SSS-Rank Talent: Super Upgrade System-Chapter 150: First Challenge

"The first challenge isn’t some mythical beast or elemental trial.

It’s just getting past the front door."

Getting out of the low-slung car was a struggle, leaving him breathless and leaning against the warm door frame.

Before him, nestled in a grove of towering, ancient trees with faintly glowing bark, stood the entrance.

It was a massive stone gate, easily a hundred meters tall, constructed from seamless blocks of dark, symbol-carved stone.

Faintly glowing patterns swirled across its surface, pulsing with a quiet, protective energy.

It radiated age, power, and absolute finality.

This monolithic barrier was the entrance to the Eastern Suburbs Medicinal Garden.

Daniel stood before the gate of the Eastern Suburbs Medicinal Garden, feeling utterly, almost laughably small.

The gate itself was a masterpiece of ancient architecture, a hundred-meter-tall arch of seamless grey stone covered in faint, pulsing runes that spoke of immense power and profound protection.

It looked like a doorway for giants, a portal to a realm of legends.

Guarding this legendary entrance, home to rare botanical wonders, was a lone, middle-aged man fast asleep in a rickety wooden booth, head tilted back, a thin line of drool trailing into his unkempt grey beard.

The sheer absurdity of the scene almost made Daniel laugh.

He had expected magical wards, advanced defenses, or perhaps a grumpy stone golem asking riddles.

Instead, he found a sleeping gatekeeper who looked like he’d spent the night with a bottle of cheap wine.

"Hello?" Daniel called out, his voice weak and reedy in his powerless state.

The gatekeeper didn’t stir. He just let out a loud, rattling snore that seemed to make the pavilion’s roof tiles vibrate.

Daniel sighed. He walked closer to the pavilion, his heavy manacles scraping loudly against the stone path.

"Excuse me?" he tried again, a little louder.

The man just snorted in his sleep and rolled over.

Frustration mixed with a sense of disbelief.

Here he was, the most powerful recruit in the Academy’s history, being completely ignored by a napping guard.

With another weary sigh, he decided to take a more direct approach.

He raised his wrist, the heavy Strength-Sealing Manacle feeling like a solid iron ingot, and knocked on the pavilion’s wooden doorframe.

He misjudged his own weakness. His first tap was so feeble it barely made a sound. He tried again, putting his whole body into it.

"CLANG!"

The sound of the metal manacle hitting the wooden frame was like a gunshot in the quiet grove.

It wasn’t a sonic boom, but it was loud enough to send a nearby flock of energy-birds scattering in alarm.

The wind shrieked for a moment from the sudden, clumsy impact.

The gatekeeper jolted awake with a yelp, tumbling from his chair in a flurry of limbs and confusion.

"Wha—? Ambush?! "Are the conscious turnips rebelling again?!" he squawked, his eyes wild and unfocused.

He scrambled to his feet, grabbing a long-handled garden rake and holding it like a spear, his gaze finally locking onto Daniel.

"What in the blighted bog do you want?" the gatekeeper grumbled, his voice a gravelly mix of sleep and irritation. freewebnoveℓ.com

He was a scruffy man with a weathered face, a constant scowl, and the tired eyes of someone who’d seen everything and found little worth noticing.

"Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a very important... strategic surveillance session?"

"I need to get into the garden," Daniel said, trying to sound as polite and non-threatening as possible, which, in his current state, wasn’t very difficult.

"I’m here to find the Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng."

The gatekeeper stared at him for a long, silent moment, then burst out laughing, a harsh, cackling sound.

"The Ginseng? You? Boy, you look like you’d have trouble pulling up a stubborn carrot, let alone finding the Old Man of the Mountain.

The garden is a restricted area. No outsiders. Ever! Now piss off before I decide to use you as fertilizer."

He emphasized his point by raising the rake in warning.

Daniel’s heart sank, but he hadn’t given up yet.

He still had one trump card, or so he thought. He raised his wrist, activating his Nexus Interface.

"I have a recommendation letter. From Principal Alistair Finch himself."

The holographic projection of the Principal’s official seal and letter appeared in the air between them.

The gatekeeper squinted at it, his expression unchanging. Then he did something Daniel had not anticipated. He scoffed.

"The Principal?" the gatekeeper said, waving a dismissive hand.

"That old man’s authority ends at this gate.

The Eastern Medicine Garden operates under its own charter, its own rules. His fancy letters don’t mean squat in here.

We answer to the Garden Master, and the Garden Master answers to no one but the plants themselves."

Daniel stared, his mind finally connecting the dots.

The Principal’s strange, knowing look when he’d handed over the recommendation... it hadn’t been confidence.

It had been amusement. The old man knew the letter was useless. He had sent Daniel here to fail, to be humbled, to be forced to find another way. It was all part of the test.

"So... there’s no way in?" Daniel asked, the last of his hope beginning to fade.

The gatekeeper stroked his messy beard, his cynical eyes appraising Daniel’s surprisingly resilient frame and the determined look in his eyes.

"I didn’t say that," he grunted. "I said no outsiders.

But... it just so happens that we’re in the middle of the Great Radish Harvest. We’re short on hands.

And you," he gestured with his rake, "look just stupid enough to be desperate, and just strong enough to not be completely useless.

There is one way in, boy. If you’re willing to work for it."

He leaned in, eyes gleaming. "Interested in a prestigious, short-term role as a part-time medicine farmer?"

A rush of thoughts raced through Daniel’s mind. Me? A farmer? This was the lowest point since arriving at the Verge.

The mighty Daniel, reduced to tending crops.

Daniel stood speechless, locking eyes with the gatekeeper in stunned silence.

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om