Yesterday, on August 1st of 2016, Kharsek became the first Tibia player to reach level 999.

Kharsek can now enter the elusive level 999 gate of expertise and uncover one of Tibia’s greatest mysteries: where the teleport behind the door leads to.

Until Kharsek reveals the secret (if he ever decides to do so), we can only guess. Many theories exist, but here’s what we know.

The teleport used to lead nowhere

On the test server for the 2009 Summer Update (8.5), Mastro Daro discovered a bug that allowed him to gain absurd amounts of experience. By exploiting the bug, he reached level 999, and decided to test the teleport. When entering the teleport, nothing happened. The teleport was just a sprite with no actual teleporting hooked up to it. It seems unlikely that CipSoft deactivated the teleport on the test server only, since they weren’t aware of the experience bug and no players were even close to level 999 at that point.

The teleport leads somewhere now

Imagine playing Tibia for years on end, finally getting level 999 (without exploiting bugs), and walking through the level 999 door… only to find that the teleport doesn’t work at all. Now that’d be disappointing! Luckily, everything seems to point in the direction of the teleport actually leading somewhere, at least as of recently:

In preparation for the 10.94 update, CipSoft highlighted the level 999 gate of expertise in blog posts, and even organized a contest about it. It would be silly for them to go through the trouble of creating all this hype, and then not implement something in-game. On the test server for the 10.94 update (aka. the 2016 Summer Update), the teleport behind the level 999 door was temporarily removed. This strongly suggests that new content was added behind the teleport as part of the update, but CipSoft didn’t want to spoil it in case a bug was found that allowed lower-level players to enter the gate. The day Kharsek advanced to level 999, a screenshot involving the level 999 door was posted on Cipsoft’s official Facebook page for Tibia. One of the administrators added the following comment: “The suspense is killing me!!! Oh wait! I already know what’s behind! Well, in that case… The suspense is killing you!!! ;)”

A new island appears

Portal Tibia suggested that an island to the north of Tiquanda/Banuta could be related to the level 999 gate of expertise.

But what is this mysterious island, and when and how was it discovered?

Hunter of Dragoes was the first to spot the island on a map that CipSoft made available on the private fansites board. This map was posted on November 24th 2015, in preparation of the 10.90 update, aka. the 2015 Winter Update.

When asked about it, CM Rejana first implied it could have been a testing area, used only on the test server. Then, she said the map wouldn’t be changed, implying the island would remain. But on November 30th — six days after posting the map containing the island — she posted a “newer” version of the map, without the island. Mysterious, huh?

So does the island exist or not? There is no way of knowing until someone finds a way to get there. Until then, the island both exists and does not exist. It’s Schrödinger’s island.

The more interesting question is: assuming it exists, could this island be related to the level 999 door?

The island was leaked during the 2015 Winter Update, while everything else related to the level 999 gate of expertise was implemented in the 2016 Summer Update. This seems to indicate the island and the level 999 door are not necessarily related… But it’s entirely possible CipSoft implemented the area in one update, and only made the teleport work in the next update, when they noticed Kharsek getting close to level 999.

The island also happens to be located near Banuta, where the level 999 door is located. Coincidence?

What do you think? Let us know on Reddit or Facebook!