Unlike the laid-back guards of the Ehrendil's gates, the guards of the house Olsen were standing with their backs straight and a hand on the hilt of their sword, still like water, sharp as a blade.

‘’Good evening. My name is Ethan. I’m here to see Lady Katherine.’’

‘’Please follow me. You can wait in the guest room while I inform the matriarch,’’ the guard said and led him inside.

Before they even walked for a minute, a female butler appeared out of nowhere and nodded at the guard before speaking to Ethan. ‘’Matriarch is waiting for you. Please follow me.’’

Ethan did his best to not freak out. These people were absolute professionals and he had no idea about their tiers. Though, he was pretty sure that he was already inside of many people’s domain. Smiling slightly, he followed the butler.

She had shoulder-length and amber-colored hair, pressed firmly to her head. Her outfit was that of a butler, but with a feminine touch and she walked with a posture that fit her serene expression.

They didn’t enter the manor but directly went to the backyard which was a small forest itself. If it wasn’t for the perfectly arranged plants and the landscape, Ethan would’ve thought that they were going to kill and bury him in the middle of nowhere.

After a long walk, they arrived in front of a huge tree with an elegant treehouse on it. Most of the tree was covered with green ivy with purple flowers blooming all around it, but the ivy was avoiding the treehouse, causing the house to look like a gem on a crown. Its walls were made of glass but didn’t show inside, and there were spiral wooden stairs around the tree, crawling up toward the modern-looking house.

The butler gestured with her hand. ‘’Please continue, the matriarch is inside.’’

Ethan swallowed despite his calm appearance. ‘’Thank you for your help.’’ He slowly climbed the stairs and just above the treehouse, he saw the lady Katherine’s snake, chilling on a tree branch. As he stepped on the veranda, part of the glass wall opened just like an automatic sliding door. That made him pause for a second, but he entered inside nonetheless.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t any spatial enhancement, but the house itself was big enough. The furniture was modern and cozy, all kinds of artistic paintings were hanging on the walls, and there was a lingering smell of lilacs inside. The relaxing feeling didn’t stay with Ethan much, because on top of the fireplace, he noticed a stylish wall clock with roman numerals. Not to mention, he was literally standing on a gorgeous carpet with a colorful nebula image.

‘The possibility of the assumption is over 50%.’

No shit Sherlock.

With his [Mana Sense], he was able to spot the owner of the place. Katherine Olsen was on the closed veranda at the other end of the house, sitting on a chair next to a table. Since she didn’t move at all, he made his way toward her. Once again, the glass wall opened silently, and he entered the lion's den.

Other than the wooden floor, every wall was showing the outside clearly, causing the already spacious balcony to look even bigger. There were decorative items, a small bookshelf, and some cushions on the ground in shades of white.

At the corner, a girl who looked to be around 25 with casual clothes was sitting on a chair. Her long black hair was loosely tied back, and her face was very refined and intelligent-looking. She didn’t look at Ethan, nor did she touch her tea cup ever since he entered the house.

‘’It’s rude to return people’s gifts, you know,’’ she said, watching the quiet forest.

‘’I didn’t mean any offense. It was an expensive gift which I did nothing to deserve.’’

‘’So, you don’t like charity.’’

‘’Not if I don’t know why I get a charity or if is it charity at all.’’

Katherine turned her face with a sly smile. ‘’Don’t get tense. I’m joking with you. Honestly? If I were you, I wouldn’t accept it either.’’

‘’Then why send it in the first place?’’

‘’Hmm. Many reasons. The most important one was to know you better, I suppose,’’ she replied with a thoughtful expression before gesturing to the chair next to her. ‘’Why don’t you have a seat? Would you like some tea?’’

Ethan sat in the comfy chair, although he didn’t show it much, he was still quite nervous. ‘’I-If it’s not too much trouble.’’

Katherine gave a burst of bell-like laughter before standing up. ‘’Oh, my. What happened to the boy who severed Travis’s arm?’’

‘’That boy was at the point of no return,’’ he replied with a wry smile. ‘’If that ba- dear Travis came to me with different intentions, I’d be still cautious and respectful.’’

Katherine cocked an eyebrow. ‘’Do you mean if I push you enough, you’ll take my arm as well?’’

‘’I hope we’ll never find out.’’

