The Cosmic Era universe entered a brief period of peace. While the four major powers of the Earth Sphere recuperated, they also feverishly researched Minovsky Particles.
Of course, negotiations between the Earth Alliance and PLANT continued, though in the early stages, both sides were still simmering with residual anger—frequently resulting in objects being thrown (no actual fights broke out, mainly because Natural diplomats stood little chance against Coordinator diplomats in physical altercations).
However, Reid had no interest in the Earth Alliance-PLANT negotiations. Star Palace City was gradually unveiling itself, with a flood of newly generated residents beginning to settle in.
Originally, Reid should have been summoning characters from the system by now—thirty pulls would have guaranteed the golden glow of an A-rank character.
But as he looked at the assessment module, he felt he should first test the waters before summoning characters tailored to his needs.
Thus, Reid temporarily suppressed his urge to summon and decided to save up for later.
Since he wasn't pulling from the character pool, it was time to prepare for the assessment mission. For his first entry, Reid planned to move quietly—no unnecessary actions until the so-called "temporal chaos" issue emerged.
To that end, Reid retrieved three old Mobile Suits from the Star Palace Colony Satellite's warehouse—the Union Flags originally piloted by Reid, Ange, and Noin during the colony's early days.
These three Union Flags had been gathering dust for half a year, but Reid found them too nostalgic to scrap.
Now, it was time for these Mobile Suits to serve one last purpose. Reid had no idea what awaited him in the AD universe. If Mobile Suit deployment became necessary before encountering enemies from another world, these three Union Flags could masquerade as units from the World Economic Union (abbreviated as Union to avoid confusion with the Earth Alliance).
Of course, these Mobile Suits couldn't be deployed as-is—modifications were essential. Aside from their Lunatitanium armor, they were still fundamentally Union Flags, long obsolete.
That said, the Union Flag offered very little room for upgrades. Its slender frame left no space for additional equipment without compromising its ability to pass as a Union Mobile Suit.
Thus, Reid could only upgrade the skeletal armor once more, replacing it with Gundarium Alloy from the AC universe. The internal carbon tubing was removed, and the entire frame was streamlined.
The panoramic cockpit was scrapped to free up space for the Lambda Driver System and Psycommu System, with the Lambda Driver's neural network routed through the former carbon tubing pathways.
The engine, naturally, was replaced with a Miniature Nuclear Fusion Reactor from the AC universe. Celestial Being's electronic surveillance was highly sensitive—without GN Particles in the AD universe, any other exotic particles would stand out. Using a Minovsky reactor would risk immediate detection, ruining the Union disguise.
For weaponry, the primary armament remained an Electromagnetic Rifle—though identical in appearance, this version was entirely different. With no other high-energy-consuming equipment beyond the Lambda Driver, most of the reactor's output could be dedicated to powering this rifle.
So, while the appearance remains the same, after replacing the material with AC Gundanium Alloy to enhance high-temperature resistance and switching the bullets to Lunatitanium, this Electromagnetic Rifle now boasts five times the firepower of its original version. The Gundams from Celestial Being in the first season would likely get pierced in one shot unless they cranked up their GN Shield output.
However, according to Reid's estimation, even if the GN Shield could block the Electromagnetic Rifle's shots, it wouldn't withstand the infiltration of the Lambda Driver.
Despite Reid's extensive research on the Lambda Driver, it remains a piece of black technology. Current studies focus on better applications rather than explaining its principles.
What is known is that the Lambda Driver's interference threshold for particles is incredibly small—so small that modern science can't even define the unit. Thus, both Minovsky Particles and Mirage Colloid can be interfered with and captured by the Lambda Driver.
GN Particles shouldn't be much different. Although Reid hasn't encountered actual GN Particles yet, he knows they're formed from baryon decay.
Baryons are composite particles consisting of three quarks bound together by strong interactions, which definitely fall within the Lambda Driver's interference range.
Therefore, in Reid's eyes, the GN Shield isn't too troublesome. Once within the Lambda Driver's interference range, the shield might as well not exist.
Of course, Reid would also prepare some long-range shield-breaking measures, such as modifying the Union Flag's left-arm defensive rod.
