Two Weeks, Preparing for Action
The sheer cliff on one side of Steve's sprawling luxury villa was nearly vertical at ninety degrees, dropping straight down like an unforgiving wall of jagged stone.
Moreover, on this treacherous cliff face, there weren't many protruding rocks or sturdy ancient trees where a rappelling rope could ever be securely hung.
The raw, physical difficulty of climbing straight up this natural barrier was truly, undeniably extraordinary.
Clearly, when the highly paranoid Steve bought this fortified villa, he had also seriously, meticulously studied this exact cliff's defensive capabilities.
Even a seasoned, world-class professional rock climber would find it incredibly difficult and highly lethal to scale this sheer cliff without extensive safety protection and climbing gear.
And a physical expert with such specialized, extreme abilities clearly did not currently exist within Charlie Croker's elite heist team.
Otherwise, given Steve's extreme caution and lethal prudence, he absolutely wouldn't have confidently left this specific cliff as the only vulnerable spot not aggressively blocked by towering concrete walls and lethal high-voltage electricity grids.
Standing quietly in the shadows at the rocky foot of the cliff, Arthur Sterling looked straight up at the towering precipice, his thick brow frowning deeply as he fell into calculated, heavy thought for a long, agonizing time.
Even though he possessed a supernatural proficiency system and his core physical constitution was already nearly twice that of a normal, healthy adult man.
And Arthur had also successfully triggered the [Climbing] skill earlier.
But this imposing cliff, which was nearly ninety degrees vertical and had almost zero reliable footholds.
Even a superhuman like him felt his scalp tingle with genuine, mortal danger just looking at the sheer drop.
With a terrifying height of nearly fifty meters and absolutely no viable way to use standard safety protection ropes.
A single, microscopic misstep, and even if his enhanced durability miraculously kept him from dying instantly from the massive fall, he might easily end up with shattered bones, severe internal hemorrhaging, or even permanent paraplegia.
But if he absolutely didn't go this highly dangerous, vertical route, Steve's fortified villa was aggressively protected by solid walls nearly three meters tall.
On top of those concrete walls were lethal high-voltage power grids, as well as dense, overlapping surveillance cameras and heavily armed guard protection.
Even with a complete, highly specialized team of master thieves, Charlie would have to use a massive amount of effort, high-tech hacking, and explosive means to forcefully break his way into Steve's luxury villa.
As for Arthur operating completely alone in the dark, he certainly couldn't execute a frontal assault against those guards.
Therefore, scaling the lethal cliff side was undeniably the absolute best, most stealthy shortcut into the vault. Even though it was incredibly, terrifyingly dangerous.
"It seems I absolutely need to properly and relentlessly level up my [Climbing] skill," Arthur reasoned silently, his dark eyes locked on the jagged stone.
"And while I am actively at it, I will heavily boost my various physical attributes too."
Over the next grueling two weeks, Arthur spent almost every single waking hour in a state of absolute, intense busyness.
Charlie hadn't officially taken any explosive action yet; the master thief just frequently drove the beautiful Stella out to the rugged vicinity of Steve's villa to meticulously observe the perimeter in secret for a while.
Arthur even saw from his shadows that on one specific occasion, the quirky hacker Lyle and a young Black getaway driver were quietly brought along to scout the heavily guarded location.
Clearly, Charlie Croker, the legendary master gold thief, was also still desperately figuring out exactly how to flawlessly break through the layered, military-grade defense system of Steve's fortress.
And exactly how to safely and securely take out the staggering ton of heavy gold bars hidden deep inside his vault in the absolute shortest possible time.
Thanks entirely to this slow, meticulous heist preparation from the primary crew, Arthur also organically gained two full weeks of highly precious, uninterrupted training time.
Every single morning and evening, he relentlessly went out for a grueling one-hour morning run and an exhausting night run to violently push his stamina limits.
During the bright day, he would also actively dedicate a few intense hours to either flawlessly putting on a theatrical disguise and tailing Steve to actively monitor his villa's routines,
Or smoothly tailing Stella through the city to gather far more tactical information about her daily life,
Or taking the proactive initiative to contact the genius Lyle and deeply learn highly advanced computer knowledge and network hacking,
Or heading straight to the gritty local clubs to rigorously practice his [Shooting], [Boxing], and go [Swimming] in the crashing ocean waves.
As for the dark nights, Arthur also had many highly passionate domestic arrangements to aggressively level up his other biological skills.
But among all the highly practical skills he aggressively prioritized upgrading during these two exhausting weeks. Without a single shadow of a doubt, it was his [Climbing] skill.
In the absolute blink of an eye, two full weeks passed in a blur of sweat and adrenaline.
In the past two weeks, several of Arthur's supernatural skills had officially leveled up one after another in rapid succession.
He had once again gained a staggering seventeen free attribute points, all of which he meticulously and evenly distributed among his various core attributes to build a perfect physique.
Now, among Arthur's five major physical and mental attributes, his absolute highest, Intelligence, had reached an astounding 23 points.
As for the other four core attributes, Strength and Agility had both successfully reached 21 points, while his Constitution and Endurance were both sitting solidly at 20 points.
Arthur's five major attributes had finally, officially all reached more than twice the genetic average of an ordinary, healthy adult male.
