[Gaia Branch in Egypt]
Cerci and Jason walked through various hallways as they made their way towards the Research Center of the Gaia Branch in Egypt. When Cerci had spoken to Jason earlier, he told Jason that it might be better to show him what they found out rather than just telling him. The two men teleported from the Monarch Guild branch, and they were currently in the secret Gaia Branch in Egypt. Just like the Monarch Guild, Gaia also had branches in every country of the world, but unlike the Monarch Guild, which was well known to everyone, the Gaia branches were always located in secret regions that no one would ever think to look for a government agency!
The Gaia Branch in America is located at the top of the Washington Obelisk that overlooks DC, and the Gaia Branch in Japan is located two thousand feet underneath the Tokyo tower! But for Egypt, Gaia had done something completely unexpected, and they had hollowed out a massive pyramid and used the entire interior as their branch office! From the outside, people would only see a regular pyramid, but the inside of the pyramid was completely different! And as Jason looked out from one of the windows at his side, he could see the Monarch Guild building looming in the distance.
Jason would’ve been impressed by how well they hid the building, but Jason just didn’t have time for that right now. Jason continued to follow behind Cerci as they walked through the long hallway. The floor and walls of the building were completely white, and above Jason was a black ceiling with white lights embedded into it. The entire building smelled sanitary and electric, like a mix between a mad scientist’s lab and a hospital, and from the gadgets and weapons that Jason could see being moved around, Jason knew he wasn’t far off with his analysis. There were various agents walking past the pair, and the Gaia agents always stopped and saluted as Jason and Cerci passed beside them. There were men wearing armored exoskeletal suits and carrying strange guns standing in front of every door in the building, and Jason could tell that they were there to stop anyone without access from entering. Even inside the building, there were still a lot of secrets!
Jason and Cerci finally got to a large elevator, and Cerci showed his ID to the armored man standing in front of the door. The man scanned the ID before scanning Cerci’s body, and once the man’s scanner glowed green, he moved aside and saluted. Cerci nodded to the man before he entered the elevator. Jason glanced towards the scanner curiously, and Cerci could tell that Jason wanted to know what those were. Cerci spoke as the elevator door closed.
"Those are bioscanners. With the rise of superhumans, we’ve had a lot of people trying to impersonate agents and get into the building, so we developed a way to analyse DNA using those scanners. The Scanner matches the DNA it reads against multiple samples that we collected over a period of time, and if even one of the samples doesn’t match, there’ll be a total lockdown of the facility."
Jason hummed as he heard all this. It seemed a bit paranoid to Jason, but Jason could understand why Gaia went this far since there were some things here that Jason wouldn’t want falling into the wrong hands. Gaia had done a lot of experiments and developed weapons that would seriously affect the world if they were used recklessly. For a while, Jason had actually thought about disbanding Gaia and destroying the entire organisation, but Jason decided against that because he knew Cerci would never go out of line. The [Binding Chains] rune that Jason had put on Cerci a long time ago was still active, and Jason could take Cerci down with just a thought if Cerci ever went out of line.
Ding!
The sound of the elevator opening brought Jason out of his thoughts, and the two men appeared in the Research Center of this Gaia Branch. The moment Jason saw what was inside the room, he couldn’t help but hum in surprise. The room was nearly as large as a football pitch, and there were hundreds of scientists walking around and talking in hushed voices! Each scientist seemed to be working on something different. There was someone on the side dissecting the corpse of a Mana Beast, and there was another person who was shooting a strange laser into a large Magic Stone. A scientist was carrying a strange glass jar that had a pink gaseous substance inside, and from what Jason could feel, he immediately knew that the pink gas was made of raw mana! Some of the scientists were working with artefacts or materials that needed to be isolated, so there were large box rooms made of glass erected in various areas inside the room, and people were moving around inside the boxes as they carried out their experiments.
This was the research and development area within Gaia, and it was where all magical and biological weapons and tools were developed for the Gaia agents who fight against interworld threats.
Cerci began to walk forward while gesturing for Jason to follow him, and Cerci spoke as they passed the various experimental areas.
"The scientists you see here are the best in the world in their respective fields. They’ve developed tools that allow our powerful agents to take on any enemies up to a low TITAN Rank I, and with time, I’m sure they’ll develop tools that can help us fight even stronger enemies."
Jason hummed and asked.
"Does that mean you’ve never faced an enemy stronger than TITAN rank I all this time?"
"We haven’t seen an enemy stronger than SSS Rank in years, actually. The last time we faced an enemy in the TITAN Rank was ten years ago, and if not for your father’s intervention, we would’ve been wiped out. Before then, your father was the one who helped us take out any enemy that was too powerful for us to handle. Our weapons might be strong enough to injure a TITAN Rank, but that doesn’t mean the TITAN Rank is going to stand there and allow us attack it. TITANs like yourself tend to be very resourceful. Either they have some artefact that provides defences, or they have a biological advantage that renders our attacks useless."
Jason nodded along as he watched a woman cutting into a giant tail. The woman seemed to notice someone was watching her, and she turned to glance at Jason curiously, but the moment she saw Jason, the woman’s eyes widened in shock as her cheeks reddened! She raised a hand to wave at Jason shyly, but she suddenly cried out in shock as the severed tail on her work table began to shake and wiggle erratically! The woman jumped on the tail to hold it down, and Jason smiled in amusement as he walked away.
"Our scientists are currently trying to develop a way to bypass the Superhuman Gene within humans to allow us improve the gifts humans possess. I’m sure you already know what I’m talking about."
Cerci glanced at Jason as he said this, and Jason nodded. Jason knew exactly what Cerci was talking about. Although humans acquired the ability to use mana and their world was now connected to the Primordial Expanse, there was still a lot of potential that humanity had not unlocked yet. And one of those potentials was the ability to use and develop their magic freely. When a human gains the ability to use magic, they usually awaken a gift, and they are only allowed to use magic to power that one gift! But Jason knew that this was not how magic was meant to be used!