1 001 Wu Wei

Runic World. Near Maple Leaf Town - within Wild Boar Valley.

A team of Runemasters - three men and two women – were hunting an earth-yellow Wild Boar King over two meters tall, four meters long, and had a mysterious rune engraved on its head!

"Quick, quick, quick! Stop it! A Wild Boar King rarely appears in Wild Boar Valley, don't let it get away! If we manage to take it down, we might even be able to obtain [High] rank runes!"

The girl in the lead, dressed in red Daoist robes and holding a staff in one hand, was energetically leading the team. 

It was clear that this small team was well-accustomed to each other - their teamwork was filled with chemistry.

Under their combined assault, the Mini-Boss was slowly - but surely - going down.

When the Mini-Boss looked like it was about to drop, the girl eagerly approached it, disregarding the danger.

Her teammate, a boy whose chubbiness tended to give people a sense of security, stopped her, dissuading: "Don't! It's not safe yet!"

"It's fine! I can handle it!"

The girl stubbornly ignored the chubby boy's advice and began to approach the Wild Boar King while preparing a fireball for the last hit.

Just as she took a step closer, however, an earth spike suddenly shot out from the ground beneath her.

At the very moment the girl was about to turn into skewer, a tall figure charged over in the nick of time to knock her backwards. In her stead, however, the figure was stabbed – and perished.

When the figure was stabbed, the chubby boy's face turned pale instantly. The big and tall figure was a Runic Summon of his. Since it died, he, its master, was suffering from the backlash.

However, rather than the backlash itself, what pained the boy more was the significance of the loss - it was a summon that he had been raising for two whole months. 

The only silver lining was that the girl wasn't injured, and she had succeeded in unleashing the final blow.

"Boom!"

The girl's blazing fireball smashed into the Wild Boar King, blasting it to smithereens.

Four glowing lights – drops – flew out.

Two of the glowing lights were transparent, indicating [Common] rarity, but the other two were bright white lights – [Uncommon] drops!

Hunting was like playing the lottery – and they had hit the jackpot by winning two [Uncommon] drops!

At this moment, the boy and his party could all agree on one thing.

It was all worth it!

They began to move forward to check out the drops.

"A [Common] Summoning Rune: Yellow Turban Soldier, a [Common] Runic Armament: Wild Boar Crossbow, an [Uncommon] Magic Rune: Earth Spike, and an [Uncommon] Boar King Heart!"

"Two [Uncommon] drops from a single boss. I must say, Sister Hong, you are truly as lucky as your name implies!

"But of course! Who do you think I am?"

Apart from the chubby boy, the rest of the four teammates were all huddled together in excitement over the loot.

The chubby boy, upon seeing this, stepped forward to join them.

Before he could join in, however, Sister Hong, the girl in red, checked the time and called it a day:

"It's nine-plus and getting late. That's it for today, guys. Have a good rest. We'll split the loot tomorrow."

"Alright!"

The other three teammates nodded in agreement. At this point, it was painfully obvious that the boy's other teammates were deliberately ostracizing him. Sister Hong, though, paused to acknowledge him.

"I almost forgot. Wu Wei, your summon died just now. Since this dropped, I'll give it to you. You should rest early as wellinstead of wasting time doing pointless things."

She then handed a [Common] drop to the boy before summoning her [Book of Runes], upon which, with a light tap, she logged out from Runic World.

Only the boy, Wu Wei, was left in Wild Boar Valley in the blink of an eye.

It was clear how the boy's teammates saw him from the way they treated him.

Unfortunately, such treatment was pretty much standard for Runic Summoners (specifically, low-level Runic Summoners).

Although high-levelled Runic Summoners possessed strength comparable to an entire party, low-level Runic Summoners offered little to no utility.

Especially for a Summoner like Wu Wei, whose first Core Rune was [Yellow Turban Soldier], things were quite bad. For the summoning itself to be so weak, what more the Summoner? To put it bluntly, he was seen as a burden.

To include a Runic Summoner in the party was often thought of as equivalent to having a dog tagging along. How would a Summoner feel if they were treated like that?

Such ostracisation left Wu Wei feeling quite depressed.

Wu Wei pat his face to cheer himself up.

"Don't mind it, don't mind it! Everything is for the sake of becoming stronger!"

Wu Wei was not the type of person to complain. Hence, in his opinion, there were two ways to resolve his situation: either by leaving the team or changing his teammates' perception of him.

As he couldn't leave the team with how weak he was, he needed to buck up.

However, since he could not contribute in terms of combat strength, the boy knew he had to work on other areas so as to not stay redundant.

"It's only 9 PM. I'll revive Yellow and explore this map before leaving!"

Wu Wei crushed the [Common] light in his hand.

Following a loud crack, a rune appeared within Wu Wei's palm.

He held the rune up and summoned his Book of Runes.

The Book of Runes was something that automatically awakened within Runemasters once they reached the age of eighteen. It had two main functions: one - to inscribe Core Runes - and two - to serve as the Runemaster's medium of passage to and from Runic World.

Wu Wei opened his Book of Runes. Although it was called a book, there was only one page within..

On this single page was inscribed a single rune. On first glance, it was similar to the [Yellow Turban Soldier] rune in Wu Wei's hand, but, on closer observation, it's pattern was more intricate.

The rune in the book and the rune in Wu Wei's hand were the same type of rune. The difference was that the inscribed rune was Level 7 - hence the more complex design.

Wu Wei placed the Yellow Turban Soldier rune in his hand over his inscribed Core Rune.

For Rune Summoners like Wu Wei, there were several ways to revive fallen summons. The first way was to simply wait out the cooldown - the summon would resurrect over time.

Unfortunately, the amount of time needed was not short. On top of this, it would revive with a level penalty.

For example, a Level 7 Yellow Turban Soldier would resurrect at Level 3 - or even lower.

As for the second method - if the Summoner possessed the same type of rune, they could use it to 're-charge' their Core Rune, in which case the revival would be significantly accelerated – and with minimal penalty. 

Summons revived in this manner would only lose one or two levels.

As the Yellow Turban Soldier rune in Wu Wei's hand came into contact with his core rune, it began to glow. Then, it turned into a stream of particles that flowed into the Book of Runes.

In the next instant, the faded Core Rune regained its glow. At the same time, as the backlash subsided, Wu Wei started to feel better.

Suddenly, a line of barely discernable words appeared in Wu Wei's vision.

Ding!

[Condition 1 Fulfilled!]

"What the?"

Wu Wei's eyes widened as he attempted to take a closer look, but the words had already disappeared.

Wu Wei was dumbfounded. 

He subconsciously opened his attribute window to check…