"Transformers"

At those words, John moved.

He didn't take a fighting stance or fire his Heat Vision.

He simply moved his short little legs in their soft-soled shoes and walked lightly toward the muscular monster towering over two meters tall.

The monster looked at the child who had no idea what he was getting himself into, let out a cruel, savage laugh, and swung a fist a good two sizes larger than a cooking pot straight at John's head.

In the observation room, Madelyn even closed her eyes instinctively.

"BOOM-!!!"

A deafening thud erupted across the testing arena, and a visible shock wave instantly overturned several heavy pieces of testing equipment nearby.

The blast of air pushed Lynn back several steps before he barely managed to steady himself.

When the dust cleared, Edgar's pupils abruptly contracted in the observation room.

In the center of the testing arena, that tiny figure still stood firmly in place, without so much as a hair out of place.

With just one small, pale, tender hand, John had firmly caught the monster's full-force punch, powerful enough to smash through a car.

A flicker of disbelieving panic flashed in the monster's eyes. He desperately tried to pull his hand back, only to find that his fist was caught as firmly as if hydraulic jaws had clamped around it, unable to budge.

John tilted his head up slightly, looking at the hulking figure who stood so much taller than him. His clear voice held no trace of emotion.

"Lynn said you have to follow the rules."

Before he had finished speaking, John's little hand twisted sharply.

"Crack!"

The sound of shattering bone set teeth on edge.

The monster's entire right arm was forcibly wrung into a twisted braid, white bone fragments piercing his dark red skin and jutting out into the air.

"AAAAAH-!!!"

The monster let out an agonized scream, his massive body contorting with pain as he fell to his knees.

But John's "punishment" wasn't over yet.

He used no flashy abilities, simply raising his right foot, aiming at the monster's left knee, and casually stamping down.

Another hair-raising crack of bone rang out.

The monster's left leg instantly bent backward at a grotesque angle. Completely unable to move, he collapsed on the ground like a heap of sludge, capable of nothing but howling in pain.

The testing arena was deathly silent, with only the monster's screams echoing through it.

John withdrew his foot, glanced at the bad guy still twitching on the ground, then turned and walked briskly back to Lynn, like an elementary school student who had finished his homework and was waiting for his parent's praise.

"Lynn, I broke his leg and his arm."

John tilted his face up, his bright blue eyes shining with a plea for praise. "He's stopped now. He can't rob or kill anyone anymore."

Lynn looked at the monster on the ground, a sight too ghastly to bear, who would have to spend the rest of his life hooked up to tubes, and swallowed hard.

This was far more than stopping someone. This was sending them straight to hell.

But he still forced down his shock and reached out, ruffling John's blond hair with slightly trembling fingertips.

"Great work, little hero. You followed the rules we set perfectly."

In the second-floor observation room.

Madelyn watched the scene below, her face deathly pale.

She knew John was strong, but seeing him end a fight in such a brutal yet... such a restrained manner still made her heart pound.

"He didn't use Heat Vision to cut his opponent in half. He didn't lose control and damage the facility. He even needed that researcher's instructions before acting."

Stan Edgar looked down at Lynn and John, the corners of his mouth slowly curving into a satisfied smile.

"A sharp knife isn't frightening. What's frightening is a knife with a mind of its own. But now it seems Mr. Lynn has successfully fitted this knife with a perfect sheath."

Edgar turned and straightened his tie.

"Give him the highest level of clearance. Let him establish a separate living area in Area B. From today onward, no one but him is permitted to interfere with the boy's education."

After the test in Area C ended, the treatment Lynn received improved at rocket speed.

Stan Edgar was a capitalist who placed extreme importance on efficiency. Once he said to grant the highest clearance, the logistics department didn't dare delay in the slightest.

In just two days, a separate living area of nearly two hundred square meters had been cleared out deep inside Area B.

It was no longer the kind of sterile, pure-white room that drove people mad. Instead, it had been furnished as an apartment steeped in the style of a 1980s American middle-class home.

There was a living room with thick carpeting, leather sofas, a twenty-one-inch Sony CRT color television, and even an open kitchen with an oven and a double-door refrigerator.

Apart from the lack of windows looking outside, it was no different from an upscale apartment in New York.

"All right, little guy. Welcome to our new home."

Lynn pushed open the high-strength alloy door disguised as an ordinary wooden one and gestured for little John beside him to enter.

John stood in the doorway without going in right away.

His bright blue eyes rapidly scanned every corner of the room, seemingly a little overwhelmed by this space suddenly filled with all sorts of colors and objects.

For the past six years, his world had been nothing but pure white.

"Try stepping on it." Lynn pointed to the dark red wool carpet on the floor.

John cautiously put one foot forward and stepped onto the soft pile.

The sensation, as though his foot could sink into it, made him pause slightly. Then he stepped all the way inside, even unable to resist giving two little hops on the spot.

"This is much more comfortable than that mat," John offered his fair assessment.

"It's called a carpet. Its main purpose is to keep you from getting cold even when you run around barefoot."

Lynn walked into the kitchen and opened the brand-new refrigerator. The logistics department had already packed it with all kinds of fresh ingredients, fruit, and an entire row of Coca-Cola.

Lynn took out a can of chilled cola and tossed it to John, who was still studying the sofa.

John caught it securely and gripped the pull tab with one hand.

With a crisp click and a hiss of released carbonation, he deftly took a long gulp.

"Lynn, are we going to live here from now on?"

Holding his cola, John walked over to the bulky color television and reached out to touch its cool glass screen.

"Yes. No more eating nutritional mush, and no more having blood drawn every day for those boring tests."

Lynn leaned against the kitchen counter. "As long as you don't tear it apart, this place is our private territory. Same old rule: bad guys wreck things, good guys take care of the furniture."

"I understand." John immediately withdrew the finger he had been about to poke into a seam in the television casing.

Then Lynn walked over and pressed the television's power switch.

The screen flickered a few times, and with a faint electrical hum, the picture lit up.

It was the afternoon cartoon slot, and the television was showing "Transformers," which had swept across America in the eighties.

Accompanied by the classic line, "Autobots, transform and roll out," enormous mechanical life-forms collided and opened fire on the screen.