Free Reborn: Demon Core by D.W. Jackson

its body morphed
until it looked like Halon, though with a green body. “Gross,”
Shina said as she watched the green monster.
    “It doesn’t look anything like magnificent
me,” Halon said as he drew his sword.
    “It looks just like you…That’s what makes it
look so gross,” Shina said with a disgusted look on her face. “Why
couldn’t it take master’s appearance, Then it would have been
cute.”
    Jacob laughed at Shina’s response, and when
Halon protested, even Lillanis gives a light chuckle. Halon’s
shoulders dropped slightly as he muttered to himself.
    Before Halon could think of a retort, the
green version of himself attacked. The hand of the creature formed
into a sword just like the one Halon used. Just as Ash was starting
to move to help Halon, he felt something behind him and dodged to
the side and found himself facing a green version of himself.
Looking at himself Ash, remembered fighting something similar in
the past though not one nearly as strong. “Everyone watch out,” Ash
yelled. “There are more than one.”
    In all of their fights so far, they had
worked as a team fighting against a known number of opponents. This
time though, the enemies appeared out of the ground without
warning. Ash and the others quickly gathered together with Lillanis
at the center since she had the lowest HP and weakest defense.
    Within moments, the group of five was
surrounded by more than twenty plant creatures, each one wearing
one of their faces. The monsters were strong and seemed to mimic
not only the appearance, but the skills of their opponents. The
only real difference that Ash could see was that the strength of
the monsters was based on their level, not on who they
mimicked.
    Oddly enough, it was Ash’s clones that were
the easiest to fight. Other than his luck shield, Ash didn’t have a
lot of fighting skills and the cones could not mimic abilities it
seemed so they were easy to deal with when compared to the others.
Ash felt slightly sad that even Lillanis’s clone was harder to deal
with than his. While neither had any combat related skills, the
Lillanis’s clone could heal the others and itself.
    With a tight formation, Ash and the others
fought hard keeping the monsters away from Lillanis. With nearly
every strike, Ash killed one of the clones, but more and more
seemed to appear. If he was fighting alone it wouldn’t be much
trouble, but the others were having a harder time dealing with the
large numbers of enemies than he was.
    Shina and Jacob who had speed, but less HP
and defense were trapped and forced to fight while limiting their
movements. Ash and Halon tried to move around when they could to
help out, but there was little they could do without opening up
their formation and putting Lillanis at risk.
    When the last clone fell, Shina and the
others collapsed on the ground breathing hard. Ash pulled out some
water from his inventory and passed it around. While the others
rested, Ash absorbed the clones and his MP quickly began to
drain.
    “Tring.”
    [You have reached the max absorption rate for
Spore Mimic. Abilities available: Copy (cannot be learned).]
    “Tring.’
    [No abilities from target can be learned. You
will be granted a +1 stat point.]
    “What did you get this time?” Lillanis asked
looking up at Ash’s face.
    “Nothing,” Ash replied. A +1 stat wasn’t even
enough to get surprised about anymore. Since the others were
resting, Ash picked up the monster drops. The item looked like a
large seed about the size of Ash’s thumb.
    [Spoor Seed (low quality).]
    There was a total of 37 spoor seeds and one
monster core. It had a total of nine points in stat increase
meaning it was worth ninety gold. Ash showed the orb to the others
and their eyes widened. It was not the first time they had found an
orb, but each time they showed the same expression. “It is worth
ninety gold. I will buy it and you can split the gold,” Ash said
hopefully.
    “You are going to use it for the