Perfect Mimicry

It has been nearly 5 weeks since that day and Caxon was in his room fighting against Amon with a sword. Amon once again easily blocked Caxon's sword and pushed him back. Caxon had sweat dripping from his face as he put his hands on his knees while smiling at Amon.

'So, what do you think Amon, have I successfully pulled off my new skill?'

'Young master I am truly amazed and honored by your talent. If I didn't know for myself, I would have believed you were a true rank 3 hollow core with unnatural strength and speed, perfect mimicry is a resounding success.'

Caxon was proud of himself he laid down on his bed exhausted as his mana core returned to looking like a rank 4. Memorizing the levels of mana for each rank was easy, changing his mana core to appear that rank was very difficult. But being able to maintain his focus and his mana core at the imitated level even when he was doing something else proved to be a task that was almost too much for him.

However, he remembered one of the first lessons he was taught in this world.

"Never stop fighting and never stop improving, no matter what it is, you only fail when you admit defeat."

Those were the words that Caxon had left him in his most important memory, he planned to live by those words until he was able to survive the ordeal he had been put into.

Even when he thought that taking one step was impossible without losing perfect mimicry. When he first drew a sword while keeping it active, he thought he had reached his limit. It was only until he was able to fight Amon with almost everything, he had that he was comfortable calling it a success.

The next step would be to start using mana and elemental control while keeping it enabled but he didn't want to show his comprehension 4 elements where so many people could easily notice.

The only reason he attempted perfect mimicry in the town was because Amon assured him that the only ones who would be advanced enough to notice the changes from far enough away would never pay attention to a rank 4 hollow core.

Caxon only had a few days left however he was low on money so he thought he would hunt for animal parts to sell while living in the woods for again. But first Caxon was hungry, while the tavern had been delivering food to Caxon's room it was very basic and cheap so he wanted to have one last meal before he ventured into the woods.

Caxon walked to the only restaurant in town and pushed open the door, unfortunately there was a person on the other side.

Caxon instantly bowed and adamantly apologized for his mistake.

"Oh, finally a young man with manners it is surely a relief to know that young ones like you still exist."

Caxon looked up to see a well-built man with long black hair and a scar on his chin looking at him. However, what attracted Caxon attention was the dense mana coming from the sword that the man had at his hip. Though when Caxon realized he couldn't sense any mana coming from the man he was on edge as he instantly went back to apologizing.

'Did this boy notice my sword he must have pretty good senses for someone his age.'

"It's quite alright as I said, please come inside don't let me stop you from eating"

The man smiled at Caxon before walking away so the doorway was clear.

Caxon thought the man was suspicious but he tried not to think about it too much as he moved into the restaurant. Caxon ordered the most expensive food he could afford since he didn't have much money left anyways.

After he had his fill, he went back to the tavern to finish the last task he wanted to complete before he left the village for some time.

Caxon walked up to a table near a fire and once again pretended to sleep with his back to everyone else, in reality he was keeping his eyes open watching the fire elemental mana dance around.

For the last 3 days of his reservation Caxon did not move he only eat the free food that came with the room and watched the fire. Caxon was able to increase his comprehension of fire to the point where he would be able to make a tiny fire but that was all he needed to start a fire.

"Hey kid your reservation for the room is over so I aint bringing you more food unless you pay."

"Ok thank you for your time, sir."

Caxon did not have enough to extend his stay or even pay for more food so it was time for him to prepare to leave. Before leaving the town, he remembered he already had some furs to sell.

After asking around Caxon was pointed towards a shop that would buy his wares.

"ahhh, Hello how can I help you"

As Caxon walked in he heard a man sigh before greeting him in a monotone voice that sounded completely bored. When Caxon looked at him, he saw a man with black hair standing behind a counter while resting his head on his hand as if he was about to fall asleep. What stood out to Caxon was the man's small cat ears and a black tail behind him.

"Hi I am here to sell some of my beast hides."

Caxon took out the furs and set them on the counter next to the man. The man opened his eyes and looked at the furs before looking at Caxon, he took a deep breath before he let out a big sigh.

"Huuh, I will give you 4 coppers for all 3"

"OK thank you sir"

The man did not reply as he waved his arm and 4 coppers appeared on the desk and the furs disappeared. Caxon tried not to show his surprise as he noticed a tiny bit of mana that he couldn't understand coming from the man's ring, but it only lasted a fraction of a second when the coins appeared and the furs disappeared, before the ring went back to being an undetectable dull copper ring. Since Caxon had read fantasy books in his old life he assumed that this was a spatial ring, a ring somehow connected to a much larger space to store items. He did not know the specifics obviously, but he was definitely curious.

"Never seen a storage ring kid, can't blame you they are pretty rare since not enough people can understand the space element to make them. That ring is the only one I have and its on sale, its still 500 gold though."

As he said this the man pointed to a display case close to the entrance of the store with a seemingly boring bronze ring inside it.

"I wish I could afford it but how is a kid like me supposed to make that much money haha."

Caxon put his hand behind his head and scratched his neck as he laughed. For the first time the catman stood perfectly straight as his eyes narrowed and he looked at Caxon.

"Right, a kid like you."

This time the man did not sound lazy, his tone was not hostile but it carried heavy doubt towards Caxons words. He soon went back to his lazy attitude as he pulled a chair behind him and sat down while putting a hat over his head and apparently going to sleep.

"Look around if you want, let me know if you are going to buy anything."

The man was clearly suspicious of Caxon so he definitely did not want to stay in this store any longer as he made his way outside before he headed towards the village exit.

As Caxon walked out the shop keeper lifted his hat with his eyes following Caxon's back as opened the door to leave.

'Am I going senile, looking at that boy made me feel like I was staring at a high-class beast. Those eyes judging and analyzing everyone they see ready to kill at a moment's notice... Whatever I am probably just over thinking it.'

The shop keeper had sharp instincts but he decided to ignore them as he couldn't sense anything special about the boy except for a gut feeling.