SSS-Rank Talent: Super Upgrade System-Chapter 71: The Beginning of Harvest!

For three long, tense days, Daniel, Lia, and Ayra had used the small, surprisingly dry cave system nestled deep within the Whispering Mire as their temporary sanctuary.

The oppressive gloom and incessant, sanity-testing whispers of the swamp made true rest a luxury, but they had managed.

Daniel’s Tier 2 [Soul Assimilation] had fully recharged its thirty charges, and the potent energy from the third Golden Sun-Kissed Fruit had settled deep within him, making his S-Grade skills, the [Solar Flare Fist Art] and [Earthquake Colossus Form], feel like barely contained thunderstorms eager to be unleashed.

Lia’s healing aura seemed to glow with a richer emerald light, and Ayra, after consuming her share of the golden fruit, had spent most of the three days engaged in increasingly violent "meditation" that involved creatively reshaping several large boulders at the cave’s entrance with her great-axe.

Nyx, Daniel’s Shadow Wolf Pup, had grown noticeably.

The golden fruit fragments and the assimilated fang had clearly spurred her development; she was sleeker, faster, her shadowy fur now carried faint flickers of cold blue Soulfire, and she’d even stopped trying to eat Daniel’s A-Grade boots, which was a monumental step forward in their relationship.

The Yin region of the Taiji Basin, as Nyx’s wider scouting forays confirmed, was a brutal landscape.

Awakened recruits, desperate for Yin Cards to complete their assessment or enhance their Class Transition prospects, had largely thinned out.

Some had succumbed to the region’s myriad dangers, the territorial gloom-beasts, the treacherous terrain, or the insidious whispers that frayed at the mind.

Others, having gathered what they could, had already made the perilous journey towards the Yang region.

Those who remained were either exceptionally cautious, exceptionally desperate, or exceptionally predatory, preying on weaker teams.

The initial chaos of Phase Three had settled into a grim, opportunistic hunt.

"Alright, team," Daniel announced on the morning of the fourth day, the air in the cave still thick with the lingering scent of Ayra’s boulder-pulverizing exertions.

"Our little swamp vacation is over.

We’ve got our strength back, our... batteries are full," he winked at Lia, who understood his subtle reference to his Assimilation Charges, "and it’s time to go shopping. For Yin Cards. And anything else that looks remotely valuable and isn’t nailed down. Or, if it is nailed down, Ayra can probably un-nail it."

Ayra grinned, hefting her great-axe, which now bore several new, impressive dents from its encounters with stubborn geology.

"Finally! My axe was starting to get bored. It was whispering things to me last night. Mostly about structural integrity and the satisfying crunch of bone."

Lia, ever the calm counterpoint, merely shook her head with a serene smile.

"Let us hope its whispers remain metaphorical, Ayra. We need to be efficient. We have a little under four days left to secure our Yang cards and complete the Level Four qualification. The seven-day limit for this phase is approaching."

"Exactly," Daniel agreed. "So, new strategy.

The Mire is too spread out and full of... whispering weirdness.

We head back towards the edge of the Dark Forest, where we had more... encounters. Lia, Ayra, you two will sweep a designated sector together.

Your combined power should handle most threats, and Nyx," he looked at the now impressively agile Shadow Wolf, who was expertly balancing the Gloomfang Devourer fang on her nose, "will act as our eyes in the sky and a rapid reinforcement between your position and mine.

She’s gotten surprisingly good at not face-planting from trees."

Nyx yipped proudly, then promptly dropped the fang.

"I’ll cover a wider parallel sector solo," Daniel continued, ignoring Nyx’s minor fumble.

"It’ll allow me to utilize my... particular set of skills more freely."

Using [Soul Assimilation] on multiple corpses was much easier without having to explain why he was suddenly glowing and muttering about "essence purity."

"We move fast, hit hard, and rendezvous at the old cliff base, where we found the golden fruits, by dusk. Any questions?"

Lia nodded. "A sound plan. We’ll be careful."

Ayra just cracked her knuckles. "Less talking, more skull-cracking. Let’s go!"

They left the relative safety of the cave, Nyx darting ahead into the skeletal trees of the Mire, a flickering shadow.

Once they reached the denser, gloomier expanse of the Dark Forest, they split.

Lia and Ayra, a surprisingly effective duo of serene healing and berserker fury, moved off to the east, Nyx periodically sending Daniel flashes of their progress, mostly Ayra enthusiastically disassembling unfortunate shadow-panthers while Lia calmly mended any retaliatory scratches.

Daniel, meanwhile, activated his A-Grade [Voidwalk].

The world around him seemed to dim further, his form becoming a nearly invisible ripple in the oppressive gloom.

His footsteps made no sound, his scent was suppressed, and his aura was profoundly dampened.

He moved like a phantom, his upgraded [Aura Sense+] sweeping outwards, searching for the tell-tale signatures of recent conflict, the lingering energy of fallen beasts, or the desperate, fading auras of less fortunate Awakened.

His Tier 2 [Soul Assimilation] now had an impressive 10-meter extraction radius, meaning he no longer needed to physically touch each corpse.

This was a massive efficiency boost. The Dark Forest, which had previously felt like a dangerous hunting ground, now felt more like a macabre, open-air buffet.

It didn’t take long for his senses to lead him to his first "customers."

The wind shrieked faintly around a small, ravaged clearing, carrying the coppery tang of blood.

The ground was torn up, marked by the savage impacts of a recent, brutal fight.

Daniel’s [Aura Sense+] detected the fading life-force of several entities.

"Boom!"

He landed silently at the edge of the clearing, a ghost materializing from the shadows.

Amidst the shattered obsidian trees lay the mangled bodies of two formidable beasts: one, a heavily armored rhinoceros-like creature with silver-hued horns; the other, a burrowing monster with green-tinted, sand-like scales and claws still sunk into the earth.

Nearby, sprawled in grotesque poses, were the bodies of five Awakened recruits, their gear torn, their faces frozen in masks of terror.

They had clearly stumbled into the beasts’ territory and paid the ultimate price.

A small, smoldering campfire indicated they’d been ambushed while resting.

"Poor sods," Daniel murmured, though his SSS-Talent felt a distinct lack of sympathy and a considerable amount of eager anticipation.

He extended his hand, focusing his will.

The familiar hum of [Soul Assimilation] resonated within him, reaching out across the clearing.

He didn’t need to get his A-Grade gauntlets dirty.

One by one, faint motes of light, the residual essences of the fallen, drifted towards him, drawn by the irresistible pull of his talent.

The wind seemed to carry their last, silent whispers as their power became his.

This grim harvest, this constant acquisition of strength from the fallen, was the secret to his unprecedented ascent.

The forest was quiet again, save for the soft thrum of Daniel’s rapidly increasing power.