iD_ᴇNTITY or Yureka () is a Korean manhwa series created by Son Hee-joon in collaboration with Kim Youn-kyung and distributed by Tokyopop in North America. The series centers on the main character Jang-Gun and his friends along with their virtual reality avatars in the computer game world called "Lost Saga". There are 41 volumes right now, twelve of them have been released in the United States and 41 in France.
Story The series centers on the main character Jang-Gun and his friends along with their virtual reality avatars in the computer game world called "Lost Saga". When Jang-Gun logs on as a different character, he "Creates" an AI with a personality from the hacked disk he found when renewing his appearance for his once a year renewal process. Yureka is a flutter-brained, but advanced, AI with powerful stats and a real-life doppelganger. It is his turn to see just how deep his immersion in the virtual world goes.
The following is a plot summary by volume:
Volume One Many of the central characters (and their relationships to each other) are introduced in this volume, including Team Triple Threat, Lotto's family, Myriah, Aradon, the Lovely Angels, Row-the-Mighty, Miss Piri, and Capri. Oddly enough, Yureka does not make her debut until the second volume.
Volume Two Jang-gun's birthday passes unheeded by his family, but he does find that he needs to renew his Lost Saga ID. When he goes to the Net Room to do so, he accidentally bumps into a girl who drops a card with the name 'Yureka' on it on her way out of the Room. Later that day, he accidentally logs on with the card, creating the impossibly strong but airheaded AI, Yureka, who is at once aware of her AI status and strength, but blissfully unaware of guile and trickery. Under this disguise, he clears a high-level dungeon called Terror Tower with the other two members of Team Triple Threat. The next day he logs on under his own name, but is bewildered to encounter Yureka herself, who joins the Team after showcasing her strength the previous night.
Volume Three Volume Three heralds the beginning of the first story arc, the Double Trouble Tournament. With riches and treasure as a promised prize, everyone in Lost Saga is dying to join. Lotto enters with Yureka at his side, and meets Rapha and John on his way to entry. A preliminary is held, in which the pairs must fight two tough monsters, the cyclops from Terror Tower and a generic Ghouliant undead sort of mage which, according to Boromir's exclamation in this volume, is called a Lich. After this grueling pretest, there are eight remaining teams: Lotto and Yureka, Ah-Dol and Boromid, Rapha and John, The Lovely Angels, Aradon and Alpha, a strange Necromancer(Baltisse)/Axman(Lazarus) team, a generic filler team, and Row-the-Mighty, with a mysterious master-level witch by his side. These teams are set up in a tournament bracket, and the first fight takes place between Lotto and Row.
Lotto and the witch, named Orugazi (other translations term her Horgacia, etc.) have a magical face-off of epic proportions, which ends in a double KO. Yureka is then forced to fight Row- she easily overpowers him, but her compassion stays her hand. Row, realizing this, concedes the match.
Immediately after this, Lotto runs out to brag to Miss Piri, the NPC storekeep he crushes on. Yureka follows him to fetch him back (Ah-dol and Boromir's match is going on) and inadvertently displays a new power: Yureka pulls Miss Piri free of the strict set of preprogrammed boundaries surrounding her store, that Miss Piri is bound to as an NPC, so that she can watch the tournament.
The volume concludes with Boromir and Ah-dol's complete and easy victory over the nameless team, and Miss Piri's thanks for her freedom.
Volume Four All story is still about the tournament.
Volume Five All story is still about the tournament. Boromir and Ah-Dol face off against Aradon and Alpha who uses multiple classes to create the "ninja class."
Volume Six All story is still about the tournament. The last battle of the Double Trouble Tournament, Yureka and Lotto against Aradon and Alpha begin. While Lotto and Aradon are in the middle of their fight, a mysterious demon appears—Cube. Cube explains that the demon army will be coming to Normal City to take over their land and that they can try to get to Demon Island, however they will be waiting for them.
Volume Seven Various characters begin preparing for the match-off with the demons. The people who will actually be going to Demon's Island turn out to be Yureka, Lotto, Boromir, Ah-Dol, Aradon, an anti-priest named Il-Barn, Capri, Basara, and a player who happens to know where the entrance to Demon's Island (that Basara found) is. Lotto also asks Row-the-Mighty a request — to defend the city. The group splits their separate ways because there are two portals. Il-Barn, Capri, Boromir, and Ah-Dol form one team, and Lotto, Yureka, Aradon, and Olios form the other. Basara eventually comes later behind the group of Roto, Yureka, Aradon, and Olios. Each team defeats many monsters called Cerberus. As the demon army attacks Normal City, the party all enter Demon Island.
Volume Eight In Normal City, the combined powers of four guilds were unable to withstand the power of the demon army and retreat. Row-the-Mighty, keeping his promise with Lotto, begins fighting monsters one by one in order to defend the city. Eventually, various other characters (a random warrior who is first to join Row, Rapha, John, "Mistress Orugazi," K.C., Julie, and eventually Alpha) join him to defend Normal City, causing other players (who are offline and watching the whole thing) to join in.
