"President Xu, I really regret it now."
Faiman Anko, president of the Anko Merchant Guild, looked at the steel plate in his hand, roughly a finger thick, and let out a long sigh.
"I never should have tried to save money by buying steel from the Chino Federation. Now nearly a third of the Magic-Powered Refrigerators in our last production batch have quality problems of one kind or another. We've taken a terrible loss."
Xu Yi smiled without saying anything, but several people beside President Anko sighed with varying degrees of frustration.
"It's not just your Anko Merchant Guild. Our Thunderclap Merchant Guild is in the same boat. The Chino Federation's steel really screwed me over this time. I'll lose at least seven or eight thousand gold coins, more than I spent buying that batch of steel in the first place."
"Hah, you all bought steel from the Chino Federation, but I bought mine from the Valley Coordination Association, and the result was no different. I haven't finished calculating my losses yet, but I reckon they'll be at least ten thousand gold coins. It'll probably take me a long time to recover."
"Actually, the money we've lost this time is the smaller problem. The real problem is that so many of these products had quality issues that our guild's reputation was ruined overnight. That will affect our future business. Once you factor that in, a few thousand or even ten thousand gold coins won't come close to covering the damage."
At those words, more than half the people present began sighing.
Watching them, Xu Yi found it somewhat amusing.
These fellows had insisted on saving money by buying steel from the Chino Federation and the Valley Coordination Association. Several guilds had even canceled steel orders they had already placed with