I keep my face neutral, because the fastest way to become a target is to look like you are hiding something.
The Awakening Hall is clean enough to make you forget what the world becomes later. White walls, bright lights, polished floors, the faint smell of disinfectant that clings to everything official. The evaluation platform sits at the front like a stage, and everyone in line pretends it is a fair one.
It never was.
I flex my left hand slowly and watch my fingers respond. Then I rotate my shoulder under the uniform. No missing limb. No phantom pain. No dull ache from damage that never healed.
Eighteen again. Alive again.
The memory of dying still sits behind my eyes like a bruise, but I do not let it change my breathing. I learned a long time ago that panic wastes time, and time is the only resource you never get back.
Students whisper in front of me. A few are trying to sound confident. A few are trying not to cry. Most are doing both badly. Fifteen years ago, I did not understand why my chest felt tight in this room.
Now I do.
Because this is where the world sorts people.
At the back of the hall, adults lean against the walls with practiced casualness. Clean shoes. Expensive watches. Expressions that never soften. They do not clap, and they do not react like normal people. Their eyes slide over the line the way you examine merchandise.
Guild scouts.
They are not looking for effort. They are looking for profit.
I keep my gaze forward and let my focus drift gently.
Text appears above the student in front of me.
Potential Ceiling: B RankGrowth Efficiency: 61%Trait: Hardened Skin, locked
I do not stare. I let the information settle and move on as if nothing happened.
So it is real.
The hidden layer did not vanish when I died, and it is not a hallucination. It is here, quiet and absolute, like the world has been running with the true numbers hidden underneath the public ones.
My focus slides to the right.
A boy laughs with two friends. His academy jacket has a guild crest stitched into the sleeve. He stands like he already belongs to a private floor in a tower.
Potential Ceiling: S RankTrait: Command Presence, lockedRisk Factor: High
Lee Minho.
In my first life, he becomes famous for the wrong reasons. Selling gate coordinates. Leaking raid paths. Cutting deals with rival guilds. When the world starts to crack, he tries to profit from the cracks.
When the Sovereigns descend, he tries to negotiate.
He dies anyway.
Before that, he takes thousands with him.
Right now, he is laughing like the world has never punished anyone.
I look away before my expression changes.
Revenge is not a feeling. It is timing.
My focus moves again.
A girl stands two lines over with her hair tied back neatly, spine straight, hands folded in front of her. She is not trying to dominate the room, and she is not trying to disappear either. Her composure looks natural, not rehearsed.
Potential Ceiling: A RankGrowth Suppressed: YesTrait: Resonance Amplifier, locked
I let a slow breath pass through my nose.
In my first life, she was supposed to be ordinary. She was not. She becomes one of the few people I trust near the end, not because we are close, but because she does not lie to herself. She fights like someone who has already decided fear is useless.
She dies holding a corridor while civilians run past her.
I watched her collapse.
I remember thinking the System wasted her.
Now I know the System did it on purpose.
That thought is heavier than it should be, so I set it aside. I can mourn later, if I get to live long enough to deserve it.
The line shifts forward.
Someone bumps my shoulder. A tall boy behind me mutters an apology that does not sound like one.
"Watch where you stand."
His tone says he is practicing being important.
I glance back just enough to meet his eyes.
He has the kind of confidence you can only have when you have never been punished for it.
Potential Ceiling: C RankTrait: None
I turn forward again without speaking. If I answer, he gets attention. If he gets attention, he gets energy. People like him feed on that.
I do not feed strangers.
A faint overlay sits at the edge of my vision, steady and quiet.
Hidden Authority: 1Detection Risk: 0%
Authority.
The word still feels wrong, like reading a line of code you were never meant to see. In my first life, there were no authority points. There was only the public interface, the grind, and the constant pressure to prove your rank meant something.
But I remember the void after I died. I remember information streaming past like fragments of something larger. I remember a single line appearing like a verdict.
Hidden Authority Detected.
So this is real, and the only way to survive with something this dangerous is to learn its limits before it learns mine.
I test it carefully.
I focus on Lee Minho's locked trait, Command Presence.
I do not push hard. I press my attention against the lock the way you test a door, checking whether it is truly sealed or just waiting for the right key.