Volume Nine On Demon Island, the two groups have to defeat the demon king's Devas. The first two are played by real-life people who work for the company. One of them turns out to be Myriah (using the form of the demon Pristina), and she faces off with the party of Il-Barn, Capri, Boromir, and Ah-Dol. On the other hand, just as they (Lotto, Yureka, Aradon, and Olios) are about to lose, Basara appears and proceeds to kill the masked Deva. Lotto makes a deal with Basara which he (Basara) agrees to. The deal is that Basara can kill all the monsters and that they (Lotto, Yureka, Aradon, and Olios) will finish off his "leftovers" or complete the quest if Basara were to die. They continue on to meet the next Deva—Cube. Roto then leaves Basara to fight Cube and heads for the entrance to the demon king's room along with Yureka, Aradon, and Olios. Basara stops him from doing so, causing Lotto to fall. Yureka jumps down to save Lotto. As Basara is turned to stone by Cube, Aradon and Olios leave Lotto and Yureka to fight Cube.
Volume Ten Just as they are about to be defeated by Pristina's dragon, Il-Barn uses his anti-priest master-level item to bring Capri to full power in exchange for Capri's life (online) and one of his levels. Capri survives a blast from the dragon and kills Pristina. Il-barn, Boromir, and Ah-Dol continue on to meet their next opponent—the Deva Neogia. Ah-Dol starts with the first attack and is soon defeated. However, his defeat was not in vain as Il-Barn and Boromir learns that Neogia can read their next movement. The two team up and manage to strike Neogia with Il-Barn's master-level item which causes Neogia to begin losing a life point each second. Neogia claims to be able to last an hour, meaning that he has 3,600 health points. Boromir and Il-Barn manage to capture Neogia, allowing Boromir and Ah-Dol to continue onto the demon king. Soon enough, Aradon and Olios reach the demon king, but are both defeated. Lotto tricks Cube, using the fact that Cube is confused about his past to his advantage and gets Cube to help them reach the demon king via a shortcut. Boromir and Ah-Dol arrive at the top of the stairs to the demon king's room's entrance just as Aradon is defeated. Eventually, Lotto, Yureka, and Cube reach the demon king's room. Aradon and Olios offer to help.
Volume Eleven Boromir and Ah-Dol awaken and now Team Triple Threat is complete. Lotto then begins to question the reason why they are fighting. Aradon then explains that Dexon (the creators of Lost Saga) is combining with Mega Entertainment and that this battle will determine the future of Lost Saga. Everyone then becomes serious about this match and the battle begins. Lotto and Aradon prepare their ultimate techniques to bring down the demon king, but the demon king blocks them. Aradon attempts to kill the demon king using a new magic spell he hasn't used in the battle yet. A large explosion occurs soon after, yet the demon king survives (as well as everyone else). Roto explains that due to something underground, the demon king has infinite regeneration. Everyone except Aradon leaves. Aradon asks the demon king a question. Lotto, Yureka, Ah-Dol, and Olios then encounter Cube. Cube begins to attack with lightning, however Olios counters it with his metal-tipped arrows. As Lotto, Yureka, and Ah-Dol walk downstairs, they encounter Neogia.
Volume Twelve As Ah-Dol prepares to fight Neogia, he's revealed about a player option that causes them to affect their levels and discovers that players like Roto and Aradon are using said option in order to pre-buff themselves before most important fights. Seeing this as cheating, Ah-Dol tells Roto to go on ahead while he fights Neogia (in the rudest of ways). Roto and Yureka soon find themselves in a fiery pit fighting an onslaught of weak monsters before stronger ones pop out in the "Heart" of Lost Saga.
While this is happening, Olios is fighting Kube and Aradon is fighting Kast.
Characters
The names of the characters are listed first, with their Lost Saga identities in (parentheses) unless their real names are unknown, in which case they will be listed by their handles only.
Team Triple Threat
Jang-Gun (Lotto/Roto) Hangul: 장군 Age: 16 Title: Archmage Class: Mage Sub-class: Swordsman Occupation: High School Junior
Lotto/Roto (his identity in the game, and what he is most commonly called) is a master level sorcerer (later wizard/ Archmage). Along with Boromid and Ah-Dol, he is one of the members of Team Triple Threat. He is considered one of the most powerful players in the game, logging over 6000 hours, the most since last beta.
Jang-Gun is very short for his age, but is still considered attractive, and is popular with girls (although he hardly notices them, usually thinking about game strategy). He's a bit of a jerk. He is very manipulative, exploiting others to his own advantage, as well as clever, able to discover new uses for his powers, that surprises everyone. and hitting or burning Yureka when she irritates him. He is also very arrogant, with many character during the Demon war, not want him to face the demon king, as they would never hear the end of it. But he cares very much for his friends and Yureka, being extremely angry, if they had been defeated.
Although he is crazy for the game, he still manages to maintain an A-plus average in school and put up with his chain-smoker mother and chatroom-obsessed sister, Rose (Chang-Mi). When his Lost Saga ID card expires and he goes to renew it, he accidentally picks up a hacked one with the name Yureka on it- when he accidentally logs on with it, Yureka is created. As the series continues, his relationship with Yureka grows. At first, he used her as a punching bag, having her help in fights, while he questioned what she was. In the Demons War arc, he cared enough to have a ring given to her that made all damage she took be taken from his mana instead. After Yureka was deleted, he fell into great depression, quitting lost saga, and stopped talking to his friends. He later started again, to revive her, and anything someone tried to copy her, he would angrily ignore them. Once he found Yureka true person, Jaeha is an alternate personality, he accepts both of them. He later reveals that he cares for both personalities, and that he likes Yureka.