THE ENLIGHTMENT PROJECT

Mia said her bye to David before leaving the house with Huntress. They headed to a secluded location that was a hideout created by her mother and Huntress.

"Where is the location?"

"The location is set up near the eastern borders of the country."

"Isn't that location near to the ruins which were filled with dungeons and space channels?"

"It is. That is the reason it was set up in that location. The hideout was part of a secret experiment that the two of us were conducting on behalf of Kaiser. You will understand once you get there. I just need a big favor from you."

"What is it?"

"Never tell anyone about this location. It is a secret from everyone. The Holy living person knowing about this location is me, and the other one will be you."

"Is that important?"

"it is. The picture will be clearer once we reach there. you will understand the reason behind me maintaining so many precautions and delaying our travels with so many long cuts. That place is a priority."

"I understand." Mia chose to comply with Huntress's idea.

Huntress slid one of her hands into the bag beside her and took out a small triangle-shaped rusty piece of metal. She then threw it to Mia. Mia caught it and began to examine it.

'What is it?"

"This is the inheritance your mother left for you. This is the key to opening the hide-out. only two keys exist. one is with me, while the other one is with you. I hope you will keep this secret hidden from everyone, even your own brother."

"If it belongs to that woman, doesn't David have an equal right to it?"

"No. Your mother left it just for you. Just comply with her last wishes. It is the least you could do."

"Fine," Mia decided to play along.

The duo passed through the central region and came over the eastern region. The eastern region was infamous for being crowded with hunters since most of the ruins, dungeons, and space cracks of the country were present here. It was the best hunting ground for them.

The region has ten of the most prominent dungeons in the country, one of which was declared as a world rank dungeon that was yet to be cleared once. There were also frequently appearing which led to different hunting grounds.

It was also the region where the mutated beast population was quite high. Monsters were roaming around the region and people were busy hunting them

Setting up a base in this region was not only costly, but filled with a high risk of being discovered, or becoming a region where spatial cracks or dungeon breaks happen.

They soon crossed multiple states to arrive within the border region of the country's eastern side. HUntress asked Mia to first camouflage herself in proper disguise and then proceed towards the base.

'Where exactly is the base located?"

"It is around 20 miles from here."

"Twenty miles into the ruins area. Were you insane to have made the hideout there?"

"It is the perfect location for a base as well as an experiment ab. You can easily get your hands on the proper specimen and the base is well hidden. Plus, the area is generally empty since the beast horde rushes in there. Even if there were hunters, they wouldn't be able to locate it."

They proceeded after resting for a bit. When the 20-mile distance was finally covered, Mia could already feel herself in a warzone. The area all around was filled with monster corpses and beasts.

They sneaked into a nearby forest region and Huntress slowly guided Mia towards a small hill. which was present within the depths of the forest.

Once near the Hill, Huntress began to move around two to three times, before finally halting at a location. She was then pressed into a nearby stone, which surprisingly moved away to reveal two small carvings in the rock.

Surprisingly, the carvings were similar to the junk piece of metal Huntress had given to Mia. She took out another piece of junk metal and placed it at one of the carvings. She then signaled Mia to do the same.

Once Mia followed the instructions, she was surprised to see the surrounding rock slowly moving apart to reveal a gate. To her surprise, the gate wasn't open but had a small hole on the right wall.

Huntress moved forward to insert her hands into the hole. Some time passed before she removed it, and the gate slowly started to open.

"I welcome you to the base of the Enlightenment project."

The duo crossed through a small tunnel before emerging out into a hallway that led deep down. Stairs were surrounding the whole area, and Huntress slowly started to move downwards.

To Mia's surprise, she could hear faint roars of various monsters from the basement. The whole area began to light up, revealing a massive underground bunker that was supposedly designed to experiment on monsters.

"Those roars are from the specimen which is kept deep underground. Those are the main objectives behind coming to this location. Another objective is to follow through with your mother's experiment notes regarding physical cultivation and mental cultivation.

"She wasn't a mental ability user," Mia remarked.

'She wasn't, but I was. She helped me reach the pinnacle of mental ability, and I am going to do the same for you. This will now be the basis of training for the next month before you visit Nathan again."

"You will be doing your mental training in the experiment grounds, while the physical training will be done with the help of the battle suit in the arena in the deepest part. I hope you manage to survive through this month. if you do, I promise you will be able to take on Nathan's physical punch without being forced into an unconscious state.

Huntress directed Mia into the lab, and soon enough they came across a large room filled with equipment that Mia had only seen in fictional films.

"We're going to use those."

"That and a lot of equipment you haven't even seen yet."