Chapter 31: Progress, Stagnation

Downloading the PDFs was not much of a hassle for Michael. The only issue that he had was about downloading the videos.

Until now, he had downloaded quite a number of videos. And, had it not been for the fact that his phone’s storage was quite high, the phone would have already been filled up by the videos.

Still, Michael went ahead and deleted all the other videos that he had downloaded before, then downloaded the videos related to advanced level unarmed combat skills.

For the advanced level, most of the skills involved techniques that allowed a person to be able to deal with an opponent who was armed.

It was basically about fighting against an armed opponent, while being unarmed.

Additionally, it was also related to spotting the weaknesses of a person, depending on the move that they would make.

It took Michael less than an hour to be able to download all the resources that he needed.

Immediately after that, he began reading. And a few minutes later, there was a prompt from the system.

[Advanced level of unarmed combat skill. Progress: 1%.]

Michael felt his nerves relax as soon as he received the prompt from the system.

The reason why he had decided to go with the unarmed combat skill instead of the driving skill was quite simple.

That was, he thought, if he could gain advanced level unarmed combat skills, he would end up receiving an enhancement.

Additionally, in case he faced Dante and his lackeys sooner than he expected, he would be able to at least deal with them.

Logically speaking, since he was aiming for the SP, he should have gone for the driving skill.

But, Michael thought, the unarmed combat skill was more practical.

What was the use of having a high level driving skill, if he did not even have a chance of getting into the car?

Gaining an advanced level skill might not allow him to dodge bullets, but still, with enhanced reflexes, he might be able to react before someone pulled the trigger.

With that, his chances of survival would increase.

As he concentrated on reading, the time flowed as usual, with him not even realizing it.

Later on, he received a call, before being informed about the food being delivered to his suite.

After dinner, Michael continued reading, while trying to gauge how long it might take him to be able to advance the skill to the advanced level.

By the time that he was about to sleep, Michael realized that the progress bar had increased to 3%.

This was quite slow, which was something that he had already anticipated.

Judging by an increase of 3% in less than half a day, there was a probability of increasing the progress bar by 7% a day.

Doing some quick calculations, Michael found that it would take him at least 2 weeks.

But, this was obviously not considering the situation where the progress bar would stagnate for quite a while.

If he experienced such a situation, sometimes, it might take only a short while for him to be able to solve it, or it might take longer.

Since it was going to take at least 2 weeks for him to be able to progress the combat skill to the advanced level, Michael hoped that Dante would not come looking for him.

In real sense, there was not much of a grievance between himself and Dante, at least from Dante’s side.

No matter how much he thought about it, Michael could not find any reason why Dante would relentlessly come looking for him.

He had not stolen anything from them, and neither had he actively provoked them.

He had only disappeared, and until now, he had not reported them for any of the crimes that they had committed.

So, he believed, there was a great possibility that Dante would not actively come looking for him.

But still, there was that possibility, no matter how small. Additionally, if he met with Dante, there was no doubt that he would actively try bringing him back, or would strike at him.

No matter what, Michael just hoped that since he had been staying within the presidential suite all this while, he would not interact with Dante and his minions.

With him not stepping out of the presidential suite for the past few days, he hoped to keep a low profile, reducing interactions as much as possible.

But at the same time, Michael was kind of worried, maybe his actions might raise some people’s brows.

They definitely would be wondering, what was he doing inside the presidential suite that he never stepped out?

’Hopefully, I will be able to stay within the hotel even during next week and the week after that. Then, I can look for another place to stay, or just find a method of leaving the city.’ Michael thought to himself as he went to bed.

….

Three more days went by just like that. And with this, it was the final day of his stay at the hotel.

Of course, if Michael wanted to continue staying within the hotel, he could make a payment to extend his stay.

Now, just after the lunch break, with the waiter having already cleared out the table, Michael was still sitting at the dining table, contemplating.

For the past 3 days, he had been observing, trying to see if there was anything suspicious about the two people that usually served him food.

But so far, he had not noticed anything that was out of place. Despite how curious the two of them were, they did not show any other signs.

Now, Michael was not sure if he should continue staying here, or leave. Though, he was more inclined on staying, as he had kind of gotten used to staying here.

If he wanted to stay here the following day, he would have to make the payment today.

’I guess I will have to go all in. Let’s extend my stay here for a week. After that, I should leave.

Even though I might still need a few days to advance the skill to the advanced level, it is better to be cautious.’ Michael thought as he took a deep breath.

The probability of Dante visiting this place was not that high. But even then, there was always that probability.

As for the connection with anyone within the hotel, there was also a possibility. It did not necessarily need to be a high level staff member of the hotel, even a low level one was enough.

All that was needed after all was to just expose his presence within the hotel to Dante.

It was for this reason that Michael was kind of worried that staying here for a long while, while maintaining the same routine, would inevitably attract unwanted attention.

Even if it was not from Dante, someone else might be attracted to what he was doing, and cause him unnecessary trouble.

And right now, the least that Michael wanted was to have another enemy. It was already troublesome to deal with Dante, and now, Michael did not want to add another.

Having already made a decision, Michael went back to the bedroom, before making a call to the front desk.

After that, he informed the person at the front desk that he wanted to extend his stay by a week.

After that, he made the payment, spending yet another $12,830. With that, his bank balance was brought down to $57,382.

After making the payment, Michael continued with the reading, deciding not to focus on anything else that might distract him.

….

A week later, Michael had already spent 14 days at the hotel.

It was 10 days since he began reading about unarmed combat skills, in order to improve his combat skills to the advanced level.

Just as Michael had previously estimated, the progress was more or less as he had expected.

Currently, the progress bar had reached 61%, with only 39% left to go.

In order to advance this skill, Michael had downloaded quite a large number of PDFs as compared to before.

It was clear, the amount of information required for the progress of the intermediate skill to the advanced level was higher and more complex as compared to leveling up a beginner level skill to the intermediate level.

It was just that, it was not that easy to be able to find the information that he wanted.

After all, sometimes, even though the PDFs contained different information, some points were just a repetition of the other PDFs that he had already read before.

It was due to the repetition that the progress bar had not reached 70%, which was the exact estimation that he had made.

But even then, now, all that he needed to do was to start watching videos.

Since morning, he had been reading PDFs, but in the end, there was no progress at all.

This implied, he had only gotten some progress for the past 9 days, and today, the 10th day, there was no progress at all.

By the end of the day, according to the estimation that he had originally made, he was supposed to hit the 70% mark.

But according to the current progress, if there was some progress on this day, he should have managed to push the progress bar to about 65% or 66%.

“I will use some of this time in order to start packing. That way, I can leave tomorrow.” Michael mumbled in a low voice as he stood up and headed to the bedroom.

But then again, he thought of something. Previously, due to him using the shopping bags to carry his items, it brought about some inconvenience.

So he thought, why not send someone to buy a suitcase for him?

No sooner had he thought about this that he made a call to the front desk, asking them if they could have someone purchase a suitcase for him.

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