Awakening from a brief sleep!
As soon as he opened his eyes, Hunter quickly noticed it.
The vigorous vitality and abundant strength now surging through his body.
Hunter naturally knew why this feeling had arisen.
With a thought, the light panel of the proficiency system appeared before him.
Hunter swept his gaze across it and at once saw displayed:
[Host: Hunter]
[Lifespan: 18/72]
[intelligence: 33]
[Strength: 31]
[agility: 30]
[constitution: 30]
[endurance: 30]
[Free attribute points: 0]
...private space: 122 cubic meters... Just yesterday, under Hunter's frantic spending, several more skills had leveled up after gaining sizable chunks of experience.
Now, at last, every one of his five core attributes had been boosted to more than triple that of an average adult male.
Feels great!
Feeling the seemingly endless torrent of power within his body,
Hunter knew full well that this was merely an illusion.
But he loved the sensation—the feeling of being brimming with strength and vitality truly lifted his mood.
Along the way, Hunter also discovered that
after all five attributes had surpassed three times the adult male average, he had gone to bed only after two in the morning last night.
Yet it was barely six-thirty now; having slept a mere four-plus hours,
Hunter felt not the slightest bit of fatigue.
Instead, his mind had never felt clearer.
For the moment he couldn't be sure whether this was a positive side-effect of the across-the-board attribute increase,
or simply because he was riding a wave of excitement today.
He decided to test it a few more times over the coming days before drawing any conclusions.
Whew!
As usual, he stepped into the bathroom for a cold shower.
Then, wearing only boxer briefs, Hunter came out toweling himself off.
He knew his apartment was very likely under FBI surveillance.
Still, Hunter kept pretending he had no idea.
To throw them off!
These past few nights, whenever the lonely divorcée next door dropped by to offer some neighborly warmth,
Hunter swallowed the weird feeling and acted as though he didn't know he was being watched,
performing the grand dance of life in his apartment with that enthusiastic neighbor lady.
Who knows whether those presumed FBI Agents
privately marveled more at Hunter's extraordinary gifts or at his stamina and skill, far beyond any normal adult male.
In any case, feeling he owed the eager neighbor something,
Hunter had decided that once Matilda's greedy father was exposed for stashing someone else's drugs,
he would pull the woman to safety the instant things blew up.
As for Matilda and the rest of her family—
regrettably, they were not under his protection.
After all,
ever since that rebellious little girl discovered the relationship between Hunter and her mother,
she had shown him not the slightest hint of warmth or curiosity.
By mid-to-late June, summer was already palpable in Los Angeles.
Even though it was still early morning, the heat spread with the rising sun, quickly blanketing the city.
Hunter had only been toweling off for a moment when he noticed that
the moisture on his untouched skin had already evaporated in the scorching air.
Though he had no exhibitionist streak and knew the place was bugged,
as his muscles edged toward perfection Hunter increasingly enjoyed flaunting them.
Yes, he liked letting women see and fall under the spell,
and he equally enjoyed letting men see and burn with envy.
So Hunter pulled on only a pair of boxers and set about preparing a lavish spread for himself.
Then, unhurried, he ate alone.
In the end, after consuming nearly two or three times what an average adult male could manage,
Hunter finally felt a faint sense of fullness and stopped.
He washed the dishes, wiped the table, and gave the apartment a quick once-over.
After all, that warm-hearted lady next door had dropped by last night.
When she left, her legs had been trembling so badly
that, without the wall for support, she probably couldn't have made it back to her own place right next door.
Naturally, Hunter hadn't expected her to help clean up.
Eyeing the scattered tissues and contraceptive wrappers, he swept them into the trash can in a few quick motions.
He tied the bag shut, planning to dump everything when he went out later.
Once that was done, he washed up briefly.
Only then did he change into fresh clothes, ready to head out.
Today Hunter had no intention of visiting clubs or dojos to grind skills and levels.
He had business to attend to.
A week had already passed since he'd spirited Tali out of Boston.
Without any ID, she'd been stuck in the rental unit,
brightening only on the rare occasions Hunter came by.
Determined to see the rescue through, he'd arranged for her to receive new documents.
They were fake—yet, strictly speaking, not entirely so.
First, he'd contacted the outfit that had once forged his passport, commissioning a full set of bogus birth and school records for Tali.
With those in hand, he'd already approached a Los Angeles insurer to open a premium medical plan in her name.
Armed with that pricey coverage, Hunter would take her to a similarly expensive private hospital.
There, he'd have a new medical card issued for her.
Once the card was in her possession, the fake identity data would
be entered into the U.S. federal medical-insurance system, turning it into government-endorsed information.
Tali would thus gain a brand-new, federally recognized identity.
None of this was particularly clever; if the FBI or similar agencies took a serious look,
they could still sniff out the seams.
So lately, whenever Hunter visited Tali, he made sure to shake the Bureau tails first.
He didn't know how much longer they'd stay patient, but their supply had to be running low.
After a quick disguise, he grabbed the trash bags and started downstairs.
On the fourth-floor landing he caught the faint sounds coming from one of the apartments.
He knew several FBI Agents had moved into that unit a few days earlier.
Clearly, they were growing restless.
And today, equally short on patience for their cat-and-mouse game, Hunter planned to bait the hook.
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