Along directly with this massive, terrifying physical evolution, his invisible dimensional private space had miraculously increased to a sprawling 71 cubic meters, growing larger and significantly more versatile.
However, although his raw, lethal strength had improved incredibly rapidly. Arthur was now becoming more and more intensely anxious about his current situation.
Because exactly as the levels of the skills he had successfully triggered increased, the system experience points heavily required to reach the next powerful tier had become more and more massive.
Arthur genuinely wasn't absolutely clear yet on exactly what the absolute maximum level for his supernatural skills could theoretically be.
However, over the past grueling month or so, as he relentlessly continued to explore the absolute limits of his cheat code.
Arthur had long ago discovered the harsh reality that the skills in the proficiency system required not only a massive, exhausting amount of time for dedicated practice to level up further.
But also a vast, staggering amount of physical resources consumed during the intense practice process.
And absolutely all of this rapid progression, in the bitter end, required cold hard money. A lot, a massive, unbelievable amount of money!
But in these two quiet weeks, aside strictly from Old Parker's side of the city.
The veteran mechanic had secretly arranged another highly illegal side job for Arthurb rapidly dismantling a stolen performance car in a dark chop shop, which easily earned him a small, quick profit of five thousand dollars. He had absolutely no other steady source of income!
And during this intense training time, Arthur's financial expenses to rapidly increase his skill experience points were completely beyond normal civilian imagination.
Watching the thick stacks of money in his pockets nearly empty out into nothing. The dark irritability in Arthur's racing heart was inevitably, heavily accumulating.
In a sprawling, capitalist paradise for the rich exactly like America, surviving without money was simply, fundamentally impossible.
So, Arthur logically knew that if he couldn't quickly and violently secure the mountain of gold from Steve's heavily guarded side. As a displaced transmigrator, he would be brutally forced to find a normal, mundane job and continue working like a dog just for survival money.
"Phew, time to head out!" Arthur muttered to himself, his voice a low, resolute rumble.
At exactly eight o'clock in the evening, inside his quiet, rented apartment.
Arthur meticulously made himself a delicious, highly nutritious dinner, and after completely finishing the heavy meal.
He carefully organized a highly expensive set of newly purchased professional rock climbing equipment in the living room once more, strictly verifying every steel carabiner, then smoothly stored it all directly into the invisible void of his private space.
He then accessed the void and took out all the heavily prepared steel tools one by one, rigorously checking them again to absolutely ensure they were secure and fail-safe.
Doing this exact kind of highly lethal, extreme physical infiltration for the very first time, Arthur undeniably felt both deeply excited and intensely apprehensive at this exact moment.
With an incredibly excited, hammering heart, he was completely ready to set off into the dark night.
Opening the heavy wooden door, he had just stepped out of the warm apartment into the hallway.
Arthur's calm, focused expression changed instantly, his muscles coiling tight with combat readiness.
In the dim, flickering fluorescent hallway of the sixth floor of the old apartment building, two burly, aggressive white men in heavy leather jackets were standing right there.
Both rugged men had thick, dark tattoos snaking up their muscular arms, and their eyes were incredibly cold and fiercely hostile.
One single, sweeping look from Arthur's trained eyes and you could instantly tell they were highly likely violent, active gang members.
The absolute moment Arthur pulled open the door and stepped out, the two suspected gang thugs immediately snapped their cold, threatening gazes his way.
However, their aggressive gaze only lingered on Arthur's imposing, athletic frame for a brief, calculating moment before quickly withdrawing, dismissing him as an immediate threat to their operation.
But Arthur's supernaturally enhanced senses still keenly, undeniably felt that there were other, far more lethal eyes still actively watching him from the deep shadows of the corridor.
"Is it Léon?" Arthur wondered silently, keeping his handsome face a flawless mask of stone.
On the quiet sixth floor of this old apartment building, absolutely all four apartments were currently rented out.
He lived securely in 6A, and 6B was quietly rented by an elderly, unassuming couple.
6C was the chaotic, abusive home of the young Mathilda, and the heavily secured 6D was highly suspected to be rented by the legendary hitman, Léon.
However, this incredibly cool, lethal hitman, who clearly seemed to suffer from some severe social communication barriers, rarely ever went out into the daylight.
Arthur had been living comfortably in this apartment building for nearly a full month now.
He had only seen the quiet man a few fleeting times; when Arthur took the polite, neighborly initiative to greet him in the hall, Léon would only look at him with cold, dead eyes, at absolute most giving a tiny, almost imperceptible nod as a silent response.
So much so that Arthur, who desperately wanted to become highly familiar and connected with the elite underworld hitman. Hadn't even successfully managed to have a single, proper verbal conversation with Léon yet.
Logically realizing it should absolutely be Léon silently observing him from the dark cracks of a doorway. Arthur didn't show any abnormal, panicked reaction at all!
He knew perfectly well that the highly paranoid Léon was highly likely alerted by these two aggressive gang members who had suddenly, violently barged into the quiet apartment building.
With his core physical attributes already well over twice that of an ordinary adult man, Arthur could even faintly, clearly hear the violent, muffled commotion currently happening inside Mathilda's chaotic home.