“Huh?”
Axel was dumbfounded.
When had he ever broken this alien’s vehicle?
*Wait, no.
Wouldn’t an alien vehicle be a spaceship?
How could I possibly wreck something that advanced?*
*And pay compensation?
Pay with what?
US dollars?
Do aliens use banknotes too?
Is the US dollar the universal currency of the cosmos?*
Seeing the guy stare blankly without speaking a word, looking completely dazed, Yuri began to wonder.
*Did I hit his head too hard just now?
Can he not understand me?
Did the watch’s built-in universal translator break?*
At the thought, Yuri bent down and used his finger to instantly carve a line of English into the ground: “Give me your money.”
He then grabbed Axel by the collar, hauled him up, and turned his face toward the written words.
Axel: “…”
*Why do you feel like the actual villain here?*
“…I can give you money, but there’s one thing I don’t get.
With your speed, you could easily steal my wallet without me even realizing it.
It’d save time and effort.
Why didn’t you just do that?”
*You just want money, right?
Take it and go!
Why are you playing with me?!*
Axel didn’t dare say that last part out loud, only screaming it internally.
Yuri frowned and delivered a backhanded slap across Axel’s face, declaring loudly, “You think I’m cut from the same cloth as you thieves?
I’m a law-abiding citizen!
I would never resort to petty theft, and I would certainly never steal your money!”
“Do you hear me?
If you do, hurry up and hand over your wallet!”
Axel was speechless.
Trembling, he reached into his clothes and pulled out his wallet.
Yuri snatched it away and slowly opened it, offering a kind word of comfort as he did so.
“See?
Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just done this from the start?
You wasted so much of my time.
Still, seeing as you turned to a life of crime at such a young age, life must be pretty hard for you.
I’m no robber, so I’ll only take what I’m owed as compensation…
Shit!”
The moment he opened the wallet, Yuri couldn’t help swearing out loud.
Inside, the wallet was packed with fifty-dollar bills, along with five Franklins!
There were only three bills smaller than twenty dollars, and not a single coin!
A quick glance told him there was at least two thousand dollars in cash, plus more than ten credit cards.
Having never possessed more than five hundred dollars in his entire life, Yuri felt a surge of profound injustice.
*Are criminals this rich nowadays?!*
*If you’re this fucking rich, why the hell are you committing crimes?!*
Yuri couldn’t help thinking back to Jem and Tangrui’s million-dollar plan.
*Could those two actually have a legitimate scheme going?*
*Beep— Beep—*
Suddenly, the watch emblem on XLR8’s chest flashed red, accompanied by a sharp warning chime.
*Crap,* Yuri thought, realizing he’d almost forgotten about the timer.
He hastily yanked out all the cash from the wallet, turned, and growled fiercely, “Kid, don’t let me catch you around here again!”
The moment the words left his mouth, Yuri vanished with a *whoosh*.
A dozen seconds later, in a deserted alley several blocks away, a red flash flared briefly before instantly disappearing.
Returned to his human form, Yuri walked out of the alley.
The watch had a time limit on its transformations, usually lasting around ten minutes.
This was because the user’s DNA ran the risk of being permanently overwritten by the transformed species’ DNA, leaving them unable to revert.
To protect the user’s genetic integrity, the watch was specifically engineered with this safety mechanism.
Even so, Yuri knew full well that the safety protocol wasn’t completely rigid.
It could judge the user’s situation and extend the transformation time to prevent mortal danger, so it rarely caused the terrible luck of timing out in the middle of a life-or-death fight.
*I still need to find a way to disable the safety locks,* Yuri mused.
*Otherwise, I’m always going to feel uneasy.*
He recalled that in the original story, future Ben’s son, Kenny, had used Galvan intelligence to hack the watch’s built-in limits.
If Kenny could do it, he should be able to as well.
*I just hope this third-gen watch hasn’t upgraded its security protocols…*
Looking down at the watch, he saw the previously green dial had turned red, entering a cooldown state that prevented transformation for another ten minutes.
A while later, Yuri returned to his vehicle.
He counted his spoils…
rather, his legal compensation.
It came to a total of 2,375 dollars.
Added to his existing savings, Yuri’s net worth had surged to a grand total of $2,702.55.
With his pockets suddenly flushed, Yuri decided to modify his repair plans.
He drove his vehicle to a junkyard located behind the Keystone Slums.
Over three hundred junked cars were piled up in the scrap yard, and deep inside stood a few rusty corrugated metal huts.
In front of one hut sat a wooden sign with scrawled, crooked lettering: “Old James’s Furious Auto Tuning Shop.”
An hour later, Yuri loaded up a massive stash of second-hand parts, practically filling the entire rear trunk space.
All of them had been stripped from discarded cars nobody wanted, costing him seven hundred dollars total.
He wasn’t stupid enough to leave his vehicle at the shop for someone else to work on.
He only bought the components so he could perform the modifications himself back home.
Another half-hour passed.
Yuri pulled up in front of a low, narrow building.
This was his home.
From the outside, the place was less than ten meters long and under five meters wide, featuring white corrugated metal walls and a blue metal roof.
Though small in area, its door was enormous—practically taking up the entire front wall.
Yuri got out of the car, walked up, and pulled with both hands.
The garage door opened with ease.
The door was unlocked because there was nothing inside to steal.
No bed, no couch, no chairs—not a single piece of furniture, nor even a window.
It was a completely empty room.
Rather than a house, it was really more of a garage.
In fact, it actually was a garage.
Once he swung the double doors wide, Yuri drove his beat-up RV inside.
The old rig was considerably longer than a standard motorhome—nearly eight meters long and three meters wide—taking up almost all available space once parked.
The remaining space along the edges was barely enough for a single person to squeeze around it.
Essentially, Yuri was living out of his vehicle.
As for why he didn’t just park the RV on the street and live in it, the reason was simple: he couldn’t afford parking fees.
The year his parents died coincided with a new mayor taking office in Keystone City.
As the saying goes, a new broom sweeps clean, and East or West, politics were the same.
The new mayor made a big splash right out of the gate by slashing local orphan assistance funds—reasoning that the cash aid didn’t do much good anyway, so a bit more or less made no difference—and using the saved municipal budget to provide free housing for orphans until they reached adulthood.
Which meant Yuri didn’t have to pay rent on this tin garage until he turned twenty-one.
Yuri locked the garage doors tightly, turned back toward the beat-up motorhome looming right before his eyes, and let out a long sigh of relief.
“Time to get to work.”
Activating the watch, he transformed into Grey Matter!