Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 29

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 29
First subject: Hunterology.
It was a lecture-style theory class built around knowledge any Hunter ought to have.
“Judgment comes from information. The knowledge you’ve built up will extend your lifeline.”
The theory class was held as an online lecture.
While most of the room dozed, Hyeonjun watched the lecture with full focus.
‘Interesting.’
A lecture he’d never seen before.
It must have been filmed recently.
All the free lectures Hyeonjun had listened to so far were old ones, so there was a particular appeal to the fresh footage.
The lecture went on for several hours before it finally ended.
Test questions appeared without so much as a breather.
Here and there, voices of confusion rose from the room.
“Huh?”
“Ugh…”
“Why is this so hard?”
Hyeonjun tilted his head.
‘It’s easy, though?’

Question 1
Read the following passage and select, from the options, the one that is least related to what the underlined ㉠ implies.
“The history of humankind has been a record of the struggle over the question of ‘who monopolizes violence.’ Before gunpowder was invented, whoever held steel in hand became king; in the age of capitalism, massive capital was law and power all at once. Yet after the Great Upheaval (Cataclysm), the arrival of towers, labyrinths, and gates turned all of these rules back to zero.
John Liquid (John Liquid), the number one Hunter in the United States, defined a new era in a single sentence during his special address to the UN.
“Runes rule the world (Runes rule the world).” (㉠)
This is not a metaphor. It is a cold, physical reality. Conventional firearms and even nuclear weapons were powerless before the boss monsters of S-Grade dungeons. Only Awakened who absorbed the ‘Rune’ obtained by hunting monsters and transcendentally strengthened their bodies could hold back that calamity.
Now national power is determined not by GDP but by the number of top-ranked Hunters a nation possesses and the total volume of runes they have absorbed. Runes have become power, become authority, and become the new reserve currency.
The phenomenon of guilds that monopolize the runes pouring out of the Anomaly Space and enjoy an extra-legal status surpassing that of nations reveals a cross-section of this merciless new class society that runes have created.”
From Introduction to Hunterology: The Shift of Power, excerpt from Chapter 3
[Options]
① It signifies that the monetary value under the existing capitalist system has transferred to the value of runes.
② It suggests that national defense has been reorganized from conventional weapons to the individual combat power of the Awakened.
③ It shows that whether runes are absorbed and their grade have become the primary measure that determines social class.
④ It argues that the arrival of towers and labyrinths accelerated humanity’s technological progress and achieved an egalitarian society.
⑤ It emphasizes that the means of controlling physical violence has been replaced by the transcendent power of ‘runes.’
‘It’s number four, obviously.’
A question far too easy for Hyeonjun.
Unlike the other Hunters, who had stalled from the very start, Hyeonjun worked through the questions at a brisk pace.
Question 17
The following is a hunting report on ‘Blood Vine (Blood Vine),’ a plant-type monster found in E-Rank and higher gates. Select from the options the most appropriate countermeasure for the blank.
[Hunting Report Summary]
Designation: Blood Vine (E-Rank)
Notable traits: It absorbs the blood of living creatures as nourishment, and even severed stems regenerate at an extremely rapid rate by way of blood. Physical cutting alone cannot fully subjugate the creature.
Countermeasure:
[Options]
① Continuously cut away the stems and induce a prolonged battle until the monster’s Stamina is fully depleted.
② Exploit the characteristics of plant-type monsters by supplying excess moisture with Water-attribute magic, rotting the roots.
③ Use Flame-attribute attacks to burn the cut surfaces of the stems to suppress regeneration, and separate the Magic Stone from the main body from which the vines extend.
④ Inject potent poison into the stems to paralyze the monster’s nervous system, then capture it.
⑤ While the Tank draws its attention, remove the vines one by one with physical sniping from the rear.
‘It’s number three.’
There were fifty questions in total.
While the others groaned over their screens, Hyeonjun finished all fifty.
“Hm.”
Even after he’d finished, there was still plenty of time left over.
Hyeonjun let go of the mouse and leaned back in his chair.
He considered glancing around to see how the others were doing, but worried it might draw needless suspicion, so he kept his eyes fixed on the monitor.
‘Hm?’
A gaze suddenly pressed against him from the side.
It wasn’t a feeling. Someone was actually staring at him from the side.
