Deformed

Hua Hong had come this time to report on his duties, and whenever it involved the Tian'an Chamber of Commerce—from the total output of military equipment down to the development of small mines—he was practically ready to submit even the appointment and dismissal records of grassroots section-level cadres to Xu Yuan.

It left Xu Yuan feeling somewhat stretched thin.

Whether in terms of accumulated knowledge or learning ability.

To borrow Hua Hong's words from a day ago, whatever skill his father laid eyes on, he could basically pick it up at a rudimentary level. Even something as intricate as formations had taken him only a year of spare time to reach the standard of a Grade-A Grandmaster.

Among all the people Xu Yuan knew, even Jiang He had admitted that, in his youth, he could not compare to such talent. Probably only Little Four's gift for formations could stand shoulder to shoulder with that old man's.

But that was only in the field of formations.

Being a genius was not even enough to earn an audience with that old man. You had to be a genius in the eyes of geniuses.

Having learned all this of the past, aside from marveling that his father was a heaven-sent beast of a man, Xu Yuan's remaining thoughts were occupied with whether the Prime Minister's Mansion's current system was far too warped.

Personal competence and professional expertise complemented one another. The former could be inborn, but the latter required time to build.

By Xu Yuan's rough estimate, if he wanted to adapt to the Crown Prince's duties in the Prime Minister's Mansion, he would need at least three years to study the relevant skills. If he wished to begin possessing the breadth of mind required of the Prime Minister's Mansion's master, it would