"Letty, let me stay here for a few days!"
When Letty came home she found Mia waiting at her doorstep, already having enjoyed life's great harmony with her boyfriend.
Of course, she could see at a glance how Mia had changed.
Letty naturally knew how much her boyfriend cherished and cared about his little sister.
It was just that he wasn't good at expressing his feelings, and when it came to choosing Mia's future husband,
he seemed to have developed a stubborn obsession, which was why Vince had spent all these years
harassing Mia and making her life miserable.
Thinking of all this, Letty actually felt a lot of sympathy for Mia.
But she had a carefree personality; not only had she grown up with Dominic, she was also childhood friends with Vince.
Although Letty didn't much like Vince's crude ways, she didn't exactly hate him either.
Right now, Mia was clearly being led astray by an outsider—most likely that Asian young man from the garage.
Just imagining how her boyfriend and Vince would react once they found out
made Letty's scalp tingle.
"Mia, you can stay here as long as you like."
"But I have to let Dom know you're with me."
"You know how much Dom cares about you."
"So, whoever this punk is,"
"he's in for it this time."
Seeing her pitiful look, Letty's heart softened and she decided to take Mia in for now.
She knew her boyfriend would be furious; the only question was how big the explosion would be.
Mia opened her mouth, still wanting to plead on Hunter's behalf.
But she could guess that after hanging up on her big brother so many times yesterday,
and even smashing her phone when she'd been out of it,
Dom must have thought that the phone had been forcibly switched off by Hunter after she'd stayed out all night.
It was easy to imagine that his rage wouldn't be soothed by a simple apology.
Now even Sister Letty wasn't willing to speak up for her.
For a moment, Mia didn't know what to do.
After all, she was only eighteen and had dropped out of school not long ago.
Meanwhile, in a boxing club somewhere else,
Hunter, gloved up, was training under the guidance of a supposedly retired pro boxer.
Long ago, he'd suspected that boxing, martial arts, and the like could trigger skills.
He just hadn't been sure how to activate them
or how to raise them at the time.
Now, he'd confirmed his earlier guess.
After hiring a former pro at the club for two hundred us dollars an hour to coach him,
the instant he slipped on the gloves and threw his first punch,
the familiar cold mechanical voice of the Proficiency System rang out in his mind.
He'd gained a new skill.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Watching Hunter shuffle left and right, just as instructed, and pound the heavy bag again and again,
his coach, the ex-pro Eddie, clicked his tongue in admiration.
"Kid, I admit I underestimated you."
"At first glance, I thought you were some skinny rich kid with money to burn, here to blow off steam."
"Never expected such power hidden in that thin frame of yours."
"Not bad—you've got real potential for boxing."
"Ever thought about turning pro?"
Hunter stood about the same height as Eddie,
but their builds were worlds apart.
Eddie, a former pro, had clearly trained for mass.
His muscles bulged; at six-foot-two, he weighed at least two hundred and forty pounds—around a hundred and ten kilograms.
Hunter, though six-foot-three,
had only just pushed past eighty-two kilograms.
With nearly thirty kilos between them, to Eddie, Hunter really did look like a bamboo pole.
Hunter just smiled and said nothing.
His body was lean, but his muscles were defined—just not as exaggerated as Eddie's.
Dominic was about Hunter's height,
but outweighed him by more than twenty kilograms.
Clearly, Eddie and Dominic had focused their training on arms, legs, and core.
Hunter's body had been sculpted by the system's golden finger, every one of his five attributes rising in perfect balance.
So he might not look as bulky as Eddie or Dominic.
But if it came to a real contest, the outcome was far from certain.
At the very least, Hunter didn't believe Eddie could match his agility or stamina.
Once he'd grown used to his new strength, he began deliberately controlling the force of each punch.
Blow after blow still slammed viciously into the sandbag.
Yet Hunter's breathing grew easier and easier.
His stance and the angles of his punches became textbook-perfect.
He even had enough spare energy to chat with Eddie. "No need—I just wanted to train a bit."
"If I actually entered a match, this body wouldn't take more than a couple of hits."
Hunter even gestured, comparing their builds.
Eddie's vanity was thoroughly satisfied.
He laughed loudly, completely unaware that in the short three hours of his coaching the young Chinese-American across from him had already raised his boxing skill to Lv1—and the experience bar was still climbing.
Several hours later, in the shower room of another Shooting club.
Hunter stood in a private stall, washing the sweat from his body.
His naked frame looked unremarkable at first glance.
But had anyone walked in at that moment and seen the flawless musculature and definition from head to toe, they would have gasped aloud.
"Whew!"
He wiped the water from his face and toweled himself dry.
Not long before, under a professional Shooting coach's guidance,
he had fired more than seven hundred pistol rounds in four hours—at ten, twenty, and fifty meters—and finally pushed his Shooting skill to Lv3.
Just as Hunter had suspected, plenty of money could accelerate the experience gain of many skills.
A pity!
The twenty-thousand us dollars he'd gotten from Old Parker had shrunk to a last three thousand by the second night of his three-day holiday.
"Money really is a wonderful thing."
"Looks like I need to find a way to get more—fast."
With that thought, he quickly pulled on freshly laundered clothes.
After so much Shooting, the reek of gunpowder clung to him.
He didn't want some patrolling cop to collar and detain him the moment he left the club.
A shower had definitely been necessary.
Thus, freshly washed and in high spirits,
Hunter mounted his vintage bike and headed back to his apartment.
He had barely parked the old machine when
a furious shout rang out.
"Hold it right there!"
He looked toward the entrance of the building and saw a sleeveless-shirted white muscle-head charging at him, face twisted in rage.
None other than Vince!