SSS-Rank Talent: Super Upgrade System-Chapter 141: The Free Daniel

For the first time since stepping through the Stargate, Daniel felt a strange, almost forgotten sensation, peace.

The past few days had been a blur of intense survival, relentless combat, and overwhelming power surges, each one pushing the limits of his understanding of reality.

Now, there was only the quiet hum of the advanced Academy, the distant murmur of a thriving civilian population, and the luxurious comfort of his new home.

The private villa Vice-Principal Aslaug Winnick had gifted him was less a house and more a small, self-contained fortress of luxury.

It was a multi-story building made of sleek white metal and smart glass, set in a quiet grove of glowing alien trees, with a stunning view of the entire resting platform.

It included an auto-chef, a fully stocked pantry with real food, a zero-gravity meditation chamber, and to Ayra’s delight, a private training room with reinforced walls said to withstand minor artillery fire.

"This is it! I’m never leaving!" Ayra had declared upon seeing the training room, her S-Grade Crystal Gloves already gleaming with anticipation.

"Vance, this room is mine! I’ll even let you use it on weekends if you’re nice."

She immediately began testing the walls with a series of increasingly powerful punches that made the entire villa hum ominously.

Lia, with her usual serene grace, had simply wandered through the villa’s lush indoor garden, her A-Grade Staff of the World Ash pulsing with a gentle emerald light as she communed with the exotic plant life.

Olenna, had immediately claimed the spacious office overlooking the Styx River, her mind already buzzing with plans to turn her newfound wealth and connections into a powerful information network.

With a soft sigh of contentment, Daniel extended an invitation for all three of them to move in permanently.

Ayra’s acceptance was a foregone conclusion, punctuated by a loud sound from the training room as she tested her Rock Pugilist arts on a poor, unsuspecting training dummy.

Lia and Olenna, after a brief, almost dramatic moment of consideration, also graciously accepted.

The thought of returning to the cramped, standard-issue dorms after experiencing this level of luxury was frankly unthinkable.

Their strange, monstrously powerful team now had a proper base of operations.

A new routine quickly established itself.

Every morning, the three women would head out to their respective schools, their schedules packed with demanding lessons and arduous training tasks.

Lia, the prized student of the Logistics and Support School, was often engrossed in advanced healing seminars or complex resource management simulations.

Ayra, the new star of the Combat Techniques School, spent her days in brutal, full-contact sparring sessions that usually ended with her opponent in the medical bay and the training equipment in need of major repairs.

Olenna, with her sharp intellect and natural talent for manipulation, quickly began to excel in the Command School’s intricate strategic war games, her quiet ambition burning brightly.

This left Daniel, the Academy’s most valuable and terrifying asset, with a surprising amount of free time.

His unique, all-encompassing training schedule, personally overseen by the Principal, was less about daily classes and more about weekly, high-intensity sessions with each Vice-Principal.

This meant that for most of the week, while his teammates were busy being model students, he was... the house husband.

He found the situation strangely amusing. He would wake, enjoy a delicious, auto-chef-prepared breakfast, and then settle into the villa’s quiet study.

He pulled out the three ancient-looking books Vice-Principal Aslaug had given him.

Their pages were filled with complex theories on dimensional warfare, troop logistics, and the psychology of hive-minded beasts.

To any other recruit, it would have been months of painstaking study.

For Daniel, it was a light afternoon’s reading.

Daniel did not only just read the words, he subtly used his SSS-Rank [Soul Assimilation] to absorb the core ideas and intent behind the ancient strategies, rather than simply draining them.

The knowledge flowed into him, not as memorized text, but as natural, instinctive understanding. He no longer saw the battlefield as just a physical space, but as a network of possibilities, a game of probabilities he could now read with startling speed.

"So that’s how you break a swarm’s morale," he murmured to himself, closing a book on hive-mind psychology.

"You don’t kill the drones, you find and eliminate the alpha signal. Simple, yet brilliant."

He felt his strategic skills growing, a quieter, steadier power developing alongside his explosive combat abilities.

Bored of trying to chew the villa’s indestructible furniture, Nyx trotted over and nudged his hand, her Soulfire eyes fixed on him with expectant curiosity.

"Alright, alright," Daniel chuckled, ruffling the fur between her two massive heads. "Walkies it is."

He spent the rest of his free days in a leisurely state of self-improvement.

He would practice his S-Grade skills in the private training room, spar with Nyx to help her master her new draconic abilities, and occasionally take his new Voidshadow sports car for a spin through the quieter sectors of Rivernorth, enjoying the simple, exhilarating thrill of its impossible speed.

He felt a sense of belonging, a calm, domestic peace amid the interdimensional chaos.

The girls would return in the evenings, exhausted and full of stories from their respective schools, and they would share a meal, their banter and friendship,a strong difference to the grim survivalism of the lower Verge levels.

It was a new, and not entirely unwelcome, Chapter in his strange life.

One evening, after Ayra and Lia had retired to their rooms, exhausted from a particularly brutal day of training, Daniel found himself alone in the villa’s main living area with Olenna.

She was seated by the large smart glass window, sipping a glass of wine, the city lights of the resting platform reflecting in her sharp, intelligent eyes.

Their relationship, forged in the crucible of deception, violence, and a binding soul contract, had settled into a comfortable, somehow complex, intimacy.

Their nights were a continuation of their initial entanglement, a blend of shared ambition, mutual respect, and a primal, undeniable attraction.

He walked over to her, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet. "A long day?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.

Olenna looked up, a small, tired smile on her face.

"The Command School is... demanding. But I’m learning. I’m getting closer to my goal." She paused, her gaze softening as she looked at him. "Thanks to you."

He sat beside her, the silence between them comfortable, familiar.

The soul contract that bound them was a quiet, constant hum in the back of their minds, a strange, unbreakable thread.

"My turn at the Combat Techniques School is tomorrow," Daniel said, breaking the silence. "Travis Standen seems... enthusiastic."

Olenna chuckled, a genuine, melodic sound.

"Enthusiastic is one word for it. Try to leave the training equipment in one piece, Daniel. For my sake, if not for the Academy’s budget."

He just grinned, his eyes gleaming in the dim light. "No promises."

He leaned in, his hand finding hers.

For tonight, at least, the future of humanity, the mysteries of the Verge, and the endless climb could wait.

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