The impact of the Cyclops’s demonstration was immediately apparent.

In just three days, the number of course inquiries for the New Western Education Group that month quadrupled.

The consultation booths in the main hall were operating nonstop, with apprentices lining up all the way to the street corner. In particular, "Introduction to Alchemy" and "Fundamentals of Golem Construction"—two courses that weren’t originally very popular—were fully booked within half a day.

One particularly sharp-witted Level 1 instructor even stayed up all night to handwrite a lesson plan, hastily creating a new elective called "Appreciation of High-Level Golems and an Overview of Alchemy."

Priced at fifteen Low-Level Magic Stones per session, every class was sold out. He lectured passionately from the stage, analyzing the technical difficulty of the Cyclops, while two hundred apprentices below took notes until their hands cramped.

「Three days later, on the top floor of New Western.」

While the floors below were buzzing with activity, the "Boss’s Office" was so quiet you could only hear the sound of tea being poured into a cup.

Three cups of black tea, one pot of wine.

The sun shone brightly outside, its light spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows and onto the dark red solid wood desk.

Allen sat in the head seat, with Vera and Colin on either side.

Allen didn’t beat around the bush. He set down his teacup and got straight to the point.

"I’ve been in the Seven Towers Alliance long enough. This afternoon, I’m leaving for the Great Library Plane to report to the Plane Exploration and Development Association."

Vera and Colin nodded.

They had known about this trip for a long time. The freeze period on the "servitude contract" from twenty years ago had passed; a debt owed must eventually be paid.

"But before I go, there’s something I want to discuss with you."

Allen gently tapped his fingers on the tabletop—a habit of his when he had finished contemplating and was ready to make a major decision.

"I’m planning to establish a new company soon."

Allen looked at them both. "I’ve already thought of a name: ’Weisren Heavy Industry.’"

Not "Weisren Trading," not "Weisren Workshop," but "Heavy Industry."

In the Wizarding World, the vast majority of Alchemy Wizards worked alone, at most taking on a dozen or so apprentices and tinkering away in a single workshop.

The term "Heavy Industry" implied mass production, assembly lines, military-grade manufacturing, and interplanar supply chains.

This was a game only the major powers could afford to play.

"My goal is to earn a massive amount of Magic Stones to fund my own cultivation."

Allen had a premonition that his cultivation as a Second-level Wizard would require an astronomical amount of resources. The good old days of earning nearly three million Low-Level Magic Stones a month, like he had in the Molten Iron Mountain Range, wouldn’t come so easily anymore.

He had to start building his own self-sustaining money-making machine immediately.

He looked them in the eyes and delivered the key point of the conversation.

"I need people."

Allen paused, leaning forward slightly.

"Are you willing to join me?"

The air was quiet for only a moment.

Vera was the first to speak. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t weigh the pros and cons, and didn’t even blink.

"I’ll do it."

Just three words.

Crisp and decisive, just as she had been twenty years ago when she pressed her Spiritual Mark onto the New Western share transfer agreement.

Colin pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose and grinned.

"Boss, I trust you. Following you means big money."

His way of answering was also exactly the same as it had been twenty years ago.

Allen looked at these two old friends who had followed him since their apprentice days, and a wave of indescribable warmth spread through the heart that had been encased in his Mechanical Mind and data deductions for twenty years.

[Irregular emotional fluctuation detected in host.]

[Humanity value increased slightly. Assessment: Benign social feedback.]

The prompts from DSeek echoed in his mind, bringing Allen a sliver of pleasure.

Having a few friends you could trust in the cold Wizard Civilization was an immense luxury.

Before Allen could continue, Vera had already slipped into professional mode. She leaned forward slightly. "What’s the specific plan?"

Allen raised his hand and swiped lightly through the air in front of him.

A screen of faint blue light unfolded between the three of them.

"For now, Weisren Industry’s core business will be split into two sectors."

Allen held up two fingers.

"First, armaments."

"War Mechanical Bodies, siege Golems, defensive machinery, and military-grade alchemy consumables. The Plane Wars of the Wizarding World will never end. As long as there is conquest, there will be consumption."

"The demand for armaments is always high, provided your products are solid enough."

Several structural diagrams of Golems appeared on the light screen: the Peacekeeper, the Purgatory, the Storm Falcon, and a few other projects that hadn’t been realized yet.

"I will provide the core technology and production capacity, as well as products with unique selling points."

"The second sector is New Western."

Allen looked at Vera.

"The tutoring business won’t be cut. It will be integrated into the Weisren Industry system and operate independently as the ’Education Division.’"

"The Seven Towers Alliance isn’t the only academy in the Wizarding World. The Mystic Code Council has nine major academies under its banner, and the Ring City Alliance’s Floating Cities have their own grassroots training systems. The New Western model has been proven by you two over the past twenty years—standardized teaching, tiered services, and precise pricing. These are all our valuable assets."

Allen watched as their eyes gradually widened.

"You’re familiar with this system. Document the procedures into a manual and replicate it in academies on other planes. The scale can be expanded tenfold, or even a hundredfold."

Colin’s breathing grew ragged. He didn’t understand armaments, but the education business was his bread and butter now.

Doing business across planes—this grand blueprint hit him right in his sweet spot.

"The division of labor is simple."

Allen dismissed the light screen, and the blue glow dissipated.

"I’ll be in charge of product R&D and production. Daily operations, sales channels, personnel management, financial accounting—I’ll leave all of that to the two of you."

He looked at Vera. "You’ll be the CEO."

Then he looked at Colin.

"You’ll be the COO."

The two of them froze simultaneously, their faces blank with confusion.

