"It's open!"
Hunter's hand, gripping the handle of the safe, trembled uncontrollably with excitement.
Although he was a transmigrator with a System cheat...
In his past life, he was just an ordinary office worker and movie buff.
Across two lifetimes, the most money he had ever made was the $600,000 Dom paid him a couple of days ago for delivering the stolen goods to Boston.
Even with just that $600,000, Hunter knew his strength could soar if he invested it wisely.
After all, he had possessed the proficiency system for nearly three months.
He had long discovered that gaining XP for many skills didn't just cost time.
It also consumed a lot of materials.
Moreover, if he wanted to level up quickly...
Hiring experts and masters for one-on-one tutoring was the best shortcut.
And all of that cost money!
That was why he had taken the risk.
Before Charlie and his team could execute their revenge on Steve, Hunter had preemptively stolen the two safes—suspected to contain nearly a ton of gold—from Steve's villa.
And now, it was harvest time.
Thinking of this, he could no longer suppress the pounding in his chest.
Hunter took a deep breath.
Then, he yanked the handle.
The heavy safe door, weighing over a hundred pounds on its own, swung open.
Instantly, a dazzling golden brilliance flooded out, so bright Hunter had to squint.
"Gold bars..."
"So many gold bars..."
"It's all gold..."
His eyes swept over the contents of the safe.
His breathing became heavy.
In two lifetimes, this was the first time he had seen so many "little cuties."
The rows of glittering yellow bricks were dizzying.
Hunter's eyes turned red, and his face flushed with excitement.
He reached out with both hands and picked up a gold bar in each.
The heavy weight in his hands filled him with immense satisfaction.
"This density... definitely over ten kilos."
Noticing something unique about the bar, Hunter inspected it closely.
Stamped onto the surface by a master engraver was the image of a sexy, charming Balinese dancer.
The engraving added a touch of artistry to the raw wealth.
Calling it a work of art wasn't an exaggeration.
But Hunter's gaze only lingered on the dancer for a moment.
He flipped the bar over without hesitation to check the specifications.
There, stamped clearly, was a line of text.
"400 oz. t"
"It's a 400-ounce standard bar!"
The ounce (troy ounce) was a common unit of measurement in the West for precious metals.
One troy ounce was approximately 31.1035 grams.
The "400 oz" bar was the standard "Good Delivery" bar used in international markets. Its dimensions were typically 185mm x 76mm x 17mm.
It weighed 400 troy ounces, or approximately 12.441 kilograms.
Such bars generally had a purity of 99.5% or higher.
Hunter had transmigrated to 2003.
He had checked gold prices recently.
Right now, gold was trading at around $390 per ounce.
In other words, a single one of these 400-ounce bars...
Was worth over $150,000 just in raw gold value.
And clearly, there wasn't just one such bar in the two safes he stole from Steve.
Suppressing his excitement, he hurriedly began transferring the bars one by one.
From Steve's safe into his much more secure Personal Inventory.
As he moved them, he counted.
"1, 2, 3..."
"78, 79, 80..."
"182..."
"Just as I guessed!"
"The total weight of the gold Charlie's crew stole from the Italian mob in Venice was definitely more than one ton."
Hunter had been puzzled before.
He remembered The Italian Job movie mentioning the gold's value was over $37 million.
But after arriving in this world and checking the 2003 gold prices ($390/oz)...
If they had only stolen one ton of gold, the value would be at most $12-13 million.
He had wondered if it was a plot hole or if he remembered wrong.
Now it seemed there was no plot hole.
Hunter had just underestimated the haul.
Charlie's crew had stolen far more than a ton from the gangsters in Venice a year ago.
Just the 182 bars in this first safe were worth over $28 million at current prices.
And he still had another safe to open.
Hunter's breathing became ragged.
He quickly stored the now-empty Worthington 1000 safe into his Inventory.
Even empty, the safe itself was worth tens of thousands.
Whether he repaired it to sell on the black market or kept it for personal use, it was valuable.
Then, he pulled out the second Worthington 1000 safe he stole from Steve.
With his previous experience, it only took him seven or eight minutes to crack this one.
Full of anticipation, Hunter pulled the door open.
When he saw the contents, he paused for a moment, then began counting happily.
The second safe didn't have as many gold bars as the first.
Hunter counted quickly. There were only 29 bars here.
Adding them to the 182 from the first safe, he had a total of 211 of these 400-ounce behemoths.
At current prices, the gold alone was worth nearly $33 million.
But what excited Hunter even more was that the second safe contained more than just gold.
Stacks of "Benjamins"—$100 bills—were piled inside.
There were also several bundles of €500 notes.
Besides the cash, there were six luxury watches, a bag of diamonds weighing over 100 grams (2 liang), several property deeds, and some bearer bonds.
Hunter made a rough estimate. The total value of the loot from the two safes definitely exceeded $40 million.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say he had stolen almost all of Steve's liquid assets.
Suddenly, Hunter understood everything.
"No wonder Steve went crazy."
"No wonder he used every connection to find Stella and kidnap her to force Charlie out."
"I stole his entire fortune."
"If I were him, I'd go mad too!"
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