The White Elk

When Caxon woke up he was surprised to find all of his mana was already back. Going off of how much mana he naturally recovered only sleeping for a few hours like he had definitely should not have been enough to recover as much mana as he spent.

Noticing the anomaly, for the first time he closed his eyes and paid attention to the room he was in. He was shocked to find the density of the mana in the air.

'Young master it is from the left-over mana in the mana stones, I am sure before this ant queen built her nest here and started absorbing all of the mana herself it was much more dense than this.'

Caxon understood what Amon was saying as he could sense mana leaking from the stones in the walls to fill the air around him. He also took this time to summon Amon which instantly used most of the mana he had recovered.

However, he was not worried since he could meditate and gain his mana back extremely quickly in this room.

He also saw Silver eating the corpses of the ants but he simply let them continue as it would make them stronger.

'Amon can you grab those stones and bring them to me please.'

Amon simply bowed as he walked around the room with tendrils of shadow coming from his back that pulled all of the stones out of the way.

Caxon looked at the pale stones that barely emitted light anymore, even when compared to when the group had walked in, they had lost a lot of their glow. Judging by what Amon had said it was safe to assume that these stones used to be a bright blue that was beautiful to behold, but now they seemed as if they were dying as some stones even flickered occasionally.

He sat in front of the pile and started improving his mana core.

He had started to notice that it was already getting harder to improve his mana core and he assumed it would only get exponentially worse from here. Luckily as Caxon absorbed the last bit of mana in the stones he was able to go up to a rank 7 without wasting too much time in the nest.

After he had activated perfect mimicry to appear as a rank 5 he went to find the gland he needed from the queen. While searching in the queens body his hand suddenly hit a rock. Caxon gripped the stone as he pulled it out of the queen.

In his hand was a crystal with small star like dots trapped inside of it, as he focused on it he could feel a very strange mana inside.

'Young master that is beast core, I will warn you do not try to absorb the mana from the core as you did the mana stones or it will corrupt your core and possibly kill you.'

'Then is there a use to these cores?'

'Many, mostly they are used in the creation of weapons, however they can also be used as a kind of fuel for most mana formations.'

As Caxon prepared to put the core in his backpack he suddenly felt blobs consciousness fluctuate as if trying to call out to him.

He found it odd but simply decided to summon blob, as soon as the slime appeared it jumped towards his hand. He was confused but he knew the slime would never hurt him so he simply allowed it to do whatever it was it planned on doing.

The slime landed on Caxon's hand and the beast crystal instantly started to grow smaller. However before he could stop the slime he felt the slime's power gaining strength rapidly so he let it be.

He then took out the cores from the other ants and feed them to blob. After the second core and part of the third blob became a first class beast. The slime suddenly became a slightly lighter color and it looked as though he became more dense but his size did not change.

Since he had nothing in mind for the cores he feed the rest to blob as well, he could immediatly feel that the cores had very little affect on blob now that he was a class one but the slime still grew a little. After retrieving the gland and the antennas he needed Caxon walked towards the exit of the tunnel system.

As he left he covered his eyes from the bright sun and breathed in fresh air.

'I have never thought breathing air could feel so clean.'

After he had gotten used to being on the surface once again he headed south east. His goal was to complete another mission before he went back to the village to buy the ring and then leave for another location.

Currently Caxon was looking for another class one beast, this one should be much easier though since it wouldn't have an army with it.

The price also scaled with the difficulty since the reward was only 40 gold but this was still more than enough gold to afford the storage ring.

It felt good to run through the forest at an inhuman speed and it was easy to feel like he was invincible when he thought back to before he had any mana.

However, when Caxon thought of the competition and what other participants could be doing right now he stopped thinking and simply ran faster hoping to find his prey soon.

The beast he was looking for was a class 1 elk with large white antlers.

'Amon, Silver split up and try to find the elk.'

With this the group split up as Caxon kept running forward while his followers took 45 degree turns to either side.

When it came close to night Caxon caught a deer and cooked it since he hadn't eaten in days now. However, with his improved strength he was still barely hungry and he could simply summon the little amount of water he needed each day.

After eating he did not sleep and continued to look for clues on the elk's whereabouts.

Just as he was starting to get concerned that he was getting too close to the village he sensed Silver trying to get his attention.

Although Silver was not intelligent enough to communicate with him directly he was still able to feel the wolf's emotions and get a general idea of his thoughts.

'Amon make your way back to me I am heading towards silver it seems he had found the elk.'

'Of course, young master.'

Caxon took a sharp turn as he ran towards Silver, of course he always kept his speed at a believable level for a rank 5 since he never knew who was watching.

He quickly meet up with Silver who was blood spots on his fur. Caxon looked at the majestic white elk with blood dripping from its antlers as he smashed its hooves on the ground while keeping its eyes shifting between Silver and Caxon.

Caxon's first move was always to observe his opponent whenever he had the chance to since that would give him the most information to form a plan. While he was watching the elk Amon arrived to the fight.

'Young master please allow me to handle this, my pride still hurts from not being able to deal with the previous class one beasts. I must show you that the queen was an exception and I am perfectly capable of handling something at this level.'

'Amon I never doubted your ability don't worry I understand, but please be my guest and take care of this one for us.'

Amon bowed before he turned towards the elk.

'Oh here Amon, we only have one sword left so be careful haha.'

Caxon had been used to handing Amon a sword whenever he became a solid form but since they only had one sword now and he had it previously he now had to hand it to him right before battle.

'Thank you, young master but that sword is yours now. I will not be needing it.'

As he said this Amon dashed towards the elk. He raised his hand above his head in a straight line with his fingers closed as shadows formed at the edge to make the illusion of a bladed hand. Caxon was still shocked at his speed, but the elk was still a strong class one beast and Amon was still just a hollow core so the great elk was able to block his attack.

However unfortunately for the elk Amon did not have to conserve man in this fight.

The elk blocked Amon's hand that was coated in shadow with his antlers, however instead of cutting through the elk's head like Amon had planned, he used his incredible battle experience to change his plan at a moments notice and grab ahold of the elk's antlers.

Then a spike made of shadow shot towards the elk's head from the ground. As the elk tried to dodge the spike it realized that the man holding its antlers was much stronger then it thought as its head did not budge even an inch.

Just as quickly as it started the fight with the elk was over as its dead body slumped and Amon dropped it to the ground.

'Well, that was definitely easier than the queen.'

Caxon walked up to the body as he cut off the elk's antlers which he stared at with a curious expression.

'These definitely won't fit in my backpack.'

He simply shook his head as he was too close to the village to have Amon out of his shadow any longer so he simply carried them back to the village.