I legitimately have no idea how this novel still has a 4 star rating.

1. Hidden pieces. Are you seriously telling me no one else, no random student or whatever, had ever swung a sword 2001 times while training up till now? Because I'm not even a hardcore practitioner of kendo, but it's basic (SUPER BEGINNER SHIT) to swing even at least 100 times a day. And the author dares to call something like that a "hidden piece no one knows"? Did people just abandon sports for no f*cking reason or something just because they don't have a suitable rune? At least make it something like "2001 times in one go" or something for God's sake, otherwise it just comes across as s*upid and lazy writing.
2. Everyone falling over MC for no reason. Seriously. The FL legit says it straight out, she became interested in him exactly because he wasn't doing anything particularly special. He was calm and composed (because he was spacing out), and that's it. His mentors throw themselves at him.

MC is an idiot. This one in particular is nothing new, especially in the high school scifi battle harem genre, but the MC really takes the cake IMO. MC judges his first actual combat based on his stats and thinks it's possible to at least tank his first boss until the... more>> heavy hitters arrive. He gets slapped around and realized that he has misjudged the world and his stats aren't the end all be all. Sounds like good character development no? NOPE! Not even ten chapters later, he gets invited to go on a dungeon raid. He judges the dungeon's difficulty based on the "original plot" and thinks he can handle it. Goes in and promptly gets his ass handed to him and he makes the exact same monologue about stats and what not, all over again. He does this, gets his ass handed to him and then makes the same "oh no, I overestimated myself" monologue at least 4 times in the first 50 chapters. Yeah, hard pass. <<less

I'm a sucker for academy Isekai novels even when 99% of the time they are pretty bad (it's a sickness I know..)

This one is the definition of fine: the MC isn't incredibly annoying but also not that likable, the heroines are mildly different from each other but not memorable in any way, the villains are literally just called the "villain clan" and are EVIL.

usually I could read 70 chapters of this, think "what am I doing with my life?" and drop it. However this one is a bit of... more>> a shame since the original concept is cool but flawed from the start.

The runes should have worked differently.

So you gain runes in this world by doing specific actions over and over again. For example, swinging a sword 2001 times gives you the 'sword' rune. Then training raises the runes levels. However all of this isn't public knowledge and MC being a reader can take advantage of it.

Cool, but all of this is extremely unbelievable upon execution. MC gains the cooking rune by chance because he lives alone and does his own cooking. You're telling me nobody cooks and figured this out?

If you wanted to come up with the reasoning why MC is the only one that has so many runes maybe make the criteria for gaining these runes more unique and something that only a transmigrated person would know...

Instead he gains runes from shockingly simple things like attending a class (something which everybody else does as well...)

In addition, he gains a special rune that lets him copy 1 rune from anyone he defeats. It's not like this is something he planned on getting btw. No, he just gains it by sheer luck and conditions that weren't even that difficult to fulfill 🤷

He doesn't even have to defeat people himself, as long as he was somewhat involved in the fight and someone much stronger defeats the enemy he gains the rune.

The sense of stakes is absolutely zero as a result.

This special rune should have been something harder to obtain, and the copy conditions should have been more difficult to meet.

I'm all for broken MC that gets super strong from cool cheats every now and again to kill some of my brain cells, but by the logic of this novel every character would easily become as strong as MC. These cheats aren't even cool because they seem so easy for anybody to get. <<less

Its a pretty standard novel. The core plotline is the world is similar to your typical isekai with dungeons and skills, but said skills are in the form of runes. You can obtain runes by meeting certain criteria like swinging a sword 2001 times to unlock the swordsmanship rune, then runes level up by using and increasing mastery. I personally really like this concept and think that it had a lot of potential, and I feel like this novel was a bit of a disappointment in that aspect.

The protagonist obtains... more>> a cheat rune allowing them to copy a rune after beating an opponent in a duel, which allows him to steal the protagonists growth cheat rune (3x progression speed & other stuff) while also allowing him to rapidly obtain other useful runes. There is also a lot of plot armor where he is able to obtain unrealistic benefits like having a teacher who originally teach the protagonist randomly decide to become his master along with other similar situations. Thats what I believe is the negative in this novel.

