trajan said, "Your project is already far too complete. Using it on a special-grade grant would be a waste."

"Moreover, it would give you little room to grow. That project, even if used to apply for a Second Circle grant, would likely pass given the bonus you receive for your first application. It is just that strong, since it involves using alchemical methods to cause a magical plant to undergo specific atavistic evolution."

"But I feel that taking a project that is already nearly complete and requires very little additional funding, and using it to apply for a special-grade grant or a Second Circle grant, is entirely wasteful behavior. It would also deprive you of a great deal of growth opportunity and rob you of a relatively easy project to obtain."

Locke kept nodding.

Wizard Trajan was, after all, a sun ring wizard. His analysis laid out Locke's current situation in clear and organized fashion.

Locke asked, "Then Senior Trajan, how should I make the best use of this project?"

Wizard Trajan smiled. "Very simple. Enter it in a competition! As long as you complete the remaining less-than-twenty percent, I believe it would be sufficient to enter a high-quality competition and take an award."