The symposium officially commenced after Veronica and Dario exchanged greetings with Gareth and the other attendees.

Veronica and Dario were positioned prominently in the front row, centered among the distinguished guests, while Niall occupied a seat in the second row.

As representatives of the emerging generation of AI experts, both Veronica and Dario received invitations to take the stage and share their methodologies and experiences in research and learning—valuable insights for the students comprising much of the audience.

Once their presentation concluded and the open discussion began, the symposium's most distinguished experts wasted no time approaching Veronica and Dario.

These scholars represented the pinnacle of national expertise in artificial intelligence, each with their own specialized research focus.

Veronica navigated every topic with remarkable ease—from convolutional neural networks to embodied intelligence implementation to multimodal interaction. She not only understood their questions but offered insightful solutions to challenges that had been troubling these experts, such as missing modalities and computational efficiency optimization. Their faces lit up as they absorbed her recommendations.

Many found themselves wishing the conversation with her would never end.

The room buzzed with respected researchers, all deeply immersed in their specialized domains. It didn't take these veterans long to recognize genuine expertise—just a brief conversation was sufficient to separate the truly knowledgeable from those merely repeating memorized concepts.

"Graham, come on now," one researcher called out. "You've monopolized her attention long enough. Give the rest of us a chance!"

"Precisely!" another chimed in. "We should establish a rotation. You've been hogging her expertise this entire time!"

"What's the hurry?" Graham protested. "I just have one final question, then I'll step aside—"

Another expert cut him off with a laugh. "Don't bother. We all know you're about to dive into scaling issues for practical applications. That topic alone could consume hours! If we let you start down that road, who knows when the rest of us will get our turn?"

Meanwhile, Niall engaged in conversation with another attendee a short distance behind Veronica.

"Niall," Penny, who had accompanied her, nudged gently. "Mr. Brennan just asked you something."

Niall had been intensely monitoring everything happening around Veronica, almost completely tuned into the dynamics of that group. Her focus was so concentrated there that she'd grown somewhat detached from her own interactions, often failing to immediately register when someone addressed her directly.

Penny's prompt snapped her back to her immediate surroundings.

She offered a quick apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Mr. Brennan. I was momentarily distracted by Mr. Kent's discussion with the others—"

As a fellow AI specialist, her interest in the technical conversations surrounding her seemed perfectly natural.

Griffin nodded understandingly. "No problem at all."

Niall refocused her attention and resumed their conversation.

However, no one knew her better than her mother. Penny had noticed Niall's unusual behavior for over half an hour now. And it appeared to directly correlate with Veronica's activities.

She had observed enough to understand what was happening—how the assembled experts eagerly sought Veronica's input, surrounding her with unmistakable admiration.

After Griffin departed, Penny glanced toward Veronica's direction, then seized a quiet moment to ask her daughter, "What's troubling you?"

Niall withdrew her gaze and replied, "I think I finally understand why Silas and Gareth spoke so highly of Veronica the other day. She genuinely possesses impressive knowledge."

Niall recognized several of the experts consulting with Veronica and knew they weren't ordinary figures in the field. These scholars, with their significant research accomplishments, naturally maintained exceedingly high standards.

The fact that they not only initiated conversations with Veronica but treasured her advice spoke volumes about her genuine capabilities.

Niall had been carefully eavesdropping on Veronica's conversations. Her knowledge base was undeniably extensive, including numerous concepts that Niall herself couldn't fully grasp.

No wonder Silas had characterized her as an "all-rounder" in the AI field.

If Veronica had merely been parroting Dario or Malcolm during the technical discussions at Dennis Group the other day, how could she now engage so fluently with Professor Parker and others on topics that were both expansive and deeply technical?

As someone working in AI herself, Niall recognized that simply repeating others' ideas wouldn't enable anyone to maintain this level of sophisticated engagement.

Penny appeared momentarily taken aback. Witnessing the country's top experts flocking to Veronica, it did seem she possessed authentic expertise.

Nevertheless, she responded calmly, "She's been by Dario's side for years, regularly participating in meetings with Malcolm. With two of the country's foremost AI minds mentoring her, it's only natural she'd develop such breadth and skill."

"That's precisely why she worked so hard to prevent you from getting close to Dario in the first place," Penny continued. "Besides, had you been the one with access to Dario and Malcolm all this time, I'm certain you would be performing even more impressively than she is now."