But for now, all Silas saw on the internet were party tricks that passed as Magic in this world.
He will have to get more details about these paths but the first priority was understanding his current environment and nothing spoke more about the environment that the power struggles of the people at the very top.
There are four major powers on this planet. They are as follows in order of their power:
White Crescent Empire that controls most of North Africa, Far East, Arabian Continent and South Asia. It is like a straight line stretched across the world.
What Silas found curious even more was that there is no Islamic Religion in this world yet the insignia of this Arabic Empire remains the same crescent deeply associated with the religion.
The second most powerful empire is the Britannic Trans-Oceanic Commonwealth that controls the North American continent, some of the Central American Islands, the British mainland and most of the Far East.
It seems that in this world the influence of capital on the Empire was minimal as such it survived the last century by going through a complete overhaul of their existing technology.
In Silas's past life, the British Empire. While deeply problematic in many aspects, had one particular cancer that led directly to its death.
This cancer was Laissez-Faire, a market economy system that was in most part free from the control of the government. This principle was responsible in most part for the rise and fall of Britain.
The lack of government intervention was what led to the true rise of capitalism as a global economic system. When the world saw how well the market ran if you just let it, they followed the same golden system.
But what Britain and France in particular realized too late was an inherent flaw of capitalism.
Capitalistic system, specially ones like Laissez-Faire that demanded a complete free market assumed that the market is infinite.
Above a street market is a city market, above that is a state market, above that is a country market and so on and so on.
But with the rise of globalism, the markets finally stopped at world market level.
With a closed market, the rules of capitalism changed. In such a market the possibility of monopolism came into existence.
When the market is growing, there is space for new ideas and products to emerge while the already there, big corporations built on these ideas, either grow or die off.
But what if the big corporations do everything right and keep growing, in such conditions what if the market growth can't compete with corporation growth.
If that happens, the corporations will keep growing until they acquire a significant portion of the market share.
With this market share, the corporation is able to influence the market to its favour. If the corporation keeps growing, it will eventually reach a state where it becomes a trust.
When that happens, there is a change in the relationship of the market and the corporation. Now, the corporation is no longer led by the market, it is the other way around.
Now, no matter what new ideas come forward in the market, the corporation will have the leeway to either crush or acquire this new idea.
At this stage, the corporation gets pseudo-immortality; it becomes untouchable in the market. To prevent the corporation from negatively effecting the market for their benefit there is generally a need for outside intervention.
This point was where the British failed. By the time, the British crown and nobility noticed the problem, the influence of the bourgeois that led these corporations had already seeped into politics.
This was why, when the second industrial revolution came, the British industries could not keep up.
The bourgeois refused to make a major investment when they didn't feel the need to and the government didn't have enough confidence to make them.
It wasn't that the capitalists were stupid, they knew of the growing trend of new technology. But they believed, that the government will protect their interests.
At the stage of monopolism, Britain was at. The interests of the corporation became the interests of the state. The corporations believed that even if they didn't change, Britain will use military and political might to shelter them.
Of course, this gamble paid off. But by the time, everybody realized that Britain couldn't stop the growing trend of technology, it was already too late. The corporations and subsequently the empire had already started to become irrelevant.
The British economy had begun lagging behind Germany's. But even after the destruction of the German Empire, United States took its place as the largest growing economy leaving the British behind.
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Coming out of his reverie, Silas continues organizing the information...
In this universe, the Britain had survived even while using a system as flawed as colonialism. The reason was of course, the reduced significance of economy.
Britannic empire had relied on its military might to remain relevant. It was the same for the White Crescent Empire.
This empire shared its origin with the first Islamic empire in his previous world. Except there was no religious element involved.
Even so, the reason this empire became the most dominant empire in the world was because of one man.
A superhuman born in the Arabian Continent in the seventh century, this superhuman had two powers, One for all and All for one.
He could recreate any superpower he had seen in action and even pass it on. This was the reason nobody contested the position of the Crescent Empire as the strongest empire.
The All for one superpower, after centuries had become so strong that it was capable of easily annihilating the planet.
The only downside was the increased burden. Anyone in possession of this power had to bear the weight of millions of superpowers constantly, as such it was incredibly taxing.
According to a research by the Britannic Empire, the optimal number of abilities for All for One were 12 yet the actual abilities it holds are countless. An estimate showed that the abilities had reached 11 million by now.
This was partly because the holder's control was needed to turn off the copy ability of All for One. Yet at the same time, the weight of All for One made it an impossibility.