The Wrong Summon: Flaw Repair Guide

There weren't many ability booster pills packed. Not that it mattered. This was a D-rank dungeon. Rowan and Emma were both standing comfortably at D+ so there wasn't anything to worry about. The carriage trip to Lorant passed quickly. They ran the rest of the way to the mountain after paying. At its base, the dungeon portal pulsed faintly, a distortion of space embedded in the stone like a silent threat.

Jacob paused in front of it, his breath steadying. Then, without much fanfare, he stepped through.

The world twisted.

In the blink of an eye, the mountain air vanished.Dry heat suffocated him. He stumbled into an endless desert, sand whipping around him in fierce, stinging gusts.

The sun hung low in the burnt-orange sky, distorted and heavy, casting long, warped shadows across the dunes.

Jacob instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sandstorm, squinting through the harsh wind.

"Eyes up. The dungeon's active," Rowan's voice brought his attention back. His tone was sharp, stripped of the usual humor.

"Stay close. Don't wander off."

Without another word, Rowan pushed forward, the others falling into formation like they'd done this a hundred times.

Jacob trailed behind, clutching his slime axe, his heart pounding out an anxious rhythm. He could feel the shift in the air; the relaxed team from the bar was gone. What stood beside him now were trained fighters, cold and deliberate.

It didn't take long before the ground trembled beneath their feet. The sand convulsed unnaturally, merging into shapes that quickly took form.

Beasts emerged from the dunes.

A tiger. A hawk. A bear. And more, dozens of them, each one sculpted from compacted sand, glowing with faint mana cores at their centers.

Jacob took a step back.

Rowan's hand fell to his sword.

"Stay out of this," he ordered, his voice calm, almost indifferent. "Watch and learn."

The command was absolute. There was no room for argument.

Without hesitation, Rowan surged forward.

His blade was unsheathed in a blur of silver. Each swing was fast, clean, efficient— there was no wasted movement. He wasn't showy. He wasn't flashy. He didn't need to be.

The sand beasts lunged at him, but Rowan controlled the fight with ruthless precision. His footwork was tight, sharp, his blade an extension of his body.

Slash. Pivot. Step. Slash again.

Monsters fell one after another, their cores shattered, their bodies collapsing into formless piles of sand.

Not once did Rowan retreat.

When a beast lunged from his blind spot, an arrow pierced its core mid-air.

Jacob's eyes flicked to Emma. She stood a few paces back, her crossbow already reloaded. Calm and composed.

Her bolts struck with clinical accuracy. Each one pierced a core. Each one killed. She moved with fluid efficiency, glancing only briefly to confirm her shots before shifting position, setting up the next kill.

Rowan's blade carved a path forward. Emma's crossbow cleaned up his flanks. Neither spoke, but their coordination was seamless. Like clockwork. Like breathing.

Jacob stood frozen, breath caught in his throat. It wasn't a fight. It was a systematic dismantling.

The monsters never stood a chance.

When the last beast fell, Rowan flicked his blade, sending a faint arc of sand from its edge.

"That's how you fight. Clean and efficient. No wasted strength."

Jacob forced a nod, burning the sequence into his memory.

Rowan's gaze shifted toward the horizon, where the dunes rolled endlessly into the distance.

"We move. The metal serpent's further in."

Emma shouldered her crossbow, a slight grin tugging at her lips.

"Try to keep up, rookie."

The team pressed on, the sun bearing down on their backs.

Jacob tightened his grip on his axe. His pulse hammered in his ears, the weight of what he'd just seen settling in his bones.

"Scared?"

Elaina's voice cut through the quiet. She'd been silent during the entire slaughter, watching, analyzing.

Jacob didn't bother hiding it.

"What gave it away? My face or my heartbeat?"

"Both." She offered a small shrug, as if the answer had been obvious. "I was like that too on my first run. Rowan and Emma… they're monsters in battle. Must be the demonic blood."

Her voice wasn't mocking, just stating a fact.

Jacob's throat was dry. He forced out a response. "You don't seem like the type to enjoy fighting either."

"I'm not." She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm here for data. That's it."

"Data?" Jacob frowned, still tracking Rowan's silhouette as the man led them deeper into the desert. "On what?"

Elaina's lips curled faintly. "The dungeon environment, monster behavior, and my skill allows me to find the weak points of creatures."

"That's a great ability. Is it always on or?" Jacob questions

She shook her head. "No, it takes mana to use. For small fry like these sand beasts." She gestured lazily to the dissolving piles of dust Rowan had left in his wake. 

"Their cores are usually in the middle of the body, easy to take care of, but for dungeon bosses, they usually hide their cores somewhere else. I only use my ability when no mana cores are in sight."

Another question burned at the back of his mind.

"I thought you guys collected beast cores. But if you have to break them to kill the monsters… doesn't that ruin the core? How do you harvest them?"

Elaina smirked slightly, as if she'd been waiting for that question.

"Ah, rookie question." She pointed to the fine sand at her feet. "These guys? Trash mobs. Their cores are weak. They break because they're not worth much."

She paused, letting him catch up to her pace.

"Boss cores are different. High-quality and durable with stronger mana concentration. They don't shatter like glass. Think of them more like bones, you can damage them without completely destroying them if you're precise. We don't need to shatter them completely, simply damaging them would be enough to vastly weaken the boss."

Jacob nodded slowly, the pieces clicking together.

"So that's why Rowan's so careful with his strikes."

"Exactly. For now, we break the small ones. But when we hit the bosses, we hit to harvest. Though one time, we had a boss that didn't have any mana core at all but once we killed it, it dropped a perfectly intact core. Must've been a rare event." She shrugs and continues on.