With Roland's current connections, he soon learned the full story.
Sure enough, the Pydos Mage Tower was behind it.
They had submitted a proposal to compete for Occult Studies funding, putting them in conflict with Anna's project.
"The Pydos Mage Tower, huh."
In the sitting room, Roland gave Anna a meaningful look.
As a mature Arcanist, he hardly needed everything spelled out. He already understood.
The reason Anna had been so eager to approach him about collaborating was, fundamentally, that she wanted access to his resources.
She had to produce another result that overturned tradition and surpassed her own achievements if she wanted to win the Arcane Star Award and become a Grand Mage quickly.
Otherwise, she would have to build up seniority and wait until she was fifty or sixty.
That was an achievement most mages could aspire to, but it also effectively meant remaining confined to their era, unable to advance any further.
It might take a century of development and several generations of effort for "format-school constellations" to gradually replace the old theories and become mainstream.
For the vast majority of Arcanists, that was already an unimaginably great achievement.
But for someone determined to leave their name in history and transcend their era, it was far too ordinary.
Geniuses were often proud. Their sights were set on those whose names endured in history, and they thought nothing of mere titles like Arcane Commissioner or Grand Mage.
As a genius Astrologer, Anna certainly had no shortage of money for her personal life, thanks to her various rights and the fruits of her labor. But funding for magical experiments and the researchers working under her was genuinely tight.
As for establishing an academic discipline, or even a department or Mage Tower...
She had nothing at all.
All she could