Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 7

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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 7
Six days later, Day 18 of re-awakening.
A secluded alley behind the Exchange.
Hyeonjun was copying the Rune of Stamina and absorbing it.
[You have absorbed the copied F-Rank Rune of Stamina.]
[Stamina has reached its limit.]
His Stamina had hit 100.
He went straight into the Exchange, sold the Rune of Stamina, and bought a Rune of Strength.
[You have copied the Rune of Strength.]
[You have copied the Rune of Strength.]
[You have copied the Rune of Stren⋯⋯.]
Back to the alley he went, nine more rune copies.
Once he had absorbed every last one, he dashed off toward the Grassland Field.
No matter how many kilometers he sprinted at full speed, he never tired now.
“Phew.”
Grassland Field.
After catching his breath in one long exhale, Hyeonjun dove straight into hunting Rune Rabbits.
Day 18. Strength 19.
Day 19. Strength 29.
Day 20. Strength 39.
Day 21. Strength 49.
Day 22. Strength 59.
His growth and hunting carried on day after day.
As his Stamina stat climbed, his aches faded, and as his Strength rose too, even the faint soreness in his muscles disappeared.
By now, hunting Rune Rabbits alone had brought his body to a point where it never grew tired.
By the time it was Day 26.
A post went up on the free board of Hunternet, the country’s largest Hunter community.
[Chat] Did the Rune Rabbits in Boramae Grassland go extinct??? [6]
I came here to make some quick money and haven’t even seen a single tail hair in two hours;;;
Wasn’t this place supposed to be half fishing ground?
[Comments]
-If you’re going there, you’ve got to time it right
⌞That’s old news too. I heard people pitch tents and camp out there these days.
-Why’d you even go to Boramae? Trash-tier brain.
⌞I went because it’s close to my place!!! This used to be a Rune Rabbit paradise!
-Another victim of the Boramae Rabbit Slayer, huh
⌞What’s a Boramae Rabbit Slayer?
⌞The Boramae Rabbit Slayer. I think that guy should be reported for animal cruelty. At this point the Rune Rabbits are starting to look pitiful.
-He’s still out there? Seriously impressive. You’d think he’d move on to a higher hunting ground.
-I came back empty-handed yesterday too, so I’m not the only one. Nice lol
⌞Get lost
The free board of Hunternet had countless users.
The post sank out of sight fast, but in the minds of a few users, the nickname Boramae Rabbit Slayer had been clearly etched.
And at that very moment.
Hyeonjun, who had unknowingly earned a new nickname, was yawning so wide his mouth looked like it might split.
“Haaam.”
Inside a tent pitched lonely in the middle of the Grassland Field.
Hyeonjun blinked his sleepy eyes.
“Morning already.”
Since his recovery had gotten so fast, Hyeonjun had practically settled into the dungeon for good.
Instead of heading home once the hunt was over, he’d been resting his fatigue in the tent for four days now.
Now the time had come to put an end to that kind of life.
[You have absorbed the copied F-Rank Rune of Strength.]
[F-Rank Rune of Strength has reached its limit.]
He had copied and absorbed ten Runes of Strength, then absorbed the original as well. With that, Strength, Agility, and Stamina had all reached 100.
“Looks like that’s it for today.”
Hyeonjun stepped out of the tent.
The Rune Rabbits that had respawned while he slept were hopping around everywhere.
“Farewell, you Rune Rabbits.”
He folded up the tent, packed his bag full of loot, and stepped outside.
He headed straight to the Exchange, sold the loot — Rune Fragments and Magic Stones included — and bought a fresh Willpower Rune.
“Ugh… my hard-earned money is going straight into fees…”
Hyeonjun’s stomach twisted as he checked the deposit notification.
Part of him just wanted to wait until he reached E-Rank and sell everything then.
But there were bills to pay, so there was no helping it.
“Still, at this rate I could pay back the principal soon.”
Thanks to the savings he’d already built up, he had long since covered his fixed monthly expenses.
Everything he’d earned over the past few days was pure surplus.
“If I put that toward the principal… no, wait. Does it have to be that way? I think it’d be better to just buy runes.”
Remaining runes: 180.
In days, that came to eighteen.
Piling up cash like this and chipping away at the principal over that stretch wouldn’t meaningfully shrink the interest.
