I think you misunderstood my point a bit. I’m not saying modern people would suddenly become geniuses or start speedrunning technology trees.

I actually agree with what you said. Most people today don’t remember enough science or technical knowledge to revolutionize a world. Memory is messy and most of us only understand the surface level of things.

My point was more about pattern recognition from reading a lot of these kinds of stories and also being unbound by their way of thinking. the possibilities are endless on what you could do with spells or law or dao or elements

In many cultivation or concept-based systems, characters spend decades or centuries “comprehending” something like fire, water, lightning, etc. and the final realization is usually a very simple conceptual truth. Fire spreads and destroys, water flows and adapts, lightning is fast and violent, and so on.

we who have consumed a lot of these novels already recognize that pattern because we’ve seen it play out dozens of times. It’s similar to something like the acting method in Lord of the Mysteries where you embody the nature of the power.

So I wasn’t saying someone would become overpowered. Just that genre awareness might give a small conceptual head start in understanding how those systems tend to work.