She laughed even more. ‘’Me too. I like my arms intact.’’ Fetching a teapot from her storage, she served him a cup of tea and returned to her seat. ‘’So, Ethan. What do I owe the pleasure?’’

‘’I’ve come to thank you for saving my life,’’ he said and sipped from his tea.

‘’Did you know that one of the rarest skills in Elisium are perception-based skills? Because in a lower realm, only monster-bloods are talented enough to create one, but even if they do, they don’t need to distribute the skills on a tablet. Their descendants would learn their ancestor's skills through their bloodline, anyway,’’ Katherine explained. ‘’That’s why only a handful of people have these kinds of skills. Despite that, my skill [Divine Eye] is actually even capable of making the monster-bloods envious.’’

Ethan was vaguely able to tell where this was going. ‘’What does it do?’’

She beamed at the question. ‘’I can tell whenever some lies or even speak half-truths.’’

Fantastic. Truly a lion’s den. He stared at her for a moment in consideration and decided to go all out. ‘’I’ve also come to ask; When did your family leave Earth and arrived on Elisium?’’

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‘’Earth…’’ she repeated with a resonant tone. ‘’Is that what you call your home? I like it.’’

‘’W-What? Do you mean–’’

‘’That I am from a different planet?’’ She interrupted and gave a cheerful nod. ‘’Yes.’’

‘’I-Impossible!’’ Ethan exclaimed in disbelief. ‘’How could there be so much resemblance in our civilizations?’’

Katherine calmly drank from her tea and considered her next words. ‘’To explain this, I need to explain something else first. Caged Worlds. Oh? You already know it. Impressive.’’

‘’No. I barely know a thing or two,’’ Ethan said, shaking his head. ‘’Please explain.’’

Katherine turned her body toward the forest, crossing her legs underneath, still sitting on the chair. ‘’Every realm, which is a planet with life, is born with a core. Very much like the monsters, they cultivate this core and strive to be a higher existence in the vast cosmos, but sadly, it’s much harder than sapient beings like us. When a lower realm fails to become a higher realm, it starts to die and its power reduces over time until eventually, it can't even deal with the trespassers.’’

Ethan listened with attention. This was the information he was hoping to get from Evelyn’s friend Claire. It was one of the biggest mysteries he discovered ever since coming to Elisium.

‘’Once a lower realm is in that condition, the powerhouses of higher realms, like hungry wolves, first fight among each other to see who will get the prize, and then let the winner raid the lower realm and its inhabitants. The biggest prize is naturally the realm core. No matter if it’s dying or not, the strongest artifacts are always made by realm cores, even the failed products could give birth to ridiculously strong artifact spirits. And there are even rumors that this is actually just one of its basic uses.’’

Could it be that Saruman is also created by a realm core? Also if Earth’s core was taken away, doesn’t it mean that it was once a lower realm with mana?

‘’Those were the times when things were still civil,’’ Katherine said and looked at Ethan with a savage smile. ‘’You see, a great deal of time is needed for a realm to die, and there are a lot of powerhouses waiting for a core. One day, one of them discovered a way to inflate a newly born realm and plundered its core before it even started its life. The core was much lower in quality, but the quantity was never an issue in this boundless universe. And so started the big hunt for the newborn realms.’’

‘’What happens to the realm after its core is taken away?’’

‘’It loses its consciousness and all of its mana. What’s left is a mere shell and its dying process gets many times faster.’’

Ethan frowned. ‘’Is that why they called them Caged Worlds?’’

‘’Oh, no. Things are getting uncivil, remember?’’ she said, a bitter pain in her eyes. ‘’The powerhouse who stole the core, claims ownership of the shell of the realm and its inhabitants. They use the world as their personal cradle, a breeding facility. They slaughter every other race they don’t want and consider the rest as their slaves. Though, this applies only for the ones with top or elemental talents, while the others are just waste material for them.’’

He leaned back with a solemn expression. ‘’But there was no such thing on Earth. We would have known. Someone would have known.’’

