"Hahaha, did you hear that boys? He is accusing us of lying, instead of thanking us for coming to help him here."

James took a deep long breath trying to calm himself out. It seemed he wasn't careful enough and what he was doing in his spare time was spotted by these gangsters.

James knew what this was heading to, as the only way for him to silence them for now was to pay them something valuable. He also knew this wouldn't ever stop as they would harass him every now and then, so he better hurry up and finish his preparations to leave.

He was this close to finish these preparations and be ready to escape from here, so he decided to act wisely as he said:

"I'm grateful for your help, and I want to repay it, so can you follow me to the base and after I finish delivering this cargo we can speak freely?"

"No, smart man, pull over here and let's speak right now."

The boss' sound was the highest of them all, and James felt very annoyed by it and its owner's attitude. James had a tight time schedule which was wasted by the delay of that cruiser arrival, but who would blame a cruiser crew?

Of course James would be held responsible for that, not that lazy cruiser crew, so James decided to end things fast here so he could continue his journey rapidly.

"Fine, let's go over there away from the eyes."

That head of the Royan gang looked towards the direction James pointed to, and he liked it. It was a huge stretch of weird shaped trees that were made of unique crystals of this planet.

"I have no objection to that, let's head there."

James then moved his floater to be off the main road heading straight towards the far forest. That forest was one of the many forests that filled this planet, where he used to spend most of his time reading and learning.

The environment there was good as there was no one to bother him, except for now. These forests were made entirely of a unique mineral that had a life of its own, so this mineral grew up to form these trees.

That mineral was a good energy conductor, so it was harvested at first in great quantities and used to build the energy cells in the large space cruisers, before a new technology popped up and made it lose its value.

This was a long time ago, nearly a few centuries back, but James knew this story as he was always curious to learn more. The more he learnt, the stronger he became, that was his motto.

"Here is fine, pull over and let's talk."

That annoying voice erupted from the boss in an order tone. This boss didn't need to hide it any more, as he showed his true colors finally. James complied as he stopped his floater and then descended from it.

Once he turned, he found more than 10 Royans standing in front of him. He was alone, as he chose to work there, but others liked to have more helpers to do their jobs, and now those helpers were all part of this little gang that cornered him.

"What do you want as a thank-you gift?"

The leader, who was two times bigger than James and had two more arms, said with his devilish smile:

"What I like most about you is your sharpness, you would do great if you worked under me, what do you think?"

James shook his head as he replied calmly:

"It's not possible, so why don't you just say what do you want from me?"

James knew that this gangster here didn't take all this effort just to recruit him, so he decided to skip this part and go for the main issue, as he was running out of time.

"Sharp as always, and that suits me. I want something cheap from you, something that would cost you nothing at all, but you possess it alone."

"Really? What is this cheap thing that caught the worthy eyes of Forilak?"

"It's that device you created and you can store things in it, it has a name right? What is it?"

The face of James changed abruptly, as this was another secret of his to be revealed in a short period by the same Royan. James felt tense as he replied faking ignorance:

"I don't know what you are talking about? All I know is the space compression tech which I heard was installed in the huge space cruisers."

Forilak didn't seem to be offended or angered, as he expected James to reply like this, so he said:

"Do you think I just heard some crazy unbelievable tale from one of my men and bought it? Of course I didn't believe him at first when he told me about that strange device you have, so I followed you, and my dear James I followed you for the whole month.

I even paid for some smugglers to give me a device that could hide my presence from anyone, and I paid an extreme price for that. But you know what, I'm not feeling any regret about doing this, in fact I wanted to celebrate with you, my friend.

My dear James had grown up from the shitty planet he came from and become a great inventor. You should be praised, and I'm here to praise you for that. So, don't tell me you don't know about it, as I'm sure you have it."

Forilak said so while he was circling around James, like a fierce beast that was eyeing its prey. James sighed in helplessness; his day was going from bad to worse.

He didn't have anything to fight these thieves back except to comply with their needs. James then took out a bracelet he wore on his right arm, and handed it over to Forilak who denied it while saying:

"No, I won't dare to take the creation you invented yourself like that."