"So you're President Allen's son. No wonder you looked familiar." Great Mage Ferguson smiled and nodded at Anko Allen. "I had intended to visit President Allen after meeting President Xu, but I never expected to meet his son first. How has President Allen been lately?"
Anko Allen hurriedly bowed in return. "Thank you for your concern, Great Mage. My father has been in good spirits lately, and his magical abilities have improved as well. All the guild's affairs have also been proceeding smoothly, which is a great relief to me as his son."
"Oh? President Allen's magical abilities have improved? Has he made a breakthrough in rank?" Great Mage Ferguson asked with considerable interest.
"I'm not sure about that. Father only said that studying magic machinery over the past two years had given him some new insights into magic research. He mentioned that his abilities had improved, but didn't tell me any details."
"Magic machinery again?" Great Mage Ferguson turned toward Xu Yi, who sat diagonally across from him, and remarked, "President Xu, I originally thought your Xinfei Merchant Guild's magic machinery was only useful for improving ordinary people's lives. To think it could also help us mages improve our abilities. That really is surprising."
Xu Yi laughed. "You're too kind. President Allen's improvement came from his own dedicated research. At most, magic machinery merely gave him a little extra inspiration."
"No, for mages at our level, even a little extra inspiration in magic research is extremely hard to come by. I always found it remarkable that Archmage Camilla made no major breakthroughs for decades, yet achieved one breakthrough after another in these past few years, even becoming a respected archmage. Thinking about it now, I suspect that also had something to do with helping your merchant guild research magic