Millennia ago before conjuction of sphere completely turn the world upside down, many nations are built in a continent. The continent is inhabitated with various species with human being sole intelligent beings evolved from specific primates making the mentally superior to an ordinary ape. The land what divided in various nations, until one nation, the Nova kingdom, managed to conquer each and every nations in the continents, turning the kingdom into an empire. The Nova empire prioritise scholary pursuit over everything else, as knowledge is power.
It was due to this very reason they succeeded in defeating other nations, as when other nation were sharpening their blade and maintaining their siege weapons, Novanians were busy is improving the scientific progress of the nation, It was due to this very reason, the kingdom even before it become empire has everything, food, water, medicines, better houses, industries and even wealth.
Their pursuit of knowledge also allowed them to create the early firearms, the flintlocks and eventually revolver, then even created, fire cocktails and dynamites as early modern explosives, they even created early cannons, a powerful siege weapon that can potentially outstrip any traditional siege weapons of past. Allowing the kingdom to dominate the battle and annex every nation becoming an empire that rules the entire continent.
Under, the Nova empire's rule the knowlege of natural science is further improved, which the supernatural powers do exist in form of alchemy and rituals, they are deemed inefficient as they cannot be understood nor explained, unlike the technology (which what novanian refer the non-magical creations as), which can be observed, understood, explained, exploited and replicated.
This is due to the fact that supernatural forces are wild, unpredictable and can be used to bend the reality, the technology on other hand utilise the fixed laws of nature, something on whch all natural phenomena depend rely on, as everything in world has fixed laws and everything follows the said laws, meaning technology can be predicted and understood, allowing one to exploit the reality to their advantage rather than bending it, the technology built can be replicated by anyone and can be mass produced, provide one has enough knowledge to make it happen.
Under the Nova empire, the technologial advancement grew in rapid pace, kickstarting the industrial revolution, allowing the rise of industries, improvement of way of living, never ending wealth, increased job opportunities. With facilities like academies and universities are built, the literacy rate soared high, further accelerating the progress.
They created land vehicles that need no beast to pull, like automobiles, land carriers and locomotives, soon, aircrafts and air carriers are built, these are the vehicles that can literally fly, without any form of runes used in past, the former can carry people to great distance in short amount of time while latter can do same except it carry items, materials and resources instead of people.
But it doesn't stop here, they created new naval vehicles, the old ships were made of wood that is historically used by people of continent, but under the royal decree of emperor, the new ships are built, which is made of metal rather than wood, yet despite being the metal ship, it float perfectly. This become another milestone for empire.
The empire created various mechanical artifacts known as electronics that made people daily life easier and simple, the candles and handfans replaced by electrical light and electrical fans, the letters replaced by telephones and later mobile phones, for calculations, calculators and computers are built, the traditional entertainments are replaced by radios, televisions and movie halls.
As for fuel, the empire moved away from places of powers to mundane fuel source like crude oil, power generators and batteries. Crude oil is a sludge that can be refined into various fuels for vehicles or household items or any other uses. Power generators produced electricity, a type of tamed lightning that can power electronics, initially it was produced solely by steam engines requiring coals, but later solar panels, dams, windmills and even nuclear plants are built to generate more power without much pollution. As for batteries they are fuel storage, carry electricity to power the portable electronics, negating the need for plugs and plug points.
To negate the pollutions, the use of cleaner fuel is encouraged for daily uses while keeping unclean ones as alternatives if clean fuel in not available, more trees, plants and flowers are grown in unused urban areas, not just for decoration but due to the fact that flora acts as natual purifier of air and even allow clouds to form to make rain happen. Ensuring that progress doesn't become the cause of ecological damage.
Soon, many laboratories and factories are build, with modern tools, mechanical artifacts called machines and constant power supply for power generators, the laboratories invent new things while factories mass-produced everything. The empire gains new goods and these goods are available in masses which also drop their prices, making it affordable to everyone.
For healthcare, hospitals and clinics are built for injured or sick. The drugstores and medicine shops are established for allowing civilian to buy the medicines prescribes by doctors. The modern medicine will not immediate like medicinal potions of past, they can be mass produced, available in affordable price and undeniably works just like old potions.
But most visble changes were houses and road, the strong cement houses and affordable aspault road is more preferable than fragile wooden houses and expensive stone roads that was used in past.
To eleminate water shortage, the water pumps and later the electrical water pumps are built to draw water out of underground, to ensure water supply the water supply lines, consisting of pipes in underground are created, there is also drainage system to dispose the wastes and treat sewage without dirtying the surroundings.
To ensure the people do not lose the track of time, the pocket watches, alarm clocks, wristwatches, digital wristwatches, digital clocks, radio clocks, etc., is created to ensure everyone has track of time.
Thus, before a certain cosmic event could begun the continent has become very advanced and confortable place.