“Hello again, Rayen!” Merlin entered the room with a big smile and a gift package in his hand. He presented the gift to the little girl, the latter accepted it after looking at Miles.
“Why don’t you open it? I think you will like it very much!” Merlin said. Rayen looked at a big smile on Merlin’s face and then opened the gift. This might be the first present she ever got, so she was clumsy while opening the package, but after the cover was removed, she couldn't help but get excited.
In the package, laid a wristwatch made of white jade. It looked fashionable and pretty. Rayen, despite her stoic self, couldn’t help but get happy. After all, she was a woman and women loved pretty things. Merlin’s present was good indeed.
“Thank you,” Rayen muttered silently and removed the wristwatch to sport it as soon as possible. After working on it for some time, she got visibly confused and didn’t know what to do. She looked at Miles and Merlin with a little red hue on her face.
“I haven’t uploaded an AI to your wristwatch yet for a few reasons. Your big bro Miles will help you with it later.” Merlin looked at Miles meaningfully and turned to look at Rayen once again.
“The element of the wristwatch is Barrier. Very, very rare element in G-Circle. Unfortunately, you cannot use any higher rank yet, so I can only give you this for now. But this is the best wristwatch you can have in G-Circle. As long as you have sufficient electricity inside, the watch can protect you against monsters.”
“This is a really rare element. You must have spent a fortune on this. Thanks, Merlin!” Miles thanked his brother too. The barrier element was extremely rare. In G-Circle, there shouldn’t be more than 10 recorded cases of monsters with barrier elements. “But what do you mean she can’t use any higher-ranked wristwatch?”
Wristwatches were separate entities, thus had no limitation on the user's level. Miles never heard of this restriction before.
“Have you ever wondered why Form-Rank is a milestone?” Merlin asked. Then, Miles guessed something. Even in life and death battles, none of the rich scions he battled against used higher-tier orbs. At first, Miles thought they were reluctant to use them, but only now he realized the requirements for using higher tier orbs, mustn't be only electric.
“You mean for higher tier orbs, users should supply things other than electricity?” Miles asked. He already guessed but wanted to confirm his suspicions.
“That is exactly the reason. Remember this Miles, orbs can take you only so far. What is important is real power. When you enter Form-Rank, you will realize how magical the world is.” Merlin said sternly. Miles could only nod absentmindedly.
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“Why did you give me this? What do you want?” Rayen asked after her initial shock. She was an orphan and a captive as far as she could remember. She knew there wasn’t free pie falling from the sky in this world. Merlin smiled and shook his head.
“I will not lie to you, since it would be an insult to your intelligence,” Merlin said and crouched in front of the little girl.
“I have powers, just like yours, it is rare too. I can copy any power and use them for my needs. I copy all rare powers to get stronger, so when I encounter bad people like those that hurt you, I can fight against them and save more children. So, I wanted to copy your power too. Do you think you can help me with that?” He truthfully showed his cards and waited for the girl's answer. If he wanted to, he could have copied her powers without her noticing, but firstly, it would be disrespectful to Miles, secondly, it wouldn’t be nice to the girl. So he decided to ask first.
Rayen looked at Miles and asked, “What do you think, big brother Miles?” She didn’t know what to think of the situation. So, she could only ask Miles.
“This is your power we are talking about. I can only say, the process is safe and no harm will come to your body or your powers. Once Merlin copies it, he will be able to use your powers for a while.” Miles explained but there was something he couldn’t understand. Why was he doing it?
“Why are you copying her powers?” He asked. Merlin was his brother after all, and he didn’t have any reservations in asking a private questions.
“What do you mean why? Isn't her power way too strong? Why shouldn’t I?” Merlin answered with a chuckle.
“Won’t you lose it when you copy another power? Are you planning to stick with this power?” Miles asked. Merlin's powers were as such, he could only hold onto one power. So what was the point? Even if he could copy it and use the special energy type, after copying another power, his connection with the same elemental energy would be severed. So, he didn’t understand the endgame.
“You should have seen different powers by now. Like how there are elemental powers, and other type powers like mine.” Merlin asked and Miles nodded. He indeed saw powers like that before and he even fought against one not long ago.
“There are also some powers that affect the body instead of creating unique elemental powers. We call them active and passive powers. For example, grandfather's ability is active power. He has to use it willingly. But mother’s powers are both active and passive.
Mother’s power, Data Sort, is an active ability allowing her to bring back the information she requires, but she also has the passive ability Computing Brain, increasing her computing ability tremendously. I once copied her powers and gained the passive ability to. It changed my brain and increased my brain power too. After changing the power, I thought this passive ability would vanish too, so I was reluctant to change it.
I even thought about quitting my career in the army and starting over in science. At the time, the feeling of having an advanced brain felt so addicting. I didn’t want to give up on it. But after regretfully changing my power, I realized I still have the passive ability I copied from mom. The powers change my body structure, after being copied it doesn't vanish!”
“Do you mean, Rayen’s powers are also passive?” Miles asked with surprise.