“Captain!” Two hundred and fifty people who appeared out of nowhere saluted Merlin at the same time. The leader who was threatening Merlin a second ago looked at him in dread. He brought a hundred veterans with him so he could trap Merlin and kill him to avenge what he had done to their organization, but when he thought he outnumbered the enemy, he found himself outnumbered.

“How?” He asked in terror. “How can I fail to detect so many people? Impossible!”

“Tha— That thing has the same energy as me.” The person near him spoke at this time. It was the same person who gave Merlin his power. He was pointing at the ghostly creature in the middle of 250 people.

“Oh, that is my ultimate.” Merlin smiled as he beckoned. The ghostly creature vanished and appeared next to Merlin.

“Stop spouting bullshit! I have seen your ultimate! It was in the shape of a bird.” The leader asked in mad anger. His plan has already been foiled.

“You see, I have a unique ultimate like the power I possess,” Merlin smirked as he patted the ghostly creature. “With every change of my element, so does my ultimate. It also carries the special abilities of the power I copy. Since your underling was so benevolent to share his power with me, I was able to acquire this ultimate.”

“It has my superpower too?” The underling looked at the creature and Merlin stupefied. “My Ghost Step power can block all the presence in a certain area, that was my bait in the first place.”

“It was really helpful. It allowed me to leave the stronghold with so many people without getting noticed by the opposing parties. If any of them knew that there was a tower here, it wouldn’t go so smoothly.” Merlin smiled brightly. “Thank you indeed.”

“But… How did you know we were following you? You couldn’t possibly know. I was using my power this whole time!” The underling shouted in frustration.

“The same way you were able to follow me of course,” Merlin answered as he signaled his soldiers to surround the 100 people. When he copied that person’s power, he also acquired passive power. He was always suspected of the person who appeared out of nowhere and offered him a juicy superpower and the location of a tower. But when he copied and got the passive power, he realized what was going on.

The passive power allowed that person to detect anyone with the same elemental powers. In his case, it was the ghost element. The underling wanted Merlin to copy his power so he could detect him all the time, but after Merlin acquired the same passive power, he too could detect the underling the whole time. Thus he planned. He didn’t know who they were before he saw the leader, but it didn’t matter. He only gathered enough people so he could outnumber the opposing party.

Of course, the underling could also feel the ultimate but because its shape was weird, he thought it was just a creature with similar power and had nothing to do with Merlin and others. He and all the others had seen Merlin’s ultimate before. It was in the shape of a bird and couldn’t be this monster.

Most of the attackers had no will to battle after seeing more than twice the enemy surrounding them and threw away their weapons. Those who wanted to fight were defeated in no time. Merlin walked up to the leader and beheaded him. The rest were imprisoned to be taken back.

Merlin walked to the dead bodies on the ground and apologized once more. The red-headed girl and another soldier lost their lives in the final battle against the boss. Because he had to keep his ultimate with 250 soldiers to hide them, Merlin wasn’t able to use it in the battle and lost 2 soldiers.

“Sir, we are done with the prisoners.” A soldier walked up and reported. Merlin nodded and walked away from the dead bodies. He opened the chest they brought from the tower. What was lying inside of the chest made the towers so valuable and sought after.

Merlin opened the chest and looked at the purple seed shining with ominous luster. It was the tower core. From what he knew, these things could make the ultimate evolve, but he didn’t use them before, so he didn’t know their full effects.

“Sir, we are ready.” Another soldier reported as they surrounded Merlin. One stepped forward. Merlin touched the soldier's arm for five minutes and copied his poison elemental power. That was the tower’s main element.

Although the miraculous tower cores could make an ultimate evolve, there were some requirements. Firstly the elemental resonance. The tower core and the person using it had to have the same element. The second was the type of core the person had. Each tower core featured one of the four core categories, namely Heart, Mind, Body, and Mystic. It was easy to distinguish that by observing the abilities of the tower boss.

The one Merlin was holding was Heart Core. It fit him, and since he could change his element, he could use any core in the world so long as it was a Heart Core.

Merlin kept the core in front of him, as he let out his energy. The poison elemental energy covered the seed and seeped into it. The ultimate, which now changed into a giant scorpion-like monster, was sitting in front of Merlin. After more than ten minutes of feeding energy into the core, Merlin stretched out his arm towards the ultimate. The scorpion monster opened its maw and gulped down the core.

As soon as it did, the energy blast covered the surrounding area. A purple mist spread out with the ultimate as its epicenter and started to swirl. Merlin felt the power in him was surging. After some time, the scorpion monster exploded into pure energy and disappeared. Merlin fell onto his knees as he coughed.

“Sir, are you okay?” Asked one of the soldiers as she ran to Merlin to pick him up.

“Yeah, it's just the circle is denying my existence,” Merlin explained as he coughed harder.

“You broke through?” The soldier asked in disbelief.

“I sure did. That is why my ultimate disappeared. Higher tiered ultimates cannot be manifested in low-tier circles. I too should leave F-Circle before I suffer serious damage.” Merlin explained.