At the moment, Michael did not have a solution to the current problem. So, he could only proceed with reading the book, hoping that he would progress.
But, even after he had read for almost 2 hours, the progress had not increased at all. It was still stuck at 70%, making him feel slightly frustrated.
The frustration, added with the fact that he did not sleep the previous day, made Michael begin feeling his eyes getting heavy.
With no any other choice, Michael decided to sleep. He thought, he would just sleep, wake up the following day and continue reading.
It was a good thing that he had no plans of going out, indicating that he would only need to wake up, read for an entire day, sleep, then continue the following day.
With those thoughts, he jumped onto the comfy bed, feeling more relaxed. As compared to the small bed from before, this was way much better.
The only thing on his mind at the moment was about reading, making him forget about all the past events including the gangsters.
With his mind lost in those thoughts, he descended into slumber, dreaming about a bright future.
....
While Michael was comfortably sleeping, the same could not be said about the gangsters from the Shadow assembly gang.
At the moment, inside an old warehouse that was located on the outskirts of the city, majority of the members of the gang had gathered.
The expressions on their faces told it all, none of them was in a good mood. They stood within the warehouse, gazing towards a figure that was seated upon a luxurious chair that looked out of place in the warehouse.
The warehouse itself was quite empty, as it was abandoned long ago. In fact, most of the buildings in the surrounding areas had been abandoned, as the previous owners of those buildings had been relocated.
At the moment, inside the warehouse, everyone remained silent as they looked at the figure on the chair.
"Anyone with an idea on how to deal with this situation?" The figure suddenly spoke, breaking the silence with his heavy and rough voice.
The crowd shuddered upon hearing the voice, but nobody responded to the question asked.
As Dante was getting impatient, finally, one of the gangsters took a step forward.
As he stepped forward, he said with a shaky voice, "Leader, the Blood Tiger gang went too far this time. Normally, we usually solve our conflicts by ourselves.
But this time, they actually involved the police. We had to lose several of our brothers because of the goods that the police took, and the losses cannot be ignored."
When he said those words, it was as if he had finally broken the ice that was freezing the throats of the other gangsters around him.
"That's right. Those bastards failed to raid our base, now they decided to involve the police."
"If they have guts, then they should come and fight us head on."
"Yeah, they are b*tches, using underhanded tricks."
As more and more gangsters began speaking, the entire warehouse suddenly became as noisy as an open market.
This drastically irritated Dante, as he slammed onto the armrest of the chair, sending the warehouse into silence.
"I don't want you to speak nonsense. What you are saying does not help with the current situation. I want you to tell me, who the f*ck ratted us out?
We did not have the goods within the basement for several days, but only just one day after we brought them, the police suddenly carried out a raid." Dante said in a chilling voice.
After he spoke, nobody else within the warehouse spoke again. Instead, they began contemplating, with some of them showing frowns on their faces.
It was pretty clear that the majority of them did not understand what Dante was implying. Could it be that there was actually a mole within the gang?
It was not much of a surprise that there would be moles from different gangs within the other gangs.
It was just that, for those that could be found within the main base of a gang were all trusted core members.
And in order to be able to get the information on the operations of the gang, it was inevitable that one had to be a core member.
But to become one, investigation on the person's background was thoroughly carried out, making sure that they would not bring in an enemy.
"Boss, there is someone that I suspect." Suddenly, a gangster with an obese frame and a face full of beards raised his hand and spoke.
"Speak." Dante said as he gazed at the person who had spoken.
"I suspect that accounting kid. That kid always went to the basement, and he surely knows a lot of information. While he has never been caught entering the other rooms, that does not prevent him from knowing what we had down there.
Additionally, while everyone was waiting for you to get us out, he was released early in the morning today. I suspect that he is related to the raid that was carried out, and there is a probability that he is the mole."
When the other gangsters heard that, they thought about it, realizing that this might actually be true. After all, among all the people that they interacted with, Michael was the person that they interacted with the least.
The event that had occurred on the previous day was something that did not actually require much information. Just knowing that the goods were in the basement was enough.
But upon hearing those words, Dante simply shook his head as he said, "That is nearly impossible. I know that kid. It has been several years, and I already know his character.
The probability that he betrayed us is extremely low. There has to be someone else, and we need to find out who.
Still, I want you to find that kid. I'm not sure where he went to, but you have to find him. Bring him back.
If he doesn't want to cooperate, just beat him up and bring him over."
The others nodded. And since the discussion did not yield the results that he wanted, Dante rose up from his seat and left the warehouse, still fuming, with the others following suit.
...
Michael woke up the next day, not knowing that he had been suspected, and was required to be brought back to the gang by Dante.
The first thing that he did after waking up was to freshen up, and after that, he went into the study, before he began reading.
He continued with the book that he had been reading the previous day, intending to finish it first.
By the time that it was 7:34 a.m., Michael decided not to go down to get breakfast. Instead, he decided to order take away.
It was going to be slightly expensive as compared to eating in the restaurant, but Michael did not care about the small amount of money.
Additionally, he understood, if he continuously left the apartment, there was a probability that he might encounter a gangster that knew him.
If that happened, then things would get out of hand, and he might be forced to face the gang when he was not ready.
Making the order was not that difficult, as the restaurant was quite popular, and had its own small website. So, he just accessed it, before making an order.
Several minutes later, there was a knock at the door. When he looked outside through the peephole, Michael found that it was a person who came to deliver food.
Michael took the food, before going back to the kitchen. Sitting at the dining table, he ate, after which, he went back into the study to continue reading.
As time went on, and he had already read more than ⅔ of the book, Michael finally realized that the percentage had increased slightly.
Finally, the progression had reached 72%, increasing by 2%. This was somehow frustrating, because, if this was going to be the progress, then it was going to be too slow for him.
Considering his current situation, he needed fast progress, just like the previous day. Still, there was no solution to the current problem for the time being.
So, he continued reading, until almost noon when he finally finished reading the book. This book was slightly bigger as compared to the one that he had read the previous day.
After he was done, finally, the progress had reached 78%. At this point, he still needed 22% in order to be able to reach beginner level of chef skills.
After finishing reading the book, Michael did not immediately take another book to read. Instead, he began contemplating, could it be that there was something that he was missing?
He thought about the system, and the screen popped up in front of him. Looking at it, he began scrolling down the messages that he had received, all the way back to the start.
He began reading from there, wanting to see if there was something that he had missed.
But even after he had gone through all the information on the panel, Michael did not find anything that could help with the current situation.
As he fell into a moment of contemplation, he suddenly thought of something else.
The moment that he thought about it, he took action. He took his phone, connected to the floor's Wi-Fi, before he began searching for videos related to culinary.
Since he was starting at the beginner level, he searched for videos related to the introduction to culinary.
In a little while, he downloaded several videos. And after that, he clicked one of the videos, before he began watching.
As he watched and listened to the chef explaining the process of cooking and other techniques, Michael suddenly realized something. The progression had increased from 78%, all the way to 82%!