I personally believe it would of been better if they made it so runes work a bit differently, things like only being able to have one active at a time (making MC weaker) or making his cheat copy rune be more strict in the conditions to activate.

Overall its your typical isekai type story, its a good story but I don't see it as anything special. With that being said I still think that this is a good novel if you just want a casual read without any drama or dark undertones. From whats happened so far I don't see this story ever having dark threads so if your just in the mood for a nice casual read but don't feel like a slice of life than I think this novel is good for that. <<less

For anyone that doesn’t understand the first few chapters of the novel about the hidden piece then allow me to simplify it.

1. You can obtain runes through repeated actions, for example, swinging a sword 2001 times, firing arrows 1880 times, etc.

2. You need to be or have the talent to be a holder for you to obtain a rune through repetition

3. This is a big one that people in these comments probably skimmed over, but you need to know about the specific rune you want to acquire to obtain it... more>> through these means, meaning you have to know to swing your sword to get the sword rune

4. This is extra and is two points but for one you don’t just swing your sword but swing your sword a certain way to obtain the sword rune so this would probably function for other runes as well, and for two it’s only stated that no one knew this method existed prior to the first sword rune awakener doing so, not that there were possibly others who had awakened runes over time through the methods that we know or don’t know of.

I think people heavily missed the point that only the sword rune awakener was documented as the first one to do so and that only the methods weren’t know not that no one did or the fact that it wasn’t a conscious effort made by such people and that they only viewed it as another awakening or smt. Just a little train off thought for readers <<less

It's decent enough that I didn't drop it immediately, but not good enough to make me add it to my reading list and keep up with updates. It's a very generic academy harem plot where the main character becomes overpowered through what the author seems to think is a ton of extra effort, but it's really not all that much. The MC is nothing special personality-wise but inexplicably has women falling for him left and right.

Other people have already brought up some of the other issues, but one that kept... more>> on bugging me is that the world makes NO sense as a video game. The game protagonist is described as having set runes and abilities, which doesn't make sense from a game that would clearly be a class-based RPG. It would make a lot more sense if it was "isekai'd into a book" instead of "isekai'd into a video game, " but the author made it a video game for some reason.

The worldbuilding and character building are mediocre at best, but not so bad that I couldn't stomach reading it. This works fine if you're looking for something to turn your brain off while reading, but don't expect too much. <<less

This novel falls under the same trap a lot of other KR novels do. The author doesn't want to just give the MC an OP ability for free/no reason, but the MC is too weak to do anything special. So the author has to choose an easy, mundane, anyone can do activity, but for some odd reason nobody else even thinks about doing it (because it's bothersome?).

In this novel it's especially s*upid. Do people not do anything outside of their skills? Do people not have hobbies? You want me to... more>> believe that out millions to a billion people, only 1 person managed to gain a new skill through repetition?

Think real life, we've got kids in facilities training day and night for the Olympics and other sports. Not a single one of them randomly woke up with a fencing skill or a javelin throw skill? <<less

Looks promising.

the storyline is one of great aspects of the content.

MC also didnt act like an adult baby.

Few things that I dont like is how his power up method worked.

It's pretty generic. You have your super op plot armored MC, your generic harem members, the usual gate/dungeon/ranks sytem with guilds and such. To it's credit secondary characters are a bit more fleshed than usual for this genre.

I think this novel needed more comedic undertones. Or some acknowledgement of how bullsh*t MC is. I'd be content with occasional 4th wall breaking "because I am a cheat character" answer anytime someone asks "how the f*ck are you so powerful".

