The more popular a branch of study became, the more it appeared in public discourse, and the faster it developed.
This was easy enough to understand. For a discipline to keep advancing, it either needed one or two top geniuses to make theoretical breakthroughs, or it needed a great many talented people to accumulate experience and move forward steadily.
Mathematics, which leaned toward abstract reasoning, belonged to the former; biology, which leaned toward experimentation and experience, belonged to the latter.
But regardless of which path it was, there was one prerequisite.
People.
Only when more people entered a field would geniuses be more likely to emerge.
Only when more people entered a field would data and experience accumulate more quickly.
And at such times, "popularity" became a crucial factor.
Only a popular discipline had more opportunities to promote itself and draw more people's interest.
And paleontology was a "niche" field.
Especially on Earth, where the profession was even gradually shrinking.
In Divine Land, the situation was not much better.
Nowadays, studying ancient living beings offered little besides comprehending the principles of evolution, summarizing models of evolution, and "observing ancient living beings to gain insight into new divine abilities."
As for the former, Jiyin Valley's research into genetics and bloodlines had now become deeper and more directly aimed at the essence of things. Spirit Beast Mountain's research on modern living beings was also more detailed than Ancient Spirit Cliff's research on ancient living beings.
After all, Spirit Beast Mountain studied extant species, all of which had detailed records. For Ancient Spirit Cliff, aside from some surviving evidence, far too much had to be guessed at.
And as for the latter... no matter how powerful a divine ability modeled after a living being's innate traits might be, it meant little in a