"C... what O?" Colin stammered.

Allen thought for a moment, then translated it into the context of the Wizarding World.

"Vera will be in charge of strategic decisions and external negotiations, the general manager, so to speak. Colin will handle internal operations and logistics support, making him the second-in-command and chief accountant."

Understanding dawned on them.

These two choices were ones Allen had vetted over twenty years.

Vera was bold and had a big-picture perspective, daring to make the final call at critical moments. She was suited to be the decision-maker.

Colin was meticulous, calculating, and had strong execution ability. Above all, he was extremely loyal, making him suitable as a manager.

Most importantly, he could trust them both.

In the cold Wizarding World, a trust that could withstand the test of time and millions of Magic Stones was rarer than Morning Star Level materials.

"However..." Allen’s tone shifted.

"Everything will only officially kick off some time after I’ve joined the Plane Exploration and Development Association."

"I need to use the Association’s resources and channels to conduct in-depth market research, to understand the current state of the interplanar arms trade in the Wizarding World, the competitive landscape among the major powers, and, most crucially, the bottom lines and red lines of the major organizations’ arms businesses."

"If we jump in blindly, we’ll die faster than anyone."

Vera and Colin’s expressions turned serious, and they nodded in unison.

"Before Weisren Industry officially begins operations, I need you to do three preparatory tasks."

Allen laid out the things he had already thought through.

"First, go through New Western’s existing team from top to bottom. Pick out the core personnel who have clean backgrounds, strong abilities, and are willing to stick with us. They will be our future backbone."

"Second, start gathering market intelligence on the major academies throughout the Wizarding World. Enrollment numbers, tuition standards, the competitive landscape for existing tutoring services—the more detailed, the better."

"Third, help me keep an eye on the armaments market. Specifically, the demand and price range for low-to-mid-end war Mechanical Bodies. I’ll need that for reference later."

Vera quickly took notes on her personal terminal, a sharp glint in her eyes. It seemed she already had some ideas.

This was what she excelled at.

Breaking down a grand blueprint that seemed unattainable into practical, achievable steps.

With the business talk concluded, the tense atmosphere in the room finally relaxed.

Colin let out a long breath and opened the bottle of wine on the table.

It wasn’t some expensive elven-brewed fruit wine, nor was it an extraordinary medicinal wine that could increase one’s Magic Power.

It was the most common type of liquor found in the taverns of the Seven Towers Alliance’s apprentice district. Made with just a tiny bit of extraordinary material, it cost three Low-Level Magic Stones a bottle.

"Remember this?"

Colin swirled the bottle, the red liquid sloshing inside.

Vera glanced at it and snorted in disdain.

"How could I forget? Someone back then was so poor he couldn’t even afford a decent glass of wine. He stingily ordered the cheapest stuff, and you have the nerve to bring it up."

Allen looked at the bottle and fell silent for a moment.

He reached out and took the bottle.

He personally took the three glass cups on the table and filled them to the brim.

"Back then, I didn’t even have a thousand Magic Stones in my account," Allen said softly, looking at his cup.

Colin raised his cup, almost bursting out with laughter.

"With that little money, you still had the guts to drag us into starting a tutoring class? And you were going on about share allocation?"

"It wasn’t a question of guts."

Allen raised his cup. The murky liquid within reflected the sunlight from outside the window.

"It was a necessity."

Three cups clinked together in midair with a crisp "CLINK."

In that moment, there was no terrifying pressure of a Second-level Wizard in the room, no forty-eight-meter Golem, and no grand blueprint for Weisren Industry.

There were only three young people who had walked through the same Star Gate, reunited twenty years later, drinking the cheapest wine.

Outside the window, the sky of the Seven Towers Alliance was still a distorted ocean of light, with massive magic Runes floating slowly like islands.

It was as if time had stood still here, and yet as if it had already crossed a thousand mountains and rivers.

Vera held her wine cup, took a small sip, and frowned slightly.

She suddenly seemed to remember something and mentioned it casually.

"Oh, right, that woman named Eleanor you signed the investment agreement with... do you remember her?"

Allen’s fingers, holding the wine cup, paused for a fraction of a second on the rim.

’How could I not remember?’

’The woman in the business suit, whose smile was so standard it looked as if it had been measured with an alchemy ruler.’

’That "High-Risk Investment Agreement" which had made him wager both his body and soul.’

"She’s been transferred to the Association headquarters too."

Vera spoke softly, as if sharing a piece of trivial gossip.

"I heard she was promoted, climbed to a pretty high position. I don’t know the specifics. An external liaison from the Association who came to the academy to recruit a while back mentioned it when he was drunk."

Allen set down his cup, his face impassive, but deep in his consciousness, he had already processed this information.

[Eleanor. Assessment: High-priority · Associated personnel status update.]

[Information update: Transferred to the Great Library Plane · Plane Exploration and Development Association headquarters. Position: Mid-level administrative staff.]

"Alright, it’s about time I left."

Allen stood up. "Wait for my word."

He looked at them. "The day Weisren Heavy Industry is officially established, you two will be its founding members."

He turned and walked to the door.

The moment his hand grasped the doorknob, Allen suddenly stopped and looked back at the office he had personally designed twenty years ago.

"New Western..."

He murmured the name, his tone carrying a trace of nostalgia and farewell that only he could understand.

"It’s a good name."

The door opened, then closed.

Vera and Colin stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, watching as the figure walked out of the building, stepped onto that old Flying Skateboard, and turned into a streak of light, disappearing into the intricate skyline of the Seven Towers Alliance.

They knew that the next time they met, everything would be different.

But that change itself was the very reason they had chosen to follow this man.