Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

Tiny rows of letters floated in Tristan's eyesight.

[======]

[Tristan Hayes (Tristan Gemello)]

[Current identity: Criminal. Second identity: Pop-star.]

[Pop-star rank: Adolescent Star.]

[Criminal rank: Made Man.]

[Pop-star Points: 540]

[Criminal Points: 15860]

[===Attributes===]

[Appearance: 250]

[Charisma: 240]

[Fearsomeness: 436]

[Strength: 223]

[Dexterity: 228]

[Toughness: 144]

[===Skills===]

…

Tristan didn't read farther. He had to tap twice to hit the 'strength' button—the first time landed on toughness.

Tap, tap, slide of a bar—the resulting number wasn't even, but Tristan didn't have the time to care.

[Ding!]

[Strength attribute increased from 223 to 679.]

[Ding!]

[As a result of attribute changes, your appearance attribute increased by 10, and your fearsomeness attribute increased by 40.]

Tristan's muscles hardened like they were braided from steel wire and hydraulics. His next push of a foot suddenly made him lunge for a good two meters forward, pulling him out of his cover.

He immediately felt the weight of a pair of eyes on him. Now that he was only a few meters away from the kidnappers' car, he could see them in detail.

Two men, both about the same height. The one in the driver's seat was older and shaved bald, with bulging biceps open by his rolled-up sleeves. The one in the shotgun seat was lean, but sat poised like a wary and aggressive animal.

Tristan's eyes met the wary man's in the side-view mirror.

"Look out—!" the wary man shouted.

In two more jumps, each of them steadier than the previous one as Tristan became rapidly used to his new strength, he reached the starting up car from the wary man's side.

Tristan jerked the car's door open with so much force that he heard something break in it. On the other side, the wary man was already pulling a gun on him.

Another reason Tristan acted so quickly.

The moment slowed down and stretched on, but this time, Tristan barely needed his 'Bullet Time' talent to orient himself.

Before the wary man had time to aim his gun, Tristan reached out and broke his wrist with a single twist of his arm.

The man cried out in pain, but the next thing Tristan did was grab the man's head and slamming it into the car's side.

There was a loud crack of a broken skull, and when the corpse slid down, the car's dashboard had a deep, bloody dent.

"Shit! Gary!" the bald kidnapper shouted.

By this time, he also pulled out his gun, and even had enough time to aim it at Tristan. The time slowed down again.

Tristan dove to the ground, hiding behind the corpse and the car seat from the shot that flew over his head a moment later. The bullet went through a car parked several meters behind him, breaking a window and causing it to erupt with shrieks of an alarm.

Tristan picked the dead man's gun from the ground, checked in a blink of an eye, and shot the bald man in the throat before he could change his aim.

Pouring blood from the hole in his neck, the man fell back in his seat.

There'd be dead silence in this moment, if not for the car alarm in the background and the faint thumps coming from the trunk. Continue your journey on мѵʟ

Tristan stood up and shook stray flickers of blood from his clothes.

'At least I don't have to worry about cleaning myself up. Too bad I didn't have the time to leave one of them alive for an interrogation. I still have to deal with Martinez.'

Now that the adrenaline was leaving his body, Tristan noticed how it was aching. Soles of his feet hurt from pushing so hard on the hard concrete of the garage, and his joints hurt from moving so harshly.

'It looks like all that incredible strength is too much for my body. I should put points into toughness and dexterity, too. But first things first.'

Tristan pushed his aches aside and went to open the truck's car. From inside, gagged and tied up, Martinez looked at him with huge eyes.

Tristan smirked at the sight. The man was a potential ally, but watching him suffer after all the condescending remarks toward Tristan was still very satisfying.

"Maybe I should move you to the safehouse like that, hm, Martinez? You don't like that? It would certainly teach you to act with more respect, though."

Martinez mumbled something in his gag. Despite everything, he refused to plead, but he at least lowered his head in submission.

[Ding!]

[You have earned respect of a person of high skill. Reward: your PP increased by 500!]

With a sigh, Tristan pulled out his knife and began cutting Martinez's ropes, until the man could shrug them off and get out of the trunk.

Then he pulled out his gag, coughed a little, and said,

"Ha—I mean, Mr. Hayes, we must get moving. I heard these two reporting their position to their boss. If he doesn't hear from them soon, more people will come here. Your cousin told you about my, um, proposal already, right?"

"Yes, he told me everything. We can talk in more detail later. More people will be here soon, because of this." Tristan gestured at the crime scene.

There were no cameras this deep in the garage—they were only put near the entrance, clearly to save money—but someone was bound to come to check the alarm noise.

"Let's get ourselves a vehicle for now," Tristan muttered, approaching the nearest not broken machine.

It was a boring gray semi-truck, perfect for his purposes. Tristan opened his status panel again and began tapping.

[Ding!]

[Lockpicking skill increased from 1 to 1001.].

It was easier to put a round number into a skill than to measure.

'More is better. Just in case.'

Tristan was low on tools, after all. But he had a knife and his keyring. He took the ring, easily straightened it with his strength, and used it as a poor, makeshift lockpick.

The lock on the semi-truck's door fell in moments. Tristan's skill let him work with the experience of a professional.

Hot-wiring the car didn't take long, either. Now Tristan knew how to do it.

"You will drive," Tristan told Martinez. "I need to make some calls in the meantime."