“Then what if I buy runes and raise my stats instead?”
Hunting efficiency would go up, and he could reach E-Grade faster.
And if he reached E-Grade faster?
The time until the next rank would come sooner, too.
“And runes get pricier and rarer the higher the grade goes, you know.”
The higher the rank, the more brilliantly Copy Skill shines.
Put another way, the only window for the most efficient stat boost money could buy was right now, while he was F-Rank.
“Of course, there’s no guarantee that moving up in rank means the grade of items I can copy goes up with it.”
Still, the odds were good. Most Trait Skills grow alongside the rank of the Soul Circuit.
In percentage terms, that’s 99.9 percent.
“Hah. No point in worrying for nothing. I’m not going to be the one unlucky 0.01 percent.”
Hyeonjun shook off the unease in his chest and made up his mind.
He would buy runes and absorb them.
“Two stats are left to fill. It’d be nice to buy both, but I don’t have that kind of money.”
Mana and Willpower.
Of the two runes, the Rune of Magic Power was the pricier one.
That was because it was closely tied to the damage of Magic Skills.
It was trading at around 300,000 won.
“The Willpower Rune, on the other hand? 180,000 won as of today.”
Ninety of them would come to roughly 16 million won.
The money he’d saved so far was more than enough to cover that.
“Right, let’s go.”
Hyeonjun headed back to the Exchange.
There, he bought another 89 F-Grade Willpower Runes.
[The Willpower Rune has reached its limit.]
With that, he had pushed every stat except Mana to its maximum.
His balance was empty, but his heart was full of hope.
“Now, nine days until E-Grade.”
That long-awaited day was only a week and a bit away.
***
“Haah.”
F-Rank Marsh Hunting Ground.
A young man let out a sigh, his hands on his hips.
“Why are there no monsters around?”
A hunting ground should be crawling with them the moment you walk in.
Thirty minutes in, and he hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of one.
The only ones around were flying types that were hard to catch.
Even those weren’t very many.
“I think this happened once before… when was it again?”
The young man racked his brain, digging through his memory.
“Ah, that’s right.”
He thought back to his last hunt at the Grassland Field in Boramae Park.
He’d gone there intending to loosen up a bit, aiming to catch a Rune Rabbit.
Back then, he hadn’t seen a single Rune Rabbit, either.
“That Botosil bastard must have cleaned them all out.”
Could he have done the same here?
The young man thought it over, then let out a snort of laughter.
“No way. Rune Rabbits might be hard to catch, but they’re still rabbits. Could the guy who hunted those really pull this off here, too?”
Not every F-Grade hunting ground is the same difficulty.
Depending on the terrain and the monsters that roam inside, the difficulty varies in fine gradations.
There’s no official system for it, but hunters have come up with their own way of ranking the grounds.
Grassland sits at the very bottom.
The swamp ranked near the top.
‘Even that guy couldn’t have wiped out this whole place. It must be someone else.’
The young man clicked his tongue and got to his feet.
With no monsters left, there was no reason for him to stay in the dungeon.
‘Still, if I could just catch one more…’
Just then, a monster came crawling up out of the swamp and into his line of sight.
A turtle monster named Marsh Turtle.
It wasn’t aggressive, and its weak points were obvious, which made it an easy one to clear.
‘Phew. Guess the heavens haven’t abandoned me after all.’
The young man was just about to approach the Marsh Turtle when it happened.
Crack!
A figure burst out of nowhere and shattered the Marsh Turtle’s hard shell in an instant.
‘Okay, one more down.’
A man casually gathered up the limp turtle corpse as if it were nothing.
The young man stared at him, his mouth hanging open.
‘He… he broke a Marsh Turtle’s shell in one blow?’
The Marsh Turtle’s shell was notorious for its hardness.
Breaking it in a single strike was nearly impossible for anyone below E-Rank.
‘And with a plain hammer, too?’
The weapon in his hand was an ordinary iron hammer, the kind used as a common tool.
If it had been a proper weapon, maybe I could understand it.
Smashing a Marsh Turtle’s shell with a hammer like that.
It was hard to accept.
“Y-you…”
“Hm?”
At the sound of movement, the man turned around.
The moment the young man saw that face, his eyes went wide.
The features were familiar.
