Chapter Summaries

Xiao Ran reunited with his team after their missions and learned that, despite dangerous clashes, they had recovered the technological crystallization. Luo described its vast records of the previous civilization and the UC World, leaving Xiao Ran puzzled over how G-Reco and the Black History fit together.

• Xiao Ran returned to Prometheus and greeted Cruze, Sheryl, and Mwu while Aiba Shinyo continued undergoing conversion.
• Cruze told Xiao Ran that the team had fought other participants, and Graham, Naluo, and Zechs had suffered minor injuries and lost their units.
• Xiao Ran stressed that the team’s safety mattered more than mission rewards, then learned they had obtained the technological crystallization.
• Luo explained that the crystallization contained vast records about technology, culture, society, weapons, religion, and the UC World, and proposed creating a department to analyze it.
• Xiao Ran considered the timeline relationship between G-Reco and the Black History, then ordered Luo to establish the new department after they returned to their territory.

Aiba Shinyo arrived at Prometheus after being transformed and transferred, and accepted Xiao Ran as his lord and himself as Xiao Ran’s knight. Xiao Ran brought him to Fleet World to meet the Burning Legion, then kept him with Cruze, Renard, and El-Elf as Cruze asked whether Xiao Ran had caused trouble on the mission.

• Aiba Shinyo learned about Prometheus and vowed to protect Xiao Ran during missions in other worlds.
• Xiao Ran told El-Elf to show Aiba Shinyo around the next day and led everyone back to the Faction Territory to rest.
• Aiba Shinyo noticed that Cruze seemed different from the Rau Le Creuset he had seen in his own world.
• Xiao Ran brought Aiba Shinyo, Cruze, Renard, and El-Elf to his office in Fleet World while the others dispersed.
• Cruze poured drinks and asked Xiao Ran whether he had caused trouble during the mission.

Xiao Ran told Cruze and Renard about the duplicate people and complicated relationships in the Mission World he planned to revisit. Cruze advised him to restrict access to the world and tell Kira, Lacus, and Shanamia the truth before anyone went there.

• Cruze guessed that Xiao Ran had returned from another world with a sensitive romantic complication, and Xiao Ran admitted the mission world contained ZAFT, Orb, the Alliance, and Free.
• Cruze inferred that Xiao Ran planned to return and make the world a territory, while warning that duplicated people and events could create serious problems.
• Xiao Ran explained that the world had altered versions of familiar people, including Asaha, Patrick, and Klein, and that he wanted to limit legion members' access to it.
• Renard warned that taking a large force to the world would eventually expose the situation, and Cruze recommended being honest rather than hiding it.
• Cruze advised Xiao Ran to distinguish the alternate versions of people and tell Kira, Lacus, and Shanamia in advance, and Xiao Ran nodded.

Xiao Ran discussed the hidden Faction Territory and the Mecha Wars J mission with Cruze and Renard, deciding to prepare the Legion and tell key allies before returning. After they left with Aiba Shinyo to begin research arrangements, Xiao Ran went to King Frie's Palace to speak with Shanamia, where he found her with Sheryl and Mwu.

• Xiao Ran agreed with Cruze that the Legion should be told about the additional Faction Territory before the next mission, especially Kira, Lacus, and Shanamia.
• Xiao Ran described Mecha Wars J and its Ironclad Dragon Empire technology to Cruze, Renard, and Aiba Shinyo.
• Cruze supported researching Radam Iron Man transformation technology, and Renard planned to establish a research department with Luo, Shirakawa Shuu, Yuzes, Kane, and Gilandar.
• Xiao Ran asked Aiba Shinyo to cooperate with Renard's researchers, assuring him they would not harm or affect him and that research could help Aiba Takano and Aiba Miyuki.
• Xiao Ran and Cruze discussed bringing enough forces to face the mission's three factions, while Renard and Cruze took Aiba Shinyo to make arrangements.
• Xiao Ran teleported to King Frie's Palace and found Sheryl, Mwu, and Shanamia sitting together in the garden.

After six Burning Legion and Overlord Legion members died on a mission, Xiao Ran addressed the assembled members and warned them against accepting missions beyond their abilities. Cruze and Naza outlined the training and upcoming mission plans, and the meeting ended with the surviving members dismissed.

• Xiao Ran appeared at the Legion Territory and attended a meeting where six members were absent after dying on the previous mission.
• Xiao Ran reviewed the losses and warned members to investigate missions carefully, judge their abilities, and avoid reckless challenges.
• Xiao Ran told the surviving members of the three affected squads to decide whether to reorganize or recruit replacements.
• Cruze announced the interval’s training, Merit Point opportunities, and a legion mission scheduled to begin in one week.
• