SSS-Rank Talent: Super Upgrade System-Chapter 167: Deep Underground

The chatter at the central table was a low, gravelly murmur, the words laced with a weariness that went bone-deep.

Daniel, hidden in his corner, focused his [Omniscient Insight], the voices of the seasoned miners becoming as clear as if they were sitting beside him.

"Told you, Grigor, we’re not going back down to the new shafts," a burly man with a magnificent, braided beard was saying, slamming his metal mug down on the table for emphasis.

"Not after what happened to Joric’s crew. They went in three days ago. Haven’t heard a peep since. It’s like the mountain just... swallowed them."

Another miner, a wiry woman with a nasty scar across her cheek, shuddered.

"It’s the ghost," she whispered, her voice tight with a superstitious fear that was very real.

"I’ve heard it myself. Late at night, when the drills go quiet. A wailing sound, like a woman crying her heart out rises up from the deepest tunnels. It’s an omen, I tell you. A bad one."

"Ghost my ass," a third miner, a cynical old man with a mechanical eye that whirred softly, grunted.

"It’s probably just the wind shrieking through a new crack.

What worries me is the ore. Or the lack of it. The shallow veins are tapped out. We’ve been pushing deeper, into the unstable zones, and for what? The returns are pathetic. And now people are disappearing. It ain’t worth the risk anymore. My team’s packing up, heading back to Riversouth for a while. Let the damn ghost have the mountain."

The others murmured their agreement. The consensus was clear, the Western Mine had become a deathtrap.

The easy, surface-level resources were gone, and the deep shafts, where the truly valuable ores like the Luminark Stone were likely to be found, were now a place of strange noises, unexplained disappearances, and diminishing returns.

Daniel processed the information with cold, analytical clarity.

A ghost? Unlikely. A strange, wailing sound? More plausible. Miners disappearing?

A definite, tangible threat. He was skeptical of supernatural explanations, but the danger was clearly real. This only solidified his resolve to proceed with extreme caution.

He finished his water, left a few credits on the table for the perpetually busy waitress, and left the noisy cantina.

The sun was beginning to set, casting long, dramatic shadows from the towering mining equipment.

He came across a dusty, cluttered supply shop run by a an Old veteran missing at least three fingers and any trace of optimism.

"Heading down into the mine, are ya, son?" the shop owner grunted, eyeing Daniel’s clean, unassuming gear with a skeptical look.

"At this hour? Most folks are heading out."

"Just need to pick up a few things," Daniel said calmly. "A good headlamp, some emergency rations, and a map of the deeper shafts, if you have one."

The shop owner dug under a pile of rusty tools and produced a worn, stained data-chip.

"Best I can do is this. It’s a month old. Things change fast down there. Tunnels collapse, new ones get dug. It’ll get you started, but don’t trust it with your life."

He took Daniel’s credits. "And a word of advice, kid. Whatever you’re looking for down there... it ain’t worth it.

There’s something wrong in that mountain. Something ancient and hungry. Turn back while you still can."

Daniel gave a polite smile and exited the shop. "Thanks for the warning", he said.

"Hey, kid! You’re going the wrong way!" one of the departing miners called out, his voice filled with genuine concern.

"The mine’s closed for the night! And that shaft... it’s cursed!"

Daniel offered a small, reassuring wave but didn’t break his stride.

He stepped into the pitch-black tunnel, the last traces of twilight fading behind him.

The mine fell silent, deserted.

The air that flowed out was cold, carrying the scent of damp earth and something else entirely.

The first few kilometers were easy. The main shafts were wide, well-lit by glowing energy conduits, and utterly deserted.

The silence was profound, broken only by the faint drip of water and the echo of his own footsteps on the stone floor.

It was unsettling, a place that should have been bustling with activity, now as quiet as a tomb.

He followed the month-old map deeper and deeper, descending through level after level, the air growing colder, the silence more profound.

He finally reached the designated area for the newest, deepest mining operations, Sector 9.

The map ended here. And what he found was deeply unsettling.

The shafts were indeed stripped bare of any valuable ore, but the marks on the rock walls confirmed his growing suspicions.

They weren’t the clean, precise cuts of high-tech mining drills or the rough gouges of pickaxes.

They were... bite marks. Massive, curved indentations, as if some colossal creature with teeth of diamond had been systematically chewing its way through the very rock of the mountain.

"This is no ghost," Daniel murmured to himself, running a gauntleted hand over one of the strange marks.

The ground here trembled with a faint, almost imperceptible vibration. "This is a predator."

His entire demeanor shifted. The casual confidence vanished, replaced by the cold, focused intensity of the Night Ranger.

He activated his A-Grade [Voidwalk] and his A-grade skill, [Omniscient Insight].

The world around him dissolved into a silent, shadowy tapestry of auras, sounds, and information.

His footsteps became utterly silent, his presence erased from the sensory spectrum.

He pressed on into the pitch-black, uncharted tunnels, a phantom chasing a ghost. Mind sharp, senses alert, he was ready for whatever strange, rock-eating creature waited in the mine’s dark depths.

The real hunt had begun.

The absolute silence of the deep mine was a heavy, suffocating blanket.

Daniel moved through the pitch-black, uncharted tunnels like a phantom, his A-Grade [Voidwalk] skill rendering him utterly invisible and inaudible.

The only sound was the faint hum of his power, a quiet storm held within his controlled form.

His [Omniscient Insight] spread silently through the dark, sensing the stale air, faint vibrations in the stone, and mapping the winding tunnels in his mind.

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