"As expected!"
Discovering that Dominic and the others had moved again to hijack trucks on the highway,
Hunter thought back to how Mia hadn't appeared at all during this time.
His doubts immediately vanished into thin air.
As one of the most famous underground street racers in California, and even the entire West Coast region of the United States.
Dominic and his crew were undeniably famous.
Over the past few years, in California—the state with the strongest economy in the United States—
a series of truck robberies had been occurring on the highways.
Those highway bandits who dared to hijack trucks clearly operated as a team.
Because Dominic and his crew only stole goods and didn't kill anyone, the hijacked truck drivers basically all survived.
As a result, both the California Police and the FBI
had collected a large amount of useful information related to these highway bandits.
Among the most important pieces of information were reports from the truck drivers,
stating that the highway bandits who robbed them not only coordinated seamlessly but also possessed incredibly impressive Driving Skills.
Even their vehicles were clearly modified.
With so much information in the hands of the California Police and the FBI,
the difficulty of their investigation had decreased significantly.
The reason Dominic and the others hadn't been exposed yet
was not only due to the constant bickering between the California Police and the FBI,
but also because Dominic and his crew were sufficiently cautious and alert.
According to Hunter's investigation during this period, after Dominic and his crew set their sights on a certain shipment of goods,
they would start gathering intelligence, carefully planning, and simulating their action routes and schemes.
During this process, they would very cautiously scout the terrain and begin preparations for the robbery.
Until the operation began, not a word would leak out.
Afterward, they would also wait carefully for a period of time.
Only after confirming it was safe would they start becoming active again.
So, the fact that Mia hadn't visited Hunter lately might be related to Dominic's restrictions.
But he felt it was more likely because Dominic and his crew had an operation going on, so she had been partially grounded.
However, after Hunter reached this conclusion, he didn't care too much.
Because lately, he had been burying himself in improving his various skills.
His attention had long since been drawn to grinding skill experience points to enhance his strength.
Consequently, Hunter no longer felt the irritability and gloom of those first few days when he hadn't seen Mia!
Another day's work ended, and Hunter was again the last to finish.
Recently, after his Repair skill reached level 4, he found that to level up to the next rank, he needed a full ten thousand experience points.
Moreover, as the skill level increased,
fixing minor car troubles now yielded less than a third of the experience points he used to get.
Actually, Hunter had already noticed these issues before.
But before the skill reached level 3, the diminishing returns on experience points weren't this obvious.
He just hadn't expected the drop to be so significant after the skill level reached level 4.
So lately, even if the Repair shop had no extra work, Hunter would take the initiative to find some Repair jobs for himself.
Every little bit counts, and he continued to gain more experience points.
After everyone else had left, Hunter was in no hurry to leave the Repair shop.
He had already received a hint from Old Parker in the afternoon and knew there would definitely be a side job today.
Recently, Hunter's Driving Skill, Culinary Skill, and Shooting skill hadn't improved much.
It couldn't be helped; the Driving Skill consumed too much fuel.
Culinary Skill required buying a large amount of ingredients and seasonings, because the rarer the delicacy, the higher the experience points gained.
And the Shooting skill required consuming a large amount of ammunition.
Furthermore, gaining experience for this skill required accurately hitting targets within a certain range.
So as the Shooting skill level increased, the Shooting distance would increase accordingly.
Therefore, after barely raising his Shooting skill to level 2,
Hunter found that he felt like a novice again, just like when he first transmigrated and touched a firearm for the first time.
Lately, he had been planning to go to a gun store to buy a semi-automatic rifle.
All of this required money.
So, Hunter didn't mind side jobs at all.
He needed more money to upgrade his various skills, and taking side jobs from Old Parker
was currently the only way for Hunter to quickly earn us dollars.
He could only blame his predecessor for being too useless,
which made Hunter's starting point in this life a bit low.
Old Parker had gone somewhere, making him wait for nearly half an hour before returning from outside.
"Damn it, hey, sorry, Hunter, I'm late getting back."
Old Parker had originally been worried that Hunter had already gone home.
Seeing him still at the Repair shop, the smile on his face grew even wider.
"Let's go, I'll buy you a couple of drinks."
Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Parker, what's the situation today?"
"Get in the car, we'll talk as we go."
Old Parker waved at him with a smile, then went over to lock the Repair shop's main gate.
Seeing Hunter get into his old-model Bumblebee and look around the interior,
Old Parker smiled and said to Hunter, "You should buy a car."
Hunter nodded; he had the same idea.
But buying a car wasn't something you could just do on a whim; even a used car would cost at least several thousand us dollars.
Then to Repair it a bit to get it in better condition, or even close to a new car,
even with Hunter—who now had level 4 Repair skills—doing the work himself, it would still take at least several thousand us dollars.
He had so many skills now that were very expensive to upgrade.
Moreover, compared to a used car,
Hunter actually wanted to buy a new car with great modification potential and then enhance it bit by bit himself.
During this time at Old Parker's Repair shop,
he had learned a lot of modification techniques and even picked up some illegal modification tricks while doing side jobs.
Therefore, Hunter was confident that by spending seventy or eighty thousand us dollars at most, he could create a car no worse than a luxury car worth hundreds of thousands.
But right now, he had no money!
"No money!"
Hunter didn't hide it and answered Old Parker directly.
Old Parker clearly understood his situation well, so he smiled and comforted him. "Don't worry, with your Repair skills and learning ability,"
"Hunter, before long,"
"you will surely become the most famous vehicle modification master in all of Los Angeles, even California."
"When that time comes, you'll have as much money as you want."