Seeing Sanchelli lost in thought, Xu Yi smiled faintly, rose, and left Sanchelli's private laboratory.
Research into magic elements and magic on the microscopic level was an enormous field. With the Sains Continent's current, extremely crude grasp of magical theory, it was still nowhere near capable of such precise work.
By asking Sanchelli to pursue this research, he was merely giving him a direction to explore. He did not expect any results in the short term.
Then again, Xu Yi's desire to shift magical research on this continent away from its old reliance on "intuition" and toward analysis based on precise data and rigorous, logical theory had never been an easy undertaking.
Sanchelli alone was clearly not enough. Ideally, every mage on the continent would change their way of thinking and join in the research.
But that was another enormous challenge.
Every mage on the Sains Continent who had attained significant achievements had been deeply influenced by the old systems of magical theory. They would not readily change their way of thinking.
Archmage Camilla was a case in point. Even though she had known Xu Yi for over a decade and had constantly been exposed to his various approaches to data-driven analysis, she still retained many of the ingrained thought patterns of traditional mages. This had considerably affected her research into advanced magical theory.
The problem was even more pronounced with Archmage Clay, who had only recently joined the Xinfei Merchant Guild.
It had been almost a year since Archmage Clay joined the Xinfei Merchant Guild, yet he was still adjusting. He had not fully changed his way of thinking or truly settled in.
As a result, he had spent most of that nearly year-long period learning, mastering, and adapting to this new approach to magical research. In practical terms,