SSS-Rank Talent: Super Upgrade System-Chapter 149: Toughest Walk

Back at the workshop, Principal Finch studied Daniel’s collapsed form with a blend of academic interest and grandfatherly amusement.

He teased with a mock whine, "Fascinating, aren’t they?" His voice was soft, yet carried a deep, unshakable clarity that pierced the sudden, terrifying silence in Daniel’s mind.

It was a silence more profound than any he’d ever known, the absence of the constant, thrumming power that had been his identity for so long.

"A beautiful blend of Nomological Sealing Arts and advanced dimensional metallurgy," the Principal elaborated, his ancient eyes gleaming as they traced the simple bands encircling Daniel’s wrists.

"They don’t just suppress your power, my boy, they perform a far more absolute function.

They completely isolate your physical form from the metaphysical source of your origin energy.

He leaned forward slightly, the leather of his chair creaking softly.

"You are, for all intents and purposes, a mortal man again.

A physically untrained mortal man, I’d wager, considering how long you’ve relied on your attributes to do the heavy lifting.

Those muscles haven’t known true labor, have they?"

Daniel, shaking with effort, finally managed to push himself from the cool stone floor into a kneeling position.

Sweat lined his forehead, cutting through the dust, and each breath scraped his throat like sandpaper.

"How..." he gasped, the word a struggle, "how do they work?"

His voice came out as a ragged breath, but his deep curiosity briefly burned brighter than his shock and fear.

"The energy... it’s not just blocked. It feels... utterly non-existent. Like a limb amputated."

The Principal just chuckled, a dry, rustling sound like autumn leaves scattering across stone.

"That, my boy," he said, settling back and tapping his fingers, "is a lesson for another day. freewebnoveℓ.com

A very long day, filled with equations you wouldn’t recognize and principles that would fracture your current understanding.

A day that only comes after you’ve proven you’re worthy of understanding it."

His gaze shifted, becoming distant yet pointed as he gestured vaguely towards the heavy oak door of his cluttered workshop.

"Your quest awaits, Daniel. The Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng, its root steeped in primordial vitality. The Luminark Stone, a shard of crystallized dawnlight. The Everfrost Aetherium, essence of an unmelting glacier. And the blood of the Erymanthian Boar, fury and resilience made liquid."

He paused, letting the weight of the impossible shopping list sink in.

"Bring them to me, and we will forge you a foundation worthy of a god. A foundation built on substance, not just bestowed might."

His ancient eyes, usually warm with wisdom, grew hard, revealing a core of tempered steel.

"Give up," he stated, the words devoid of warmth, "and you will forever remain a child playing with power you cannot truly comprehend, shape, or control.

You will have proven you are not worthy of my personal training, nor the potential wasted within you."

Daniel clenched his jaw until it hurt.

The harsh challenge cut through the panic, striking something deep within him.

He was weak. He was vulnerable, stripped bare.

But the fire in his soul, the drive that had propelled him to SSS-Rank, had not been extinguished.

It hadn’t vanished, just compressed by the weight of his mortality into a smaller, hotter, more focused flame.

"I won’t quit," he ground out, the words emerging as a strained grunt.

With one hand pressed to his thigh and muscles screaming, he forced himself to his feet, rising shakily, inch by painful inch.

The journey from the Principal’s workshop to the distant vehicle bay became the most difficult, humbling and embarrassing ten minutes of Daniel’s life since first stepping into the Verge.

Every step was a monumental battle against gravity and his own atrophied physique.

The heavy manacles dragged across the polished obsidian floor with a harsh scrape, each sound a reminder of his crushing weakness.

The luxurious, perfectly tailored fit of his A-rank Widow’s Myth armor, once a second skin that enhanced and protected, now felt like a lead-lined shroud.

Its weight dragged on his shoulders and tightened around his chest.

With its passive boosts, strength and kinetic dispersion gone. It was nothing but dead, cumbersome mass.

He could feel the faint, curious stares of other students burning into his back as he passed through grand corridors and open courtyards.

Though quiet, their whispers cut through the air, sharp and biting at his pride.

Daniel Vance, record-breaking prodigy, SSS-Rank legend, was now a pitiful figure, shuffling with the stiff, painful steps of an old man.

The transformation was a humiliating reality.

He reached his Voidshadow sports car, sleek, midnight-black, built for speed and power he could no longer command.

Even opening the gull-wing door took everything he had, bracing against the cool metal, straining with legs and back as his muscles protested in agony.

He collapsed into the driver’s seat, limbs heavy as solid lead. Sweat clung to his forehead, and his breath came in ragged gasps.

As he sat in silence, his pounding heartbeat loud in his ears, a strange feeling stirred, slowly pushing past the weight of frustration and humiliation.

It was a quiet, deep, almost unsettling satisfaction.

He had become a god almost overnight, his power an avalanche that buried the need for effort.

He had skipped the fundamentals, bypassed the struggle, the slow burn of growth.

The raw ache in his muscles, the sting of sweat, the effort it took just to function without his usual power, it was strangely humbling. Profoundly so.

It was a clear reminder that beneath the SSS-Rank talent and world-ending skills, he was still just a man, bones, muscle, and will.

And that man, he realized, had to be as strong and resilient as the power he sought to command.

The foundation mattered. The struggle was the point.

"A strange enjoyment," he muttered to himself, a wry, exhausted smile finally touching his lips as he wiped sweat from his brow with a trembling hand.

"Maybe the old man is a genius after all. A sadistic one, but a genius."

With a grunt that resonated in the confined space, he engaged the car’s controls.

The Voidshadow, which he had once guided with thoughtless, telepathic ease, responding like an extension of his own nervous system, now felt distant and sluggish.

The neural interface faltered, glowing faintly as it struggled to link with his suppressed, unreachable origin energy.

The engine came to life, but its motion was rough and hesitant, a clumsy shadow of its former smooth, predatory grace.

He painstakingly input the coordinates for the Eastern Suburbs Medicinal Garden, the supposed location of the Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng.

Hoping to gain any edge, he activated his Nexus Interface, mentally reaching for data on the garden, schematics, guard rotations, anything that could help him plan.

But the results were disappointingly limited.

Most files were locked behind layers of bureaucracy, flashing red with Access Denied warnings demanding Level 5 clearance or faculty-specific authorization codes he lacked.

The few public entries were vague and unhelpful: "Core botanical research facility," "Repository of rare and potent flora," "Highly restricted access, trespassers prosecuted."

No maps. No staff lists. No schedules.

Just a sealed black box, its contents hidden beneath silence and red tape.

"So," Daniel sighed, leaning back against the cool leather headrest, resignation in his voice as the Voidshadow rolled to a stop at the platform’s green edge.

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