Knowledge filled Jon's head and he dropped the stone in surprise. Apparently, what Jon accepted as his normal reality was an alteration by the stone. When he wished for something interesting to happen, the stone altered history to cause the industrial revolution to happen. In other words, in the world before Jon's wish, the industrial revolution simply never happened!
Jon wondered what that other world was like, and if he would even want to return to it. After all, history books taught that the pre-industrial world wasn't a great one to live in.
