This is the second day since Tony came to Gotham, and nothing has happened.
It was already ten at night, and he was lying on the living room sofa.
Drake and he had bought quite a lot of groceries on their way home.
Camilla was pleasantly surprised and happily prepared a fairly hearty dinner.
They enjoyed the meal, and Drake even chatted quite a bit at the table with Camilla about their future plans.
In any case, he had a peaceful night.
Aside from the occasional gunshots and the sound of rain outside the window, Tony could hardly hear any other noises from Gotham.
Suddenly, a vague, dark figure flashed past the top of Gotham's tallest tower.
On the edge of the building, a gargoyle statue swayed with a hanging figure, and someone was tied up there, swinging back and forth, clearly trying to escape or asking for help.
He silently withdrew his thoughts and went back to sleep.
The next day, Tony got up at seven in the morning and went through his usual morning routine.
He headed into the kitchen and started making breakfast. They bought eggs, milk, cheap ham, and some bread yesterday.
The sizzling sound of frying quickly woke Drake and Camilla from their sleep.
"Good morning."
"Good morning."
Mrs. Camilla seemed to be in even better spirits than the day before.
She had been tormented by both mental stress and illness for a long time, and last night was perhaps her best night of sleep in an entire year.
After eating breakfast, Tony said goodbye to Drake and Camilla and headed out. He had work today and thought going to the restaurant a little early wouldn't be a bad idea.
This would give him a chance to get more familiar with the neighborhood.
He wasn't riding his bike today either. Instead, he tucked his pistol into his waistband and walked outside.
The streets were already getting busy. There were some people who looked tired and gloomy, rushing along.
He hailed a cab.
He only took less than two hundred dollars in cash with him in case someone tried to rob him. He figured he could still go home with some tips at the end of the night anyway.
He'd even thought it if he made enough in tips today, Tony might as well use them to buy a wheelchair.
He planned to find a quiet place and buy the wheelchair himself.
A Beginner Wheelchair Driving Proficiency costs about a hundred dollars, and it would be about two hundred dollars in total with the wheelchair.
That would be a great deal.
After getting in the taxi, Tony subtly adjusted the position of his pistol so the driver could see it through the rearview mirror and start browsing the system store.
[Beginner Car Driving Proficiency]
[Price: 500$]
[Description: The user possesses basic knowledge and training in operating standard vehicles. They can start, steer, and drive under normal conditions with limited precision, awareness, and reaction time.]
...
[Intermediate Car Driving Proficiency]
[Price: 2,000]
[Description: The user can drive smoothly and confidently over a wide range of vehicles in typical road conditions. They can anticipate road hazards, execute precision turns, and maintain control under intense pressure.]
...
[Advanced Car Driving Proficiency]
[Price: 10,000$]
[Description: The user can exhibit expert-level driving skills, capable of handling high-speed pursuits, maneuvers, and extreme weather or terrain conditions. It's ideal for racing, stunt driving, or tactical scenarios where emergencies are critical.]
...
'I should be able to defeat Lightning McQueen with the Advance Car Driving Proficiency, right?'
There was also Bicycle Driving Proficiency but that skill was useless.
'Hmm, what's this? Documents and also Maps? Custom System Q&A? It's a one dollar per question? I knew AI really had potential. Even this system comes with its own built-in AI Q&A.'
"Sir, we've arrived."
The taxi driver's voice interrupted Tony's muttering. He glanced at the time, and it was only seven forty in the morning.
'Sigh, Old Jack really isn't doing great.'
"That'll be fifty-seven dollars."
'Sigh, there's no need to question how valuable Old Jack is. Gotham is such a crazy place that even taking a taxi costs this much.'
After grumbling inwardly, Tony paid and got out. If he hadn't shown the gun, the driver probably would've charged him close to a hundred.
He walked along the streets, circling the blocks and alleys around Red Dragon to get used to the area.
Afterward, Tony went into the restaurant through the back door.
It was eight in the morning, and the restaurant was nearly empty with just a few security personnel, some waiters finishing their night shift, and a couple of front desk staff switching over for the day shift.
Tony greeted his coworkers in turn, then went to find his supervisor and returned a book he had borrowed.
The book was the restaurant's training manual. Normally, new hires were supposed to go through a period of training.
However, Tony urgently needed to start working, and Donald had made an exception, allowing him to work and learn at the same time.
The supervisor had handed him the book just yesterday, and now he was returning it already.
"You memorized the whole book?"
"One day's enough. I used to cram like this before exams all the time."
Tony wasn't lying.
Even though the guidebook was indeed quite thick and didn't highlight any key points, he still managed to memorize most of it.
The supervisor casually asked him a few questions to make sure he wasn't lying and answered them with detail.
Afterward, the supervisor took him to the dressing room, handed him a waiter's suit in his size, and told him to change.
To be honest, this was the first time he had ever worn a suit.
"Hmm, not bad. Not bad at all."
The supervisor looked him over with a straight suit, tall and well-proportioned figure, decent facial features, sharp and handsome.
He looked presentable, except for a little cold and cunning look in his eyes and a bit of wild fierceness.
"However, you're on the day shift, not working the night shift. That face of yours still looks a bit too fierce."
After hearing that, Tony relaxed his lips and tried to smile.
Instantly, the aura around him became even more scarier, like a wild beast trapped in a suit, baring its teeth in a predatory grin.
If he were wearing an Italian suit, they would probably mistake him for some kind of high-ranking gangster.
"...Do you ever considered joining a gang or something? I think your face would really fit in that kind of world."
The supervisor muttered as he turned and walked away. A moment later, he returned holding a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
"Put these on. Just make sure you don't let them fall onto a customer or into their food while you're working."
Tony took the glasses and put them on, and the glasses made him look a lot gentler and smarter.
"Now that looks much better."
Then, the supervisor ran through a few mock sessions with him like greeting guests, taking orders, serving food, and clearing tables.
Tony's demeanor and actions were mostly up to normal, and he answered questions correctly.
"Not bad, not bad. You're learning fast. In this case, you can start your official shift at ten o'clock."
Tony watched as the supervisor yawned and walked off, likely going back to sleep.
The night shift last night must've been really busy if he stayed up all the way until now.
Tony took off his glasses and headed to a newsstand on the street to buy a newspaper. He wanted to see if anything big had happened in Gotham.
[A gang fight cases]
"Tsk, Gotham sure has a lot of crime."
[A group of bikers got into a fight with an angry truck driver who rammed them with his big truck.]
"Ouch. Unlucky... but hard to feel sorry for them."
[A lot of pharmaceutical employees mysteriously frozen into ice sculptures]
"Yeah, that sounds like something Mr. Freeze would do."
[A few gang members from the Maroni family were sent to the hospital with all their bones broken. The police got the proof of their crimes at the same time.]
"Well, that's what happens when you choose the criminal life."
"Wait—all their bones were broken?"
He flipped back to that page and read more carefully about the gang members.
Their arms and legs were broken, their ribs shattered, and they were suspected to be the same people behind two recent armed robberies and shooting cases.
'Nice job,'
Tony thought to himself, 'Sure, that guy might be a total psycho… but at least he's doing good work.'
The Maroni was kind of like a smaller branch of the bigger Falcone family, and the Falcones were still the biggest and most powerful family in all of Gotham.
No wonder the manager had stayed up all night, and probably a lot of big-name mobs came to the club yesterday.
'But what does all this have to do with me? I'm just a regular waiter at a restaurant.'
He shrugged and kept flipping through the newspaper.
The rest of the news was just more of the same: a dozen low-level robbers got their jaws broken and were sent to the hospital, and a few drug dealers were tied up and dumped at the front door of the GCPD.
"Hm?"
Just as he closed the newspaper, Tony suddenly noticed a few of his coworkers standing behind him.
They were staring at the news on the paper with a trace of satisfaction in their expressions.
"Hello?"
"Hi, I'm Claude—Claude Santos."
"Lloyd Rick."
"I'm Bridget Castro."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Tony Smith—would you like to take a look at the paper?"
"Thanks."
Claude took the newspaper and examined it carefully.
Tony stood up and noticed that he and the others were all looking at the same article about the Maroni being sent to the police.
Suddenly, a few things started to make sense.
Drake had mentioned that Donald had some powerful people behind him.
Judging by what he did during that phone call, Donald seemed to be connected to Gotham's biggest crime family—the Falcones Family.
"The Maroni's, huh."
Claude was the first to speak, and he sounded kind of sarcastic.
Lloyd shook his head, "How embarrassing. They even got thrown into GCPD."
"We're just going to watch this happen? What about the Roman's reputation?"
Bridget asked.
"The Maronis' reputation doesn't really affect The Roman's."
Claude replied.
"Moreover, it's not our problem. We're just small-time waiters, but today's paper was kind of entertaining."
He closed the newspaper and shook his head. Suddenly, he stood up with a grin and joked, "However, Tony really looks like a mob boss. You're not secretly with the Falcone family, are you?"
"No, no, I'm not in any crime family."
Tony quickly waved his hands, then casually put on his glasses, "See? This makes me look way friendlier."
The expressions on the three of them changed subtly, and Claude laughed even more brightly.
"Haha, I'm just messing with you—don't take it seriously."
Lloyd and Bridget subtly glanced at Tony's exposed wrists and neck, checking for any family tattoos and sure enough, they found none.
Donald didn't let the supervisor give him any heads-up and almost made him think he was one of their own.
They didn't know that the family situation yesterday was even more urgent than what the newspaper reported.
The supervisor and Donald had stayed up all night and had already put this minor matter out of their minds.
"It's almost time to start the shift. The head chef has arrived too. Let's get ready together, shall we?"
"Sure! I just got here—perfect chance to learn from you guys."
They didn't have to wait long before a sharply dressed man walked into the restaurant.
Tony stayed still, wanting to watch how they handled it, but the three coworkers and others stiffened for a moment and promptly pushed him outside.
"Huh?"
Tony was confused, "Welcome, do you have a reservation?"
"It's just one."
"May I have your name?"
"Harvey Dent."
...
150 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
250 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
450 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1000 Power Stones = 2 Extra Chapters
2000 Power Stones = 3 Extra Chapters