Still, it's an ok novel to read without investing in it when you... more>> have nothing else to read and looking to kill some time. I've read 180 chapters and probably finish it (unless some egregious crap pops up later). I'd vote 3 stars if it was a bit more self aware (or had more humour) <<less

Rating 3.5

Standard Isekai/Possession plot, but it does a good job with pacing out the mechanical bits that are the standard of stories with game-like aspects. It certainly targets a gamer audience. The author walks the line between seemly padding out chapters with stats and progressing the story. I've seen too many stories that bloat the game aspects to the point nothing happens.

... more>>

Spoiler

They've wisely done a skill/rune compression recently to help with this.

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Not a fan of Dense protags but so far it hasn't been too bad with the potential harem. Honestly hope they don't drag that on forever and he gets a clue at some point. That said the MC definitely goal oriented and it's nice to see that he didn't become an idiot when he possessed this 'character'. <<less

Quite good actually. Not to the point that its make me amazed, but atleast its an enjoyable read that make me always hit the next chapter immediately after reading one.

It has some flaws like sometimes I don't know if the original story that the MC is transmigrated into are novel or game, but it's just a small flaw. Another one is, there are no interesting character (atleast in my oppinion) they are rather template but likeable enough

The good thing about this novel is the growth of the MC. Yeah I... more>> know he have cheat ability, but atleast we can see the process in this novel, we know that he will become pretty OP in the future but seeing a character that start out pretty weak becoming strong with interesting progress is good enough for me <<less

I've read only a couple of chapters, but I want to write this as a disclaimer of some reviewers. It was said that it made no sense that nobody acquired runes because of repeated action. It's not that nobody acquired runes that way, as mentioned in chapter 2 there's someone who got a sword rune that way. I think it's because of different common sense between ours and that novel, as it's more logical (supposedly) to instead train whatever runes they got initially than to repeat an action so many... more>> times without a promised reward, so that no one (or maybe only few people) knows that they can get runes with effort, in contrast that runes are decided by talent as everyone believed in. But yes, I agree he got his scam rune too easily.

And a review said that MC got isekai'd into a video game, and it'll make more sense if MC got isekai'd into a novel. Like, what, at chapter 1 author mentioned that MC is indeed isekai'd into a novel (but the novel is based on a game system), so maybe that reviewer misread or something. Edit: To be fair, in one of MC monologue he said that "If this creature had appeared in the original work, I would have already known the method to bypass it. I had almost memorized the patterns of dungeon bosses since they appeared frequently." So I'm a bit confused at this point as well, as the author specifically mentioned that MC got transmigrated into a novel, but the monologue doesn't make sense if MC didn't get transmigrated into a game. So personally it'll make more sense to me if MC is isekai'd into a game instead.

As I said, I only read a couple of chapters so far, but I still write this as I disagree at some reviews.

I will update this as I read more chapters.

Update:

That said, MC got a few plot armor at the beginning, which described as "Transmigrator Luck" by the author. The story is too convenient for the MC, and the original protagonist is just a plot tool for the author. A few plot points are not possible if not for the MC, but as you may know that he's not the original protagonist, so the original protagonist should be able to avert the crises too right? But no, as of chapter 28 51 the original protagonist is just a decoration.

World building chapters are flawed, and just a generic info dump so it's boring. Sometimes the redundant description is too overwhelming that I had to skip a lot of things. Author's naming sense is horrible, or maybe it's just simply lost in the translation process.

As I mentioned before, the story doesn't make sense if MC transmigrated into a novel. The existence of hidden piece itself is vague as it's more suited to be from a game instead, and a lot of information from the original novel conveniently is very helpful for the MC. It's like the original novel's author prepared their novel to help MC when he transmigrated into their novel. Doesn't make sense right?

Just turn off your brain slightly while reading it.

A lot of minus point to nitpick, but this doesn't mean this novel is bad, just that author should be able to deliver the story better. Generic story that's enjoyable to read, that's what this novel is. Hopefully it'll get better over time.

Personally I think the term "duel" is not fit to be used in this novel, "fight" or "battle" is a better word to describe the prerequisite of the scam rune activation. Duel usually happen between only 2 people and only people. Sometimes MC fight multiple people at once and still got their runes, heck even fights with monsters still count. <<less

A rune hunter is an interesting premise, it's the first time I've come across a story like this.