‘’It was an open thing at first, but even the powerless locals are nothing to be scoffed at when they have the numbers and nothing else to lose. Especially since ascendants slowly lose their mana in a manaless environment and transporting high tier cultivators requires too many resources,’’ she said, playing with her now cold tea. ‘’Then, they’d decided to remove all the evidence of what happened and leave their livestock to themselves. Even if it required massive slaughters and much more time for their livestock to grow in population, in the long run, it was much better for them. When enough time had passed, they started to kidnap the talented ones, but without alerting the clueless residents, and they only did it when they needed it. Besides, finding a justification for the disappearance of the total population’s fraction was a piece of cake. And if they needed a big batch? They could’ve always started wars behind the shadows. After all, who cares if a thousand is missing when there are millions of dead?’’

Ethan made a fist with his shaking hand under the table, and his breathing became labored. He was consciously holding his [Mana Aura] from flaring up as he remembered some memories.

15 years old Ethan was sitting in the middle of a wide stairway, watching down the street with a vacant look. It was a place he visited many times before. A hoodie was covering his face and his knees were pulled up to his chest with his arms hugging them. In his sight, there was a hologram playing, showing a young woman who was running in panic but the scene was always ending before the woman crossed the street.

‘After this, you’ve said that you lost contact with all the surveillance for an hour. In only a single hour, where could she go? My father’s company is half an hour away. Did she make it before he was dead? Did she even manage to reach that far?’

‘I told you before. Your father was already dead when I had eyes once again, and there was no sight of your mother. There was never a sight of her ever since.’

Ethan sighed, still staring at the street. ‘I should’ve looked for her when I woke up from my shock. I delayed it for months like an idiot.’

‘You were only a child, and you woke up from your shock by killing another human being. It’s only normal that you were afraid to see your mother. Or not being able to see her again. Stop making it too hard for yourself, and stop thinking about every possibility,’ Ani said with a soft voice. ‘People go missing in wars. It has always been like that. There could be many explanations for it, but the most important thing is that she is not among the people who are alive. I already confirmed this to you last year, along with the many other people who had missing persons they knew. Ethan, for your own sake, stop living in the past and move on.’

‘’...Ethan. Ethan, are you okay?’’ Katherine asked, leaning close to look at his eyes.

‘’I… I need a moment,’’ he said with a hoarse voice.

Katherine stood up and got a glass of water before passing it to him. ‘’Here, drink it. I’m sorry if I was rude. I didn’t consider that you might have recent experiences. My situation is a bit different, forgive me if I sounded heartless.’’

He drank the water and took a deep breath before giving out. ‘’No. It’s not that. I just realized a possibility. You’re not the heartless one, I can assure you,’’ he said with every word turning colder. ‘’Tell me. What are these powerhouses doing to the people they’ve kidnapped?’’

Katherine returned to her seat and started tapping on the table with her index finger, her eyes dazed. ‘’In the higher realms, there are many skills related to slavery. Among them, the one called [For Life] is the most popular. It requires a person without any mana and comprehension of any elements. Once you use this skill against them, they will be like mindless golems with absolute obedience and no will of their own. They will cultivate when you say, kill when you say, and die when you say. The downside is that without a will, the slave is only able to use some of their talent and they are still not a match for other cultivators. But if you have an army of top and elemental talent slaves…’’

‘’And the name of the skill? For life?’’

She nodded. ‘’When the master dies, the slaves die as well. There are many rumors about freeing the slaves but none of them acknowledged by the masses so far.’’

Ethan was still as a rock, watching her with an ice-cold gaze, countless thoughts in his mind. ‘’I see. Is every ascendant okay with this treatment?’’

‘’You are underestimating the scope of the known universe,’’ Katherine stated. ‘’There are 9 heavens, the pinnacle of the realms. Their inhabitants don't care about anything else but their realms. The villains in my story were the powerhouses of higher realms. There are about a hundred higher realms with every single one of them dozens of times bigger than Elisium. The lower realms like Elisium are in the count of ten thousand, while the numbers of the Caged Worlds I mentioned are merely a few hundred. So, in this massive order, everyone vies for the heavens and no one bats an eye for what happens to the few unlucky fellows.’’

‘’Fair enough. I hope they also don’t mind when the few unlucky fellows gouge out their eyes,’’ Ethan murmured absentmindedly.

Katherine gave an animated smile. ‘’That brings us to your original question; How is it that our civilizations are so similar?’’ she said and looked up to the sky with a melancholic gaze. ‘’As my gramps used to say; Where there is pressure, there is always resistance.’’