In a small courtyard, before a chessboard.
Two men in ancient robes sat facing each other, one old, one middle-aged.
They were chatting idly.
"Sure enough, only by investigating things can one attain knowledge. In the end, this was the only path that worked." The old man gazed at the intricate chessboard and spoke leisurely.
"Old Xu, I still don't understand. Why couldn't we walk this path ourselves? In the end, we had to rely on a group of people with the powers of gods and ghosts, learning modern empirical studies from Western Continent, to reverse the nation's decline." The middle-aged man placed a piece and let out a long sigh.
"I carefully studied all kinds of modern theories and ultimately chose to believe in geographical determinism. Eastern Continent's terrain was suited to unification, but in the end, it both succeeded and failed because of unification. Yet this world has Otherworldly Users. As the saying goes, timing is less important than terrain, and terrain is less important than unity among people. In the end, it was people who changed everything." The old man spoke calmly.
"Prince Qin swept across the six states, standardized cart tracks and writing. That was a great achievement. Why do you say that unification was also its downfall?" The middle-aged man asked in confusion.
"The consequence of having a single emperor was the control and suppression of new ideas, a demand for stability, and opposition to reform. Thus, they ultimately chose Confucian School, which upheld hierarchical order and emphasized moral instruction, rather than Mohist School, which advocated universal love, non-aggression, and innovation in tools and devices."
The old man spoke slowly.
"The Mohist School once split into two branches. One focused on epistemology, logic, geometry, geometrical optics, statics, and other fields, exactly like Western Continent science.