The fight scenes are interesting and the abilities that the runes provide are also eye-catching.

The protagonist Do Jae-hyun is intelligent, sensible and hard-working, he is a fan of the story where he awakened as a Rune Holder.

He has s*xual and harem tags, but so far he has only shown hints of many girls starting to fall for him, but nothing more, maybe because I'm only in the first forty chapters, I'm eager to... more>> find out.

The original male lead Park Jin-woo is a battle freak, always looking for Do Jae-hyun to duel with.

The supporting characters are fun, I like their interactions with Jae-hyun. And the antagonists are entertaining. <<less

Actual score more like 5/10.

This is, long story short, a generic academy story with fantasy elements (dungeons, abilities, etc.). We also have generic bad guys. Overall, there's nothing special about it, though there are two strong points:

• the harem antics are funny sometimes
• there's actually an important and capable male character other than MC, as well as a bunch of other relevant male characters - it's not just chicks

The bad guys lost too early and too easily, and I don't like what I see in other reviews about future antagonists.

The protagonist's interactions... more>> with the love interests are painful to read in the long run. On the one hand, he shows qualities that would make girls like him, but on the other hand, he's such a damn pushover that keeps apologizing for no reason. The author is clearly half-clueless about women, and is possibly a similar doormat IRL.

Anyway since the setting and all else are just generic (not bad, but with no flair), I just read it half to kill time and half for the harem, but since the harem is like this, I'm dropping this. Honestly, there's nothing more to this story, unless you like some of th elements used in it. <<less

This started out good but has since fizzled out for me. I am going to be removing it from my reading list which is sad. It had an interesting set up but the payoff has been terrible. The love chapters were the worst thing I've ever read, and the big bad is a shadow group that is aliens. I liked it when the shadow group was terrible humans, but they lost easily. I'm not going to lie, I think that this could be done well, give a proper love interest... more>> instead of 5, keep the evil group but have them try to hide their evil deeds by doing good or give them a good moral standing on something though misguided and don't make them actually governed by aliens, and make the main character suck less. Also, I think getting runes should be different, more difficult to do, like maybe you have to kill the person to get their rune and then it is morally difficult to do causing him to become more monstrous when he gets them, there needs to be a downside and there is none. It makes the main character boring after two hundred chapters.

Also doesn't help that he is of course the best boyfriend to several girls at the same time. Why do people write this? I have never understood wanting more than one girlfriend at a time. It seems like a lot of work and getting stabbed would be a very real possibility if one of them found out about the others. Why can't a guy have more than one guy friend in these books? It is so frustrating. Some of the best books of all time are built around several guys having a great friendship, but that seems lost and now you just need the girls. I don't get it, makes the main characters seem lame and shallow. I remember when a guy had to pick his love interest and it was actually entertaining, heck, even twilight was able to do that, and those books s**ked too. I mean I wasn't the target audience, but still. Why can't characters have a hard time not sleeping with every girl in their path in these books? It boggles the mind.

That was a rant, anyway, I'm probably dropping this. Maybe I will pick it back up if I get desperate but I'm thinking of reading an actual book now. This was such a letdown when the start seemed like it was going to be great. Not a 1 star, but not even close to a 3. <<less

I ended up dropping this novel a long while ago, but I figured I could at least give it a brief review after seeing it pop back up on NU’s home page. To put it simply; it was decent. A lot of plot holes and outright s*upid parts here and there, as mentioned in other comments, but if you lightly disregard those bits and push past them the overall plot and character writing is at least interesting to an extent. In the end I mostly just ended up reading it... more>> whenever I was out of all other novels I wanted to read, letting a couple tens of chapters stack up so I could binge to it’s current point. By then another novel would’ve updated and I’d go to that. Eventually it simply got entirely too boring though and I dropped it. 3 star simply because it kept me entertained when there was nothing else. <<less