Lin Fan didn’t rush to the research facility right away because it would still be light out when he arrived.
For infiltrating a place like this, naturally it was better to go in under the cover of the dark night.
Only he didn’t realize that this decision would come to bite him in the butt until later.
For now, he did the usual thing where he searched the surrounding area first to see if there was a good escape route and to see if there were any guards surrounding the place.
As he had expected, there weren’t any guards placed in the surrounding area.
After all, this place was a secret research facility and random guards that were placed around the area would attract attention.
But the surprising thing was that there was no surveillance in the surrounding area either. Normally if they didn’t use guards, they would at least have hidden surveillance methods to ensure that nothing went wrong.
However, there weren’t any surveillance arrays or hidden artifacts at all.
This was not a good sign for Lin Fan.
This meant that there was enough space in the entrance of the cave that they felt comfortable enough not to do this.
They would have all their guards and their surveillance equipment placed at the entrance, which would make it much harder for him to infiltrate.
It was still some time before night fell when he finished searching the area, so he decided to see if he could find another way into the cave. If he could find a way in the back like he had done with the bandit cave, he could dig right behind them and avoid all the defenses that would certainly be waiting for him.
Unfortunately, the Mercenary Guild had already thought of this and they had ensured that they didn’t dig too far deep into the mountain to avoid creating any other paths for people to take.
There was most likely also a secret escape route, but Lin Fan didn’t have the time to search for something like this.
So with all of these possibilities ruled out, the only thing that he could do was head into the cave entrance and see if he could sneak in.
At the very least, he still had the illusion spell that no one else had.
Now that he had broken through and had stabilized his cultivation, he found that his control over magic power was actually better than before. It was most likely the result of having his intelligence stat boosted after breaking through.
So while he didn’t want to brag, he was almost certain that he would be able to use the illusion magic to even fool someone in the Foundation Realm. Of course, that would only be someone in the Low Foundation Realm just like him.
If it was someone with a higher level of cultivation than him, then it was very unlikely that the spell would work.
That was because unlike the Qi Gathering Realm, the minor realms in the Foundation Realm had a much greater gap between them.
Instead of having nine steps, the Foundation Realm only had three. The Foundation Realm was separated into the Low, Mid, and High Foundation Realms and each of these levels had a giant gap in between them in terms of power and skill.
Of course, there was also the Peak Foundation Realm, but that was still a part of the High Foundation Realm. Just being in the Peak Foundation Realm meant that one was close to breaking through to the Qi Condensing Realm, which allowed them to start converting their spiritual energy into the next level. That would also allow them to become much stronger than just being in the High Foundation Realm.
After walking around for a while and not finding a single thing, Lin Fan made his way back to the entrance of the cave and silently watched for any signs of movement.
He had left one of Greeny’s puppets at the entrance earlier to see if anyone went in or out of the cave, but so far, it didn’t seem like many people came to this place.
But that was normal since this place was technically a secret research facility. It would be strange if there were people that came here often.
Only those that actually had business with this place would come here and too many people coming here would actually expose this place.
Since the cover of night had fallen, Lin Fan no longer delayed as he cast his illusion magic over himself. After the illusion spell had surrounded him, he carefully made his way to the entrance.
Even if he was certain that no one could see him, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
Once he made his way into the cave, he found that there was nothing there.
The first thing that he saw after entering the cave was actually a wide open space that had several different paths leading deeper in.
Of course, it would take too much time for him to search each of these paths one by one, so he sent different puppets down them.
The puppets made their way down each tunnel, but to Lin Fan’s surprise, they found that there wasn’t much to each of these tunnels. They only went on for a bit before all leading to dead ends.
Not a single one of these tunnels actually led deeper into the cave.
It seemed like there had to be another way in.
So Lin Fan called back all the puppets and instead summoned out the moles.
He had them use their senses to see if there was anything off with this room, but the room was quite large, so it did take some time before he was able to find anything.
There was nothing off about this room at first, but then the moles were able to find some empty spots behind certain walls. Searching the area around these empty spots, Lin Fan was able to find a strange button in the wall that he pressed.
As expected, as soon as the button was pressed, the walls suddenly started moving and there was a passage that was revealed.
But before Lin Fan could get into the passage, there was a voice that came from the other end of the passage.
“Did the entrance just open? What’s going on?”
“Be careful, we haven’t received any notices that there would be a guest coming. It might be an enemy that found this place.”
Lin Fan couldn’t help revealing a bitter smile when he heard this.
What would you gain from saying this out loud for the other side to hear?
However, even though he heard these voices, he wasn’t worried at all because he had faith in his illusion spell. He could also feel the aura coming from the other side, they were guards that were only in the Fifth Qi Gathering Realm, so there was no chance that they would be able to see through his illusion spell.
He didn’t go into the passage and instead went to the side, waiting for the guards to come up.
When the guards came out, they raised their weapons and carefully searched the surrounding area. They even looked all over the ground to see if there were any footprints or such that were left.
After not finding a single thing, one of the guards said, “Could it be that there was a malfunction with the door?”
The other guard nodded and said, “It has to be. After all, there’s no one here, right?”
Both of them looked at each other with doubtful looks before one of them said, “It can’t be that the rumours are true and there really are ghosts in this place, right?”
The other guard quickly slapped him on the back of the head, “What kind of nonsense are you talking about? How could there possibly be ghosts?”
Even though his voice was stern, his body was actually trembling and there was a trace of fear on his face.
The first guard couldn’t help continuing to speak even though he had been slapped on the back of the head, “But all those people that were brought here for the experiments, I heard that their spirits…”
Before he could finish, the other guard quickly covered his mouth and glared at him as he said, “Do you really not know how to speak less?” Of course, the fearful look on his face became even stronger.
Seeing this, the first guard revealed an understanding look and said, “Oh…” Then with a pause, he asked, “What should we do about the door then?”
The other guard just said, “We’ll report that the door is malfunctioning and they’ll send someone to look at it, nothing more, nothing less. Do you understand? This isn’t the work of a ghost or anything like that.”
The first guard nodded in agreement before heading back into the passage.
The other guard looked around before following behind him and closing the door as they went in.
What they didn’t notice was that Lin Fan had followed behind him and was currently heading down with them.
He had been interested when hearing the story of the ghost, but hearing that it was just a rumour, he lost interest quickly. His interest was quickly attracted by the other words that the guard had said.
“All those people that had been brought here for experiments…”
It was clear that this place wasn’t a good place, it was most likely where most of the chimeras had been created.
The way that Lin Fan looked at these guards also changed.
These men were willingly following the Mercenary Guild and helping them with their experiments, so they clearly weren’t good people. Even if they were forced to, the fact that they could accept that kind of treatment of their fellow humans…
Lin Fan had already crossed these two off his list for later, but of course he couldn’t just kill them now.
His main goal was to scout out this research facility and find any useful information. Killing these guards now would go against that mission and make it harder for him.
So he endured his disgust towards these two and focused on following them.
It didn’t take long for them to reach the main facility. After all, it was close enough that Lin Fan was able to hear their voices through the passage.
When they came to the end of the passage, the room in front of them was brightly lit. Going from darkness to this brightly lit room caught Lin Fan off guard, but he quickly adjusted to this new level of light.
When he saw the room around him, he couldn’t help being surprised by what he saw.
That was because the stone walls of the cave were now gone and he was inside a sleek room that had metal walls.
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