Shifting the Focus of Hard Work, and Mutual Training

Selina was obviously excited as she spoke much more than usual. As for Luke, he merely played along and gave some noncommittal responses.

His actual focus was on the information he had just gotten from the system a while ago.

Mission: Arrest drug traffickers, seize cocaine, completed.

Completion of the mission is worth a total of 200 experience and 200 credit.

Since the host's contribution to the mission was 80 percent, 160 experience and 160 credit points have been awarded to the host.

As experience has reached 500 points, the host has leveled up to level 3.

Extra stat points: 3

Prior to this, Luke's experience points had been 473, which wasn't far from the 500 required for a level up.

With the sudden arrest, he obtained a large number of experience points that helped him level up. He even had a leftover of over 100 points after leveling up.

Luke was most certainly overjoyed about that.

But during the arrest earlier, he also found that there were some problems with his line of thinking.

Small towns were generally more peaceful, as the population was sparse; almost everyone knew each other and there were few outsiders in town.

To complete missions, he only needed a strong body. After all, the police force in small towns rarely needed to use their guns. Most of the time, they relied on their physical strength to solve any conflicts they ran into.

In the past two months, Luke had never pulled his gun out of the holster. That was clear proof that the police force here rarely got a chance to use their guns.

Thus, Luke had been focused on allocating points to strength.

Only when he arrested the two drug traffickers earlier did he realize that, as a police officer in the United States, a day would come when he would face someone armed with a gun.

Even if he had 20 or 30 strength points, he wouldn't be able to stop bullets.

The moment he faced someone with a gun, regardless of how strong he was, when would he be able to get into a brawl with the enemy? He would only die faster if he attempted that.

In truth, during his early days as a police officer, he should instead focus more on learning how to properly use his gun.

In using a gun, strength wasn't the most important factor. Rather, it was dexterity.

With twice the dexterity of an average person, Luke would be able to sling out his gun and put it back in the holster all before his enemy could even raise his gun.

And for a police officer in an emergency situation, reaction speed was more important than pure strength.

Even during a brawl, high dexterity would be a huge advantage.

It seemed that his habit of focusing purely on strength in video games couldn't be applied here. This was real life, not a game.

Luke pondered, and decided that this time, he had to allocate all the stat points to dexterity.

A day later, it was Luke's day off again.

He prepared a large amount of food as usual, and even stocked up on some vitamin tablets and calcium supplements.

After a sumptuous breakfast, he returned to his room to allocate his stat points.

What followed was a day passed in suffering.

Different from when he allocated stat points to strength, after adding 3 points to dexterity, his entire body felt ticklish and his cells started twitching.

This sensation wasn't limited to just one part of his body. Rather, he felt the same sensation inside out, all over his body.

His energy consumption was also far less, about half of what he required when allocating stat points to strength.

Luke could only smile bitterly at that realization. If this was what it was like, he would probably end up mentally scarred after allocating points to dexterity a few more times.

And then he recalled that there was a mental strength stat that he had yet to upgrade. That was most likely something related to his brain. What would happen then?

Unfortunately, he didn't know what to do for now. He would only think about it during the next level up.

Although the arrest of the drug traffickers was a large case, for the police department, it brought them limited benefits.

Comparatively, Luke would have rather caught traffickers carrying large amounts of cash instead.

The cash would belong to the police department, and he would even be rewarded with an individual bonus.

In the United States, the police force had the authority to seize any money carried on the criminals they arrested. After all, there was reasonable suspicion that the cash was used for criminal activities.

Officially, they were keeping a temporary hold of the cash. If one wanted the money back, they had to file an official complaint locally, and those cases were usually handled by the district attorney. Most of the time, the district attorney would have close ties to the local police force, and it was very unlikely that the seized money would be returned.

Generally, only around 20 percent of arrested suspects asked for their money back, and just less than 10 percent of them successfully got it back.

One could say that after entering the police department, the money was as good as gone.

As for illegal drugs, there was nothing the police force could do with it. Were they supposed to go around peddling drugs or something? Or award the drugs to their fellow officers as a bonus?

Today, after work, Luke finally said to Selina, "Hey, when you're free, can you give me more training in shooting?"

Selina stopped walking and looked at Luke with an amused expression. "Why the sudden request?"

Luke shrugged. "After arresting the two traffickers, I realized that I should've drawn my gun immediately. That way, it would've been a lot less dangerous for both of us. But I really am quite a bad shot, which is why I didn't pull my gun out immediately, and used the Coke can as a weapon instead."

Selina giggled and nodded. "True. It's the same as driving. A new driver will be nervous when they see a lot of cars on the road. But I'm quite curious. Isn't Robert an expert shot? Why don't you learn from him?"

Luke: "…What if I say I don't want to see his smug face?"

Selina had a curious look on her face. "Why would he be so smug?"

Luke: "Because I never planned to be a police officer. Thus, every time he offered to teach me in the past, I rejected him."

To be precise, he had even sneered at Robert in the past.

The two were already used to bickering with each other, and out of habit, they would trash talk each other, saying things like, "I would rather swallow 100 bullets than learn to shoot from you" and so on.

Selina roared with laughter, and then patted Luke's shoulder. "You're very brave to have the guts to talk back to Robert."

Luke appeared indifferent. "He's my family. Of course family members need to tolerate each other's faults."

Selina nodded after thinking about it. "True. Fine, I can train you. But what do I get in return?"

Luke: "I thought we're partners?"

Selina grinned. "But the training isn't part of the job."

Luke said, "What do you want, then? A month of lunch? Or soft drinks? Or even desserts?"

Selina replied, "No, I want you to join me in my combat training."

Luke blanked out. "What kind of combat training?"

Selina replied, "Mixed martial arts."

Luke immediately shook his head. "I only know Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I don't know much about mixed martial arts."

Selina said, "That's why I want you to train with me. You're pretty good in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, right?"

Luke nodded after a slight hesitation. "I'm decent at it."

Selina said, "Perfect. Consider it a mutual learning experience. I've always wanted to learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I once read that it's very suitable for females and is great for subduing stronger opponents."

Luke replied, "…Fine." What the hell was that about Brazilian jiu-jitsu being suitable for females? He was male through and through.

The two didn't bother to change. Selina drove directly to a shooting range.

To be precise, this was a gun store with a shooting range attached to it. It was built outside the town so as to avoid noise complaints.