He could redesign the rod into a foldable Beam Boomerang that can be detached, unfolded, and thrown.
The boomerang's beam would be shaped using an excess of Mirage Colloid particles. A high-density Mirage Colloid beam should effectively penetrate the GN Shield—though this is purely speculative and would require field testing to confirm.
Even if the practical performance falls short, it wouldn't be a big deal. It could simply serve as an additional weapon, as the boomerang could still be used as a beam-cutting shield without being thrown.
In the end, Reid successfully modified three Mobile Suits that looked nearly identical to the Union Flag but shared nothing with it internally except for the outward appearance.
Reid named these three units the Overflag.
Ange and Noin were thrilled when they saw the Overflags. Though they knew these units might only see one or two uses before returning to storage, reuniting with an old friend made them happy. They even took the new units for a couple of laps around Australia, indulging in some high-speed aerial joyriding.
Afterward, Reid naturally had to prepare for the dimensional jump.
Since the system's entry requirement for the assessment was a battleship, Reid gathered Ange, Noin, the Xia sisters, the Black Tri-Stars, Salia, and Hilda as pilot combatants, along with Elvira Hill, Tem Ray, and Nami (the two-and-a-half researchers), to hold a pre-jump tactical briefing. He outlined the mission objectives and key points to note.
Once the meeting concluded, Reid brought all previously constructed Mobile Suits aboard the Balkis.
This time, he even brought along the Hell King, a compact unit, just in case they encountered terrain requiring small-scale assaults—even though the system's current event nodes didn't suggest such a need.
Upon arriving at the Balkis, Reid immediately ordered all non-native military personnel to leave the ship under the pretext of a military exercise, sending them off on other vessels to conduct drills near Earth's orbital debris belt.
Of course, Reid's large-scale mobilization couldn't escape the notice of the four major powers in Earth's sphere. However, they all assumed this was the New Miserly Kingdom's response to the recent espionage activities conducted by various nations in Australia. As such, none made statements that might further provoke the New Miserly Kingdom, instead repeatedly emphasizing the world's current need for peace.
Naturally, Reid ignored these remarks. He had no intention of starting a war—his only goal was to relocate non-indigenous personnel so the Balkis could make the dimensional crossing. After all, in the AC universe, it was classified as a battleship.
Unfortunately, the system left no room for Reid to exploit loopholes. In most universes, the Balkis fell under the category of a space fortress. Moreover, it contained battleships within itself, essentially being a battleship within a battleship.
Even after Reid spent an entire day persuading all the immigrant soldiers to leave the Balkis, the system still returned an error, stating that the conditions for dimensional crossing weren't met.
Left with no choice, Reid settled for the next best option: transferring all Mobile Suits and personnel to the Granshaow and appointing Hoshino Ruri as the captain, with Grodek Ainoa as the deputy captain.
Brian Eno remained stationed on the Balkis.
This time, things went more smoothly. Though massive, the Granshaow at least resembled a battleship, so the system approved it.
With the Granshaow cleared, Reid ordered the ship, still docked in the hangar, to activate its engines and anti-gravity systems to prevent the system from dropping it mid-air and causing a crash.
On Grodek Ainoa's reminder, Reid also had the Granshaow activate its Electronic Camouflage System to avoid detection by radar or other surveillance upon entering the new world.
Once all necessary systems were online, Reid chose to begin the assessment, entering the first event node.
The dimensional crossing for the assessment was identical to the G Invasion. As the red code vanished, Reid found the Granshaow suspended high in the sky.
Directly ahead of the Granshaow stood a towering orbital elevator, several times larger than the one in the CE universe.
Clearly, the Granshaow had been dropped at the location of this mission's event—near the AEU's orbital elevator.
Through the Granshaow's lower cameras, Reid could even see the demonstration grounds at the orbital elevator's surface area, where the AEU was publicly showcasing its new Mobile Suit, the AEU-09 AEU Custom.
Thanks to the Electronic Camouflage System, none of the factions monitoring the area noticed the massive Granshaow hovering above the venue.
Inside the Granshaow's bridge, Hoshino Ruri proactively linked with the ship's systems and announced in her emotionless voice:
"All Granshaow systems functioning normally. Initiating terrain scan...