Confirming it from the corner of his eye, Hyeonjun turned his head at the slightest angle.
Her eyes met those of the woman glaring at him.
Her gaze was the kind you’d give something truly pitiful.
“Eyes forward in the back row. Don’t look at the person beside you.”
Hyeonjun had only glanced over, yet Nam Jaewoon caught it right away.
Hyeonjun flinched and snapped his eyes back to the front.
‘How did she know?’
I wonder what rank she is.
I’ll have to check her with Discernment later.
‘Great, there’s a weird one sitting next to me.’
At best, she’s a woman in her early twenties.
Earlier she was openly sneering at me, and now she’s staring at people like they’re strange. And she’s younger than me, too.
‘Better not get tangled up with her.’
Do you avoid dung because you’re scared of it, or because it’s filthy? Either way, you steer clear.
Hyeonjun slumped over his desk and killed the remaining time.
“Time’s up. Everyone, take your hands off the mouse.”
The test was over.
The answer sheets were graded automatically.
Hyeonjun yawned as he checked his score.
‘Oh, 93 points.’
It stung a little that it wasn’t a perfect score, but there had been plenty of hard questions.
Still, clearing ninety is nothing to sneeze at.
With a result like this, I should land somewhere in the top rankings.
On a whim, Hyeonjun stole a glance at the monitor of the seat beside him.
[15 points]
‘…?’
Fifteen points?
Hyeonjun rubbed his eyes and looked again.
It still said fifteen.
‘Wasn’t she still working through questions at the end? She didn’t even guess, so how could she get a score like that?’
Hyeonjun was thoroughly bewildered.
The woman herself seemed to be in the same boat.
“N-no way. That can’t be right.”
The woman clutched her head.
Hyeonjun stared at her with a pitying look.
Since she’d already been rude to me, I’d have let it go at a moderately low score, but fifteen is just… a bit much.
“What are you looking at? Turn your eyes away. And how well did you do, anyway, that you can act like that?”
Retracted.
Her tone had lost even the last scrap of sympathy.
Hyeonjun pointed at the monitor.
The woman’s eyes slowly filled with shock as she checked the score.
“H-how…?”
The woman sank into an even deeper despair.
Hyeonjun curled the corners of his lips upward.
‘I won.’
It was childish, but what can you do?
She started it by being childish first.
“Kwon Jaeu, 62 points. Confirmed.”
Nam Jaewoon walked the classroom himself, recording each Hunter’s score one by one on a tablet.
“Kim Changdong, 81 points.”
Hyeonjun was privately impressed.
Kim Changdong’s score was quite high compared to the others.
Looks like he’s not just strong in Stats but sharp in the head, too.
‘I’d better be careful with that one.’
He belongs to Seongsam Aegis.
And he’s being personally trained by that Hunter Kang Daewoong.
He was a strong rival who could threaten Hyeonjun’s first place.
‘Though I doubt he’s really aiming for first place.’
He’s already in a guild, so why would he risk his neck for Auction House commissions?
Of course, if the guild ordered him to, that would change things…
“Lee Jinseong, 62 points.”
Nam Jaewoon went down the row, jotting each one down, until he reached the very last seat.
The woman leaned her upper body forward, blocking the screen, and asked Nam Jaewoon.
“Do we really have to say the scores out loud while you write them down?”
“If you all know each other’s scores, the competition will heat up that much more.”
“I got a zero because I didn’t write my name.”
“That won’t happen. Step aside.”
She pushed a little harder, let out a long sigh, and then backed away.
The screen was now in full view.
Unlike before, Nam Jaewoon hesitated for a moment as he looked at the score.
But then his mouth opened again.
“Seong Sohui. Twelve points.”
“……”
Seong Sohui’s head dropped.
Hyeonjun had to bite back a laugh at the sight.
“Whoa, she got twelve points.”
“That’s her score?”
“How did she even pass the Hunter Certification Exam?”
The hunters began whispering among themselves.
Nam Jaewoon’s voice hadn’t been loud, but the room was so quiet that everyone heard him.
As if she’d been crushed only a moment ago, Seong Sohui shot upright and snapped at the hunters who were whispering.
“Shut your mouths! I’ll burn you all to ashes!”
“Hunter Seong Sohui. Abusive language is prohibited.”
“……Tch.”
Seong Sohui clicked her tongue at Nam Jaewoon’s warning.