It was the very person he’d been thinking about just moments ago.
“B-Botosil…!”
“Excuse me?”
“Y-you were definitely hunting rabbits in the Grassland just now. So how did you…?”
The young man couldn’t finish his sentence.
He had only just noticed the large bag slung over the man’s back.
‘What is all that?’
Spilling out of the bag were all sorts of monster loot.
Every bit of it came from monsters found only here in the swamp.
‘No way…’
The guy who’d hunted Rune Rabbits in the Grassland like he meant to wipe out the entire species…
Was he now doing the exact same thing here in the swamp?
And against every monster in the area?
“Hey there?”
“Y-yes? Me?”
Realizing the situation, the young man’s speech slipped into polite language without him meaning it to.
“Do you know me? What’s a Botosil?”
“N-nothing, sir!”
The young man turned on his heel and bolted away in a flash.
Watching his retreating back, Hyeonjun tilted his head.
“What a strange guy.”
.
.
.
[Anyone who knows Botosil, come in here.]
A post with that very title went up on the Hunternet free board a few hours later.
[Anyone who knows Botosil, come in here.]
-Went to the swamp hunting ground near Sadang today, and there wasn’t a single monster left.
I wondered why there was nothing, and it turns out Boto-seul swept through all of it there.
[Comments]
-Wait, isn’t that the upper tier of F-Rank hunting grounds?
-You swept all of that? Unless you’re E-Rank, that shouldn’t be possible.
-Didn’t someone say earlier he only had high Agility? Was that just nonsense?
-Say something that makes sense. A guy who’s short on stats and only hunted Rune Rabbits in the Grassland is sweeping a swamp now?
└If he’s been raising all his stats this whole time, it’s possible.
└How much can you even make from catching Rune Rabbits? If he’s sweeping like the guy above says, he should be at least E-Rank.
-Who’s Boto-seul?
-Sounds like you just got it wrong, lol.
└Nope, not wrong. I only saw one person out there, and that was Boto-seul.
Countless questions left in the comments.
And a string of new posts spun off from those questions.
Unlike last time, Boto-seul had become quite the topic on the board.
Before, he’d been known only as the oddball who hunted Rune Rabbits, but now he’d proven he had truly grown strong through that strange method.
[Going out to catch Rune Rabbits too]
[I calculated the odds that Boto-seul matched a rune using Rune Fragments]
[Sounds like he cashed out his savings and went all in]
At that very moment, Hyeonjun was also seated in the waiting area of the Exchange, peering into Hunternet.
“Hmm… so rumors have been spreading somewhere I didn’t even know about.”
That strange name, Boto-seul, which he’d heard from the hunter he’d met in the swamp.
He searched the web with that word as the keyword, and right away, posts uploaded to Hunternet appeared.
Hyeonjun skimmed through the posts with quick eyes.
A madman who only catches Rune Rabbits, a genuine hunter made strong by Rune Fragments, a man who cashed out his savings and went all in, a promising prospect backed by a guild, a rich kid with a silver spoon, and so on.
Every sort of identity imaginable came spilling out.
Beyond that, everything else was just as bizarre.
‘Of course they’d react like this, since they don’t know my skill.’
Who would ever imagine that someone could copy a rune and absorb it?
Not a single person had even guessed anything close to that.
“Do I have to hide my face from now on?”
For now, since my rank is low, the reaction stops at this level. But what if my rank rises and I keep growing at this same pace?
By then, someone might suspect that a copy ability could exist.
Hyeonjun didn’t want to be speculated about in that way, either.
‘I’d better think this through carefully.’
Just then, Hyeonjun’s number was called.
He picked up his heavy bag, stood, and headed for the counter.
“Wow, you brought even more than usual today.”
The Southern Exchange, where Hyeonjun was a regular.
There, he was quite the celebrity.
That was because hardly any hunters came in with their bags full day after day.
“There weren’t many people at the hunting ground, so I caught more than usual.”
The staff member neatly arranged the items in a basket and carried them off to the inspection room.
Once he’d emptied his bag completely, Hyeonjun walked straight out of the Exchange.
Once the inspection was finished, the results would arrive by message.
“Better hurry home.”
Hyeonjun walked home at a quicker pace than usual.
Today was the day his younger sibling was coming home.

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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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