The measurement room was a small structure made of wood from the outside, just big enough for one person to enter, but on the inside it felt like an entire universe full of distant stars sending their reflections from afar.
It was a small space containing a whole new world that no one knew how to describe. The sky was just a vast void, nothing like on Earth where scientists made their attempts to discover space.
People on Delwias Island lived in fear, poverty, and a constant desire to level up instead of staying to improve their lives in this place. They could have lived a good life here, but they all chose to go up there, where life was said to be comfortable and easy.
The official mage called Ethyl by her code number, and she walked toward the room with a forced smile on her face. The moment she entered, she trembled for a second, but she quickly pulled herself together.
Until that moment, she was not completely sure that the potion was going to help her, but she went inside anyway.
Her uncertainty didn't last long. A light coming from all around reached out to her, and before she noticed, she was enclosed inside a luminous bubble.
She barely had time to process it as everything around her turned vague and beautiful. The light disappeared a minute later, and the location of the exit door was revealed to her right away, though she had been unable to see it upon entering.
She stepped outside shaken. She felt small inside that space, knowing deep down that certain knowledge was being kept secret from them. To her, that scene was not random, yet she couldn't categorize it inside her mind.
The official mage announced, "Participant number 23, divine energy level is one thousand units. I expected more looking at your file."
Ethyl smiled widely while heading back to the tree where she had been standing before the test. That man had saved her for sure; in reality, her divine energy level was between ten thousand and twenty thousand, an immense amount around here.
She remembered what Linen had told her days before this: "Remember, the evaluation test is only about sending people up there to work for higher powers. Don't think that leveling up is the key; it is only a first step toward evolution."
Linen and she were not related, and certainly not friends. They had simply used each other for years, forming a superficial connection that ended up lasting longer than any real relationship they ever had.
Linen was a twenty-six-year-old man who was unable to level up due to his lack of divine energy, which led him to get involved with people who opened his eyes to things he had never paid attention to before.
Therefore, he shared that information with Ethyl, not to drag her into joining him, but to challenge her reasoning in these matters. The more he learned, the more shocked he became, which was why he always sought a second opinion, and she was the one he turned to.
He had once told her that the amount of divine energy on Delwias Island was always kept under five thousand units. The only person who had ever possessed more than that was Lucas, Isiah's brother, who ruined this world. After that, the authorities didn't even allow people with more than five thousand units to live in the region.
Lucas was the first, the glitch in the matrix, and because of him everything changed. That was the very reason they sealed Isiah so he couldn't use magic.
Linen had been completely against her leveling up, and even the last time she saw him, he refused to accept it.
They had been in her garden. He was sitting on the ground playing with the dog he had gotten her years ago, while she sat on a wooden chair nearby. She was always confident around him, something he loved about her, but when she told him she was going to level up, the air around him shifted completely.
"You know why I want to do it," she said when she saw his stressed expression. "I should have done it before, but now it is a necessity."
"Sometimes I regret enlightening you with that knowledge," Linen replied. "If I hadn't corrupted your soul, you could have been a good girl with cute gestures and manners. I am like a poison to your feminine side."
"Did you just call me unfeminine?! How dare you, you idiot!" Ethyl yelled at him.
"Don't act like them, and don't join them no matter what," Linen said with a dead serious face. "They would sacrifice you at the very first obstacle, and you will find yourself fighting all on your own. They cannot be trusted. Only a fool would trust people like that."
"I am going with or without your blessing, and you know that," Ethyl insisted. "You can't control the decisions I make, and you aren't strong enough to stop me."
"Just remember, I told you that leveling up is not the answer."
"To you, because you are weak and you can't level up!" She grit her teeth the moment the words left her mouth, knowing instantly that she had hurt him.
"I am not asking you to stay because I can't level up," Linen said, a faint smile returning to his face. "I just know that you are trying to be rebellious over there. If I knew you would live there safe and sound, I would have been happy for you... but you are a pain in the ass."
Ethyl remembered this conversation the moment she walked out of that room. She let out a soft sigh the instant her eyes met Jivan's.
She didn't view him as an ally, but if it weren't for him, she would have been locked away, sealed, or murdered today.
Jivan kept his distance as the remaining participants entered the room one after another. Every single one of them passed the test, meaning they were all powerful enough to level up, but none of them were like her or Jivan.
Both of them existed at a far higher level, yet they had successfully concealed it from the rest of the world.