The grading continued in an atmosphere that had turned sour.
“Ko Hyeonjun, ninety-three points. The highest score.”
Hyeonjun clenched his fist tight.
He’d been a little anxious, since it wasn’t a perfect hundred.
Thankfully, he’d come in first.
“How did anyone get ninety-three?”
“No way……”
“Guess he just studied nonstop.”
Nam Jaewoon stepped back up onto the platform.
The hunters closed their mouths and focused.
“This concludes the theory portion of the session. Please don’t be disappointed if you didn’t score highly. Theory accounts for a small portion of the rankings, so you should focus on improving your practical skills.”
No one listened closely to those words.
After all, rankings didn’t matter all that much to them.
And Nam Jaewoon was well aware of that too.
“This orientation is not a project pushed through by the Awakening Management Bureau alone.”
To draw out even more from the hunters’ abilities, bigger rewards were needed.
The Bureau had already anticipated that a reduction in Auction House fees wouldn’t be attractive enough to spur everyone to give their all.
“Seongsam Aegis, KS Hunters, Michuhol, Nabi, Saebyeok, Daehyeon Hiwing, Ultimate, DH Frontier, Taeseong Avalon, Ilgwang Guardians. Is there anyone here who doesn’t recognize these names?”
Even those who weren’t hunters had likely heard of these guilds at least once.
The meaning behind listing those names was obvious, even without anyone spelling it out.
A faint anticipation began to spread across the tense faces of the hunters.
“Representatives from many other guilds are also watching all of you. Why do you think that is?”
Someone answered.
“W-are they trying to recruit us……?”
“That’s correct.”
The hunters murmured restlessly.
Of course they did.
For low-tier hunters who start at F-Rank, the usual ceiling is D-Rank.
Even in the rare case they climb higher, C-Rank is the final limit, and the guilds they join are often ones nobody has ever heard of.
And for people like that, joining a mid-to-large guild?
That was worth far more than any Exchange fee reduction could ever be.
“Do your best. In two days, your affiliations may already be decided.”
Nam Jaewoon’s words didn’t end there.
“And to those of you who have already joined a guild.”
Nam Jaewoon swept his gaze across the hunters.
His eyes met those of a few of them.
“Your spot can always be replaced. That’s what E-Rank means.”
A low-rank hunter had gotten into a major guild.
That meant his talent had been recognized.
Strictly speaking, though, it was only half a recognition. He stood in a different position from the truly gifted ones, whose Soul Circuit ranks were high from the start.
He would always be on the test bench, forced to prove his worth over and over.
If a rough gem capable of surpassing them appeared, the guild would drop any talent that fell behind without a second thought.
Even if they didn’t cut him loose, his standing would obviously shrink.
“….”
The atmosphere had shifted noticeably.
A silence settled over the room, a mix of eager enthusiasm from the many and tension from the few.
Nam Jaewoon let the silence linger, as if savoring every second of it, before finally parting his lips.
“We’ll take a thirty-minute break before moving on to the next class.”
He dropped his bomb and walked out of the classroom.
Hyeonjun clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘I’m so screwed.’
A competitive landscape had taken shape in an instant.
Now everyone had a reason to focus on this fight.
For Hyeonjun, who had been eyeing only the fee discounts at the Exchange and didn’t care about major guilds, this was the worst possible news.
‘Nobody seemed interested in the rewards, so I thought if I gritted my teeth and went all out, I could make it into the top rankings.’
Not anymore.
Even if he did his absolute best, making the top rankings was far from certain.
‘What do I do?’
Giving it everything was a given, but that alone wouldn’t be enough.
Was there no way to raise his odds even further?
Hyeonjun wore a troubled expression as he agonized over it for a long while.
Soon, one method came to mind.
‘Know your enemy and know yourself, and you won’t be defeated in a hundred battles.’
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you can avoid being put in serious danger.
He couldn’t expect a crushing victory, but he needed to secure at least some kind of advantage.
It wasn’t a guaranteed winning strategy for Hyeonjun, but he had a means of gaining that kind of edge.
‘Discernment.’
A skill that could uncover an opponent’s information.
Of course, I couldn’t promise it would be a huge help in the orientation.
After all, this skill only came into play when fighting other people.
‘I doubt that kind of situation will come up during orientation.’
