Ten days later. Deep underground in a clandestine facility on the outskirts of New York.
Diana, dressed in a sharp, professional suit, stood with her arms crossed behind a pane of reinforced observation glass.
On the other side of the glass, Hunter was effortlessly dismantling over a dozen master-class combat instructors. Taekwondo, Judo, Karate, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu—he countered every strike and grapple with the flawless, flowing grace of a grandmaster.
If his face were hidden, any observer would swear he had dedicated decades of his life to mastering these diverse martial arts.
But Diana knew the terrifying truth. Hunter had only been introduced to these specific disciplines ten days ago. More accurately, he had spent a maximum of two days studying each individual style.
Yet, in that impossibly brief window, he hadn't just learned the fundamentals. He had internalized them, mastered them, and forged them into lethal muscle memory.
Combined with his baseline physical attributes—which were currently operating at over six times the capacity of a normal adult male—Hunter was an unstoppable force. Even though he consciously restricted his raw power, his absurd durability and blinding agility were impossible to hide.
To Hunter's enhanced perception, the attacks of these world-class martial artists were moving in slow motion, riddled with glaring tactical openings.
Despite the overwhelming gap in power, Hunter still valued their technical expertise. By letting them attack him, he rapidly absorbed their knowledge, triggering several new combat skills within his System and instantly leveling them up.
"Hah!"
With a final, explosive strike, Hunter finished the spar. It had taken him less than two minutes to completely neutralize the ICA's finest instructors. And he had done it using barely thirty percent of his total strength.
Standing amidst the groaning bodies on the padded mat, Hunter offered a polite bow.
"Thank you all for your guidance."
The scattered, bruised masters looked up at him with dark, utterly humiliated expressions. These men had served the ICA for years, training countless elite assassins and mercenaries. They were used to occasionally being surpassed by their greatest students.
In fact, several of them still vividly remembered training a strikingly handsome, bald young recruit a few years prior. That bald operative had also fought them all simultaneously and won.
But that bald recruit had taken over ten grueling minutes to defeat them and had absorbed several heavy blows in the process.
This young Asian man had dropped them all in under two minutes without suffering a single scratch.
The instructors had hit Hunter with everything they had. Their fists and shins had connected with his body, but the physical feedback felt like striking solid steel. Beneath his relatively lean frame, his muscle density was vastly superior to their own heavily conditioned bodies.
Terrifying strength, inhuman reflexes, monstrous durability, and a photographic learning capacity, the masters thought in collective dread. Is this kid a monster?
Eventually, a few of the conscious instructors picked themselves up. The others remained twitching on the floor—they were the ones who had attempted to use lethal or dirty strikes against Hunter, prompting him to hit them back with considerably more force.
The standing masters offered a stiff, silent bow of respect before limping out of the training room.
Hunter watched them leave with a satisfied smile. He knew he wouldn't be seeing them again. He had already drained them of all their useful techniques.
"Good work," Diana said, stepping into the room and handing him a clean towel and a chilled energy drink.
Hunter nodded his thanks. He cracked the drink open, taking a long sip before wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"It's not exactly private in here," Diana noted, gesturing toward the door. "Shall we talk somewhere else?"
Hunter agreed and followed her out.
His trip to New York had been incredibly fruitful. When he first arrived in the city over a week ago, he had spent the night at Jane's apartment.
The very next morning, Diana had personally picked him up, blindfolded him, and driven him two hours outside the city limits to this hidden bunker.
Hunter had originally only planned to stay for a week. However, his learning speed was so spectacular that the ICA voluntarily extended his training window.
They brought in elite scholars to teach him astronomy, celestial navigation, and oceanography to help him locate the island prison. Simultaneously, they continuously cycled through top-tier martial artists for him to spar against.
Hunter happily took advantage of the ICA's resources. Over the past ten days, he had unlocked seven entirely new System skills. Twelve of his existing skills gained massive amounts of experience.
By the end of the training camp, he had earned a staggering thirty-one attribute points. Not only did his physical combat power surge to new heights, but his extradimensional System Inventory also expanded by another thirty-one cubic meters.
Riding the high of his massive power boost, Hunter was in a fantastic mood.
When Diana led him into a quiet side room, she hesitated for a brief second before making her move.
"Hunter," she asked smoothly, "the ICA requires a standard medical and physical examination before deploying you on this contract. Would you be amenable to that?"
Feeling invincible, Hunter didn't even pause to consider the implications. He nodded instantly.
"No problem!"
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