Seven years later

Seven years later.

Seven years was neither a long time nor a short one, but to the people of Inazuma, the changes that took place during those years seemed greater than those of the past several centuries.

Over those seven years, thanks to the close cooperation between Inazuma and Sumeru that went beyond diplomatic relations, new inventions or technologies from the Akademiya's latest research were put to use in Inazuma's production and daily life at regular intervals.

It was worth mentioning that Mr. Alhaitham, who claimed he had always wanted to step down as Acting Great Sage and return to being the Scribe, had remained so wary of a certain person that not only had he never managed to resign, he had even successfully dropped "Acting" from his title.

By then, Alhaitham had become one of the rare iron-fisted Great Sages in the Sumeru Akademiya's history. Even the Snezhnayan envoys, who always had their noses in the air, had failed to gain any advantage over him.

Before Alhaitham's extraordinary intellect, the scheming among Sumeru's six great schools was practically an invitation to their own execution, and he kept it firmly suppressed.

Unfortunately, whenever cooperation and policies concerning Inazuma were involved, even someone as forceful as Alhaitham could do nothing in the face of his own Archon's interference. All he could do was ensure, as far as possible, that Sumeru still profited from them rather than losing even its initial investment.

With cooperation with the neighboring nations of Liyue and Mondstadt also entering a honeymoon period, productivity rose dramatically, and people's material lives grew ever richer and more varied.

This also brought sweeping changes to Inazuma's cities. Although they had yet to reach the Court of Fontaine's level of advanced technology, they at least showed signs of moving in that direction.