Becoming an F Class

The giant praying mantis swiftly closed the gap between Caxon and itself before it swung it arms down at him.

Each of the mantis' arms were basically two vertical forearms in front of its body that was able to both close and fully extend forward. Both arms had an extremely sharp front that would cut through Caxon easily, the space in between where the two "Forearms" that could close had sharp spike to kill anything caught between them. (A/N Praying Mantis are super cool, and I think fantasy ones would be absolutely terrifying.)

As the fight started the first thing Caxon noticed was its high level of speed. The arms almost too fast for him to react.

At the beginning of the fight he was barely able to block the attacking arms. As the fight continued he started to grow nervous which caused him to make the mistake of side stepping one of the arms instead of blocking it.

As the arm based to the side of Caxon he was now in between the area where the arm would close. he saw how the mantis' arms seemed to spring back as they went to close. The spikes in front and behind Caxon quickly narrowed his available space and where just about to impale him from both sides.

He quickly ducked underneath the arm and rolled between the mantis' legs. Now that he was not in front of its deadly arms he was able to breath for the first time in the fight.

He quickly slashed at the mantis' body but it was much more durable than it looked. His sword managed to cut into its hard back and draw green blood but it didn't seem to be enough to slow down the beast.

The mantis quickly jumped back and turned to face Caxon once again.

It looked at him with hate before it once again charged forward. This time it seemed to hesitate slightly as it constantly blocked underneath its tall body to insure he could not roll underneath it again.

Caxon was once again on the defense as he blocked countless attacks from the giant praying mantis blades. Since he had gotten slightly more used to its attacks and the beast was more focused on its own defense he did not have as much trouble blocking as he did in the first exchange.

He used this slight window to think of what he could do. He was fairly confident he could just wait out the 10 minutes but he didn't see the harm in just killing this beast either. Caxon assumed that the manager was probably watching him, but he didn't think killing this beast would pinpoint him as a possible participant or draw to much attention in general.

He thought back to how his sword was pretty much useless against the body of the beast. With this even if he was able to get another strike in it would be a waste of effort.

With that being said he found it weird how protective the beast was being if his sword was as harmless as it seemed.

It was then that he noticed the bright green that the monster had all over its body and head that seemed to reflect light. This was the same material that he had hit earlier. However, the mantis was not entirely made of this bright green material as its underside was more of a faded green almost turning white.

Caxon realized the mantis was not scared that he could get to its side but that he would roll under it again and attack from beneath.

However, as he realized the mantis' weakness he smiled.

'Such an obvious bug weakness I should have seen it from a mile away.'

As the bug attacked Caxon once more he did not block the attack. The mantis seemed concerned as it didn't even attack with its other arm simply using it to block the gap beneath it.

However, he ignored it since he was not planning on moving beneath it again, once he realized that the bright green was the protected part, he quickly noticed the parts that were not bright green.

Caxon swung his sword directly at the point where the mantis' arm extended and retracted, cutting the small gap between two of its armor plates. The mantis screeched in pain as it lost the sword edge of one of its arms.

'Why is it that no bug can ever defend its joints. Get better exoskeletons it doesn't seem that farfetched to me.'

After he took off one of its arms the beast was much less dangerous. In the real world this is probably where the mantis would have run away but this mantis was simply an illusion and it gave up its own defense as it desperately tried to kill Caxon.

With only one arm to block against his sword Caxon was easily able to cut the other arm in half taking away the mantis' main weapons. It attempted to use the remaining half of its arms next, however the range was short and without the other end it was not able to close on him which was its main use.

The mantis quickly gave up on this attack as it decided to simply bite him.

This was when Caxon once again rolled underneath it, however this time he took the opportunity to leave a massive cut on its belly. After this the battle was already decided and it was not difficult for him to finish off the dying creature.

After he finally killed the beast, its corpse disappeared and the magic formation returned on the walls before they faded away once again returning the room to exactly how it looked when he first entered with all damage and blood removed.

Not long after the manager entered the room with a small rectangular talisman.

"Congratulations, here is your F class badge, simply put a drop of your blood on it and it will be bound to you. Make sure you actively think about the name you want to be displayed on the badge while you drop you blood on it."

Caxon took the badge in his hand and looked at it. There was a large carved in F at the center towards the top and a blank space on the bottom.

He made a cut on his finger as blood dripped on the wooden badge. The badge became bright before dimming down. As he looked down he almost had PTSD from reading the the message on the badge

NAME ALREADY TAKEN PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

The manager smiled as he looked at the badge.

"I am sorry but you cannot select a name that has already been used on another badge. May I ask what name you tried to use."

"Shadow"

Caxon simply let his blood drip on the badge as he thought of another name.

NAME ALREADY TAKEN PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

"The Wolf" and "Silver" was also taken, and since Caxon didn't want to be "The Slime" or "Shadow_1" he decided to give up on that naming convention. However, he still didn't want to use 'Caxon' and definitely could not use 'Tom' so he continued to think.

Before he tried another name Caxon had to make sure a word from his world also existed here.

"Excuse me I know this is an odd question but have you ever seen or heard of a ghost in this town?"

"Not in town but far to the west there is a crypt that according to legend a evil mage built and ghosts constantly attack travelers that go near it."

Now that he knew ghosts were a thing he once again dripped his finger onto the wood and it glowed, this time when he looked down he had a surprised smile on his face.

'I am surprised no one has picked "Ghost" yet but I guess it is lucky for me.'