The text trembles.
A new line appears.
Lock Condition: Authority RequiredUnlock Cost: Unknown
My overlay flickers.
Detection Risk: 1%
Cold crawls up my spine, not fear, more like instinct. Like stepping into a spotlight you did not see.
I stop immediately.
The risk settles back down after a few slow breaths.
Good.
The System notices when I poke at things it wants hidden.
That is the constraint.
Power is not the hard part. Staying alive after using it is.
The evaluation begins.
An instructor calls the first student. A boy steps onto the platform. The machine hums, light panels sweep up his body, and the main screen flashes the public result.
C Rank.
Polite applause ripples through the room. The boy smiles like he has just won something.
Above his head, the hidden layer tells a different story.
Potential Ceiling: B RankTrait: Kinetic Control, locked
So the public result is not the ceiling. Not always.
Either the evaluation is incomplete, or the System is lying.
Both options are bad.
Another student steps up.
B Rank on the screen.
Her ceiling is B Rank too.
So sometimes it matches, and sometimes it does not.
Selective suppression.
That is worse than randomness.
Randomness is unfair. Selective suppression is intentional.
I watch quietly while names are called, scans complete, and ranks flash on the screen. The room keeps clapping like it is watching a talent show, and I keep watching ceilings that should not exist.
A future A Rank receives a public C Rank.
Suppressed.
A future nobody receives a public B Rank.
Elevated.
The pattern tightens around my thoughts until I can almost feel the hand on the scale.
The scouts in the back barely react to Cs and Ds. When someone hits B, their attention sharpens. When someone hits A, a few of them shift their stance like they are preparing to move.
That is how lives change in this world. Not through effort, not through bravery, but through the moment someone decides you are profitable.
A student receives E Rank and tries not to cry. Someone snickers. The instructor does not even look up.
I see her ceiling.
D Rank.
Not great, but not hopeless.
Hopeless people quit. People who think they still have a chance keep crawling forward. The System understands that. It is not just measuring strength. It is shaping behavior.
The line advances.
A boy behind me whispers to his friend, loud enough for nearby students to hear, "I am getting B at least. My uncle said I have talent."
His friend nods too fast, desperate to agree, like agreement can become armor.
I do not turn around.
Confidence without proof is just a child talking in a room full of knives.
Then the instructor pauses, scrolling through the roster.
My skin tightens, and I hate that it does. Even after dying once, some moments still hit like the first time.
"Kang Jaehyun."
A few students glance over, then lose interest. No one expects anything from me. In my first life, I was not important at the start.
That is fine.
Being underestimated is a gift.
I step out of line and walk toward the platform at an ordinary pace. Not slow. Not eager. Scouts remember eagerness. They remember desperation too.
The vibration of the platform hums beneath my shoes as I step onto it.
"Stand still," the instructor says, voice flat.
I stand still.
I focus inward the same way I focused on everyone else, and I let the hidden layer look back at me.
Text appears above my head.
Public Evaluation Projection: D RankPrimary Trait: LockedAccess Condition: Authority RequiredPotential Ceiling: Unreadable
Unreadable.
That is new.
My attention presses gently, careful not to spike the detection risk, and for a brief moment another line flickers into view, faint like it is buried under layers.
Hidden Trait Signature: UnidentifiedLock Depth: High
My overlay pulses.
Hidden Authority: 1Detection Risk: 1%
I stop pushing and let my focus loosen until the risk settles again.
So I am not just suppressed.
I am sealed.
In my first life, I thought I was unlucky. I thought I was slow. I thought everyone else had been born with something I did not have.
No.
Something was taken from me before I even started.
The machine's lights brighten. The scan begins, sweeping up my body in a slow clinical pass. The main screen starts to fill with data, line by line.
The instructor's eyes stay bored.
The scouts in the back remain still.
No one is expecting anything.
That is the advantage.
The scan completes.
The platform hums again, sharper than before, like the machine is choking on the result.
My overlay flickers.
Detection Risk: 2%
The screen stalls.
One second passes.
Then the evaluation machine makes a sound I have never heard in my first life, a thin strained whine that rises like something trying to break free.
The instructor finally looks up.
One of the scouts straightens slightly.
And the hall goes quiet.