Discovering he was being watched, Hunter, having returned from Boston, decided not to rush to meet Mia or Stella.
Even with Teri, he only took time to visit her secretly late at night.
During one of these covert visits, Hunter gave her a new phone.
He solemnly warned her that all her old bank cards, social media accounts, and digital footprints were strictly off-limits.
Over the next few days, he noticed a few recurring faces tailing him.
Although they acted professionally and kept a good distance...
Hunter, with his increasingly superior memory, still spotted these shadows.
Based on their behavior, he was almost certain: these stalkers were from the FBI.
Because they needed evidence of Dom's hijacked goods to convict him.
In the past, every time Dom's crew hijacked a truckload of electronics on the California highways...
They would quickly liquidate the goods through various channels.
Dom was meticulous, which was why the California police hadn't caught them for years.
This time, although the FBI had identified him...
Without Hunter's intervention, Dom's crew would have been exposed for sure.
But!
Hunter had intervened.
The most direct evidence—millions of dollars worth of electronics—had been transported away by Hunter and sold in Boston.
As the world's most complex market and the largest nation for smuggling...
Once any product entered the US black market, trying to find it again...
Was harder than asking Dom to rob another truck right now and get caught red-handed by the FBI.
If the massive and complex US smuggling market were that easy to track and clean up...
This country wouldn't be the world's largest smuggling hub.
So, Hunter wasn't actually worried about the FBI watching him.
He knew clearly that even if they suspected him, they couldn't find any evidence.
All Hunter needed to do was temporarily cut contact with Dom's crew.
If he had to pinpoint one thing that might leave him vulnerable to FBI suspicion...
It was probably that $600,000 payment.
But during his few days in Boston and Springfield, Hunter had already withdrawn all that money in cash.
That bank card was now effectively dead.
Even if the FBI investigated and found the transfer record from Dom...
Hunter could simply claim it was the fee Mia paid him for helping bail them out previously.
Whether the FBI believed it or not didn't matter!
Because they couldn't find further evidence proving Hunter helped smuggle the stolen goods.
In the US, it wasn't hard for the FBI to suspect a regular person of a crime and eventually convict them.
They manufactured quite a few wrongful convictions every year. There were even legal aid organizations specifically watching the FBI for this.
But they were a violent institution and a key US intelligence agency.
Once an ordinary person was framed by the FBI, it was trouble.
However, framing a rich man for a crime? That wasn't something the FBI could do casually.
Hunter wasn't short on money now. Compared to the FBI, he was actually more worried about the IRS (Internal Revenue Service).
That was one of the reasons why he withdrew the $600,000 the moment it hit his account.
After making targeted preparations for potential weak points...
Hunter, fully prepared, stopped caring about the FBI agents tailing him, acting as if they didn't exist.
After all, on the surface, he was just an ordinary Asian youth who had just come of age.
A few months ago, he was just a regular mechanic.
Significant changes had happened to him in recent months.
It wasn't something that could be explained in a few sentences.
Anyway, Hunter was ready, waiting for the FBI's next move.
So, he wasn't panicked at all.
Taking advantage of the time while he was under surveillance and couldn't contact Mia or Stella...
Hunter went out early every day, keeping himself busy.
With money, plans he previously had could now be put into practice.
Hunter signed up for many training classes: tennis, badminton, basketball, gym, Taekwondo, and Judo.
He actually visited Los Angeles Chinatown as well, but unexpectedly, he didn't trigger any skills there...
Otherwise, with his [Proficiency System], Hunter would definitely have seriously learned some martial arts for self-defense.
Through learning boxing, he had realized the necessity of combat skills.
Western combat techniques mostly followed a simple and practical route.
Boxing, Taekwondo, and Judo were all fairly similar in that regard.
After raising his [Boxing] skill above Lv 3...
Hunter gradually discovered that without combat techniques, fighting relied entirely on physical stats, endurance, and stamina.
But with high-level, practical combat skills, one could use 70%, 60%, or even 20-30% of their strength to easily knock down an opponent.
Not only was it more efficient, but it also saved a lot of stamina.
In terms of complexity and technique...
Chinese martial arts (fist forms, leg methods, etc.) were far more complex than boxing, Taekwondo, or Judo.
After all, these were experiences and combat techniques summarized by ancestors over hundreds or thousands of years.
They were tailored to the physique of Chinese people, mostly aiming to defeat the strong with the weak, or the many with the few.
Unfortunately, after Hunter toured LA Chinatown...
He found a few martial arts dojos.
But upon entering, he discovered they were either Karate, Judo, or Taekwondo schools selling dog meat as mutton (false advertising).
Or they were straight-up scammers, preventing Hunter from even triggering a skill.
However, after a few days passed and tens of thousands of dollars were spent...
With the dedicated coaching of over a dozen private instructors...
The levels of the dozen-plus new skills Hunter triggered had all increased by at least two levels.
Hunter proved his earlier speculation was correct.
With the [Proficiency System], he could pay elites from all walks of life to teach him various professional skills.
Gain experience points rapidly, level up skills, and thereby obtain a massive amount of Skill Points.
For Hunter, this was undoubtedly excellent news.
Because it meant that one day in the future, he really could become an omniscient, omnipotent existence.
Well, provided the Proficiency System didn't have a level cap.
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