Orientation was a curriculum designed to build a hunter’s ability to survive.
There shouldn’t be any course that taught how to win against other hunters.
‘Still, it’s better than knowing nothing.’
In competition, information asymmetry is always an advantage.
Hyeonjun first checked the person sitting next to him, Seong Sohui.
She was glaring at the other hunters with sharp, narrowed eyes, so he sneaked glances at her from the corner of his eye and activated the skill.
[Activating .]
[A gap exists between you and the target.]
[Discernment will take time to complete.]
‘What?’
Does that mean her Circuit Rank is higher?
She’s an E-Rank hunter, though?
After waiting a while, Discernment finished.
[Information]
– Name: Seong Sohui
– Age: 18
– Trait:
– Circuit Rank: D
– Stats
Strength: 12
Agility: 21
Stamina: 13
Mana: 53
Willpower: 35
‘D-Grade?’
Not that a Hunter’s Rank has to match their Soul Circuit’s Rank, mind you.
To think someone at D-Rank, and one who has raised their Stats this much, would actually exist.
‘This one’s a bigger threat than Kim Changdong, it seems.’
No wonder her personality was so rotten.
Seeing the Rank and Stats, Hyeonjun could understand it to some extent.
‘Is it a Flame-type Trait?’
A Flame-type Trait, one of the elemental Traits and an especially formidable one.
And the Skill revealed by the additional Discernment marks her as a growth type.
[Flame of Devouring]
-Burns the designated target to ash and consumes it. Stats rise according to the level and quantity of what is consumed, and Skills of the same type grow stronger.
‘That’s broken.’
I’d thought Kim Changdong’s Level Up was already ridiculous.
This one is even more ridiculous than that.
‘This one must belong to a Guild for sure.’
A Guild wouldn’t cast aside an ability like this just because his test results were poor.
Nor does she seem the type to be chasing the fee benefits.
Unless the Guild had given specific orders, Kim Changdong and Seong Sohui wouldn’t have been taking the test so desperately, it seemed.
“I’ll kill them all…”
Murderous words drifted in from beside him.
It seemed his true feelings had slipped out without him realizing.
Hyeonjun retracted his earlier thought.
‘Her competitive drive is something else.’
For a person like this, the ranking itself is the reward.
The type who finds pleasure in trampling the others and standing at the very top.
“Haah…”
Hyeonjun let out a sigh and looked over the others.
Most of them had Stats in the mid-to-late E-Rank range.
‘Nobody here is a pushover.’
They had all clearly been through the grind as E-Rank Hunters already. Otherwise, their Stats wouldn’t be this high.
‘Though my own Stats aren’t exactly low either.’
Hyeonjun checked his Stats.
Mana at 10, and everything else at 100.
Thanks to a week of simple Copy Skill use, plus the income from selling loot that let him buy Runes, he’d managed to push his Stats up a little further.
‘What bugs me is that the gap isn’t so overwhelming that I’m guaranteed first place.’
He worried about it for a while.
After some time had passed, Nam Jaewoon came back.
“We’ll be moving in five minutes.”
As Hyeonjun was checking the Status Windows of the others, he suddenly became curious about Nam Jaewoon’s information as well. It was pure curiosity.
‘I couldn’t even see him move earlier.’
[Activating .]
[A gap exists between you and the target.]
[Discernment will take time to complete.]
Discernment taking even longer than it did for D-Rank Hunters.
It was several minutes more before the information finally appeared.
[Information]
-Name: Nam Jaewoon
-Age: 36
-Trait:
-Circuit Rank: B
That was as far as the revealed information went.
The rest remained under Discernment.
‘Wow, B-Rank?’
B-Rank, the grade where people begin to be classified as top-tier Hunters.
I had no idea the Management Bureau had a Hunter like that, which made it all the more shocking.
‘I’ve never even heard his name.’
If even I didn’t know of him, he must have been operating in extreme secrecy.
‘Shadow Ninja. In game terms, does that sound like a rogue class?’
[Discernment failed due to the large gap in Rank.]
Then, a new message appeared.
Disappointing, but it wasn’t that much of a concern to me after all.
‘Not like I’m going to fight that guy.’
Hyeonjun closed the message.
Then, just like that.
[Repeated use of has met the conditions for unlocking a skill.]
[You have acquired .]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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