Terrain confirmed as Earth, Africa, Lake Victoria region...
Confirmed: primary air defense systems of the military base below are on standby. Patrol Mobile Suits have not detected this vessel."
Hearing this, Reid nodded. In the AD universe, the only faction with technology capable of rivaling his was Celestial Being. The technological level of Earth's three major powers here still lagged behind his by a generation—as long as he remained still, they wouldn't detect the Granshaow.
At this moment, Reid opened the system interface and checked the World Fluctuation Value, which currently read zero.
The current events in the Gundam 00 world remained unchanged from the original timeline, proving that his arrival had indeed gone unnoticed by anyone. Leaving now would have no impact on this world.
Thus, Reid said to Hoshino Ruri:
"Ruri, have the AI assist you in conducting an electronic intrusion into this region's network. Since we don't know the coding structure of the programs here, let the AI test network frequencies to access the civilian network. Once the code type is confirmed, download it for analysis. Nami, go assist Ruri."
Upon Reid's command, Hoshino Ruri immediately used the quantum computer aboard the Granshaow to infiltrate the local civilian network.
It was worth noting that in the AD universe, only Celestial Being's Veda was a quantum computer, and its computational power should theoretically surpass all individual quantum computers in the CE universe (primarily because quantum computers in the CE universe weren't built on such a massive scale—if they were the same size, it's unclear which would perform better, but given current size comparisons, Veda's processing power was undoubtedly superior).
However, there was only one Veda, currently stationed on the moon. There was certainly no computer near Lake Victoria capable of resisting the quantum computer aboard the Granshaow.
Thus, the Granshaow accessed the civilian network in less than a second and began downloading and analyzing programs from the AD universe.
Reid glanced at the world fluctuation value again—it had now changed to 0.001%, indicating that this network intrusion had left a trace in this world. Even if no one noticed now, someone might discover it in the future, potentially triggering unknown changes.
Nevertheless, Reid didn't stop Hoshino Ruri from continuing to infiltrate the AD universe's civilian network, as the world fluctuation value hadn't increased, proving her actions hadn't expanded the impact of the intrusion.
Reid had never expected the world fluctuation value to remain completely unchanged. After all, when beings from other worlds appeared, this value would instantly jump to double digits—possibly even high double digits—otherwise, there wouldn't be a need for him to save the world.
Therefore, as long as the world fluctuation value didn't spike dramatically, Reid would proceed as planned. After all, he couldn't just visit this world once and leave without gathering necessary intelligence.
Moreover, the system hadn't assigned them identities in this world, leaving them factionless by default. Considering potential future activities in cities, infiltrating the network to create "real" identities for everyone was essential.
Thus, the Granshaow hovered silently in the skies above Lake Victoria, waiting as Hoshino Ruri gradually mapped out the AD universe's network. She probed the network frequencies of the AEU military base below, infiltrated its network to plant backdoors in the defense systems, and downloaded the base's data.
However, less than half an hour later, Hoshino Ruri suddenly reported:
"Unknown particle interference has suddenly appeared around the ship. Our connection to the AEU military base's network has been severed, though the backdoor has been successfully planted. The data download is stuck at 77.77%."
Hearing this, Reid immediately knew the protagonist had arrived—Veda must have started monitoring the area by now.
Thus, Reid concealed his knowledge of GN Particles and ordered:
"Cease the Granshaow's network intrusion and cut off all external signals from the ship. Begin analyzing the unknown particle data collected by the detectors. Dr. Elvira Hill, Dr. Tem Ray, you'll handle the particle analysis."
Upon Reid's command, Elvira Hill and Tem Ray immediately sprang into action, starting their analysis of the collected unknown particle data.
Meanwhile, the orbital elevator's cameras captured a green flash descending from above. Zooming in revealed it to be the Exia Gundam.
Ange's eyes lit up with excitement upon seeing this. Having been absent from interdimensional missions for quite some time, she couldn't help but ask:
"Reid, are we really just going to watch them fight this time without taking any action?"
Keeping his eyes on the screen, Reid nodded and replied:
"Of course. Our objective is different this time. Our true opponent hasn't appeared yet. Be patient, Ange. There'll definitely be moments when your skills are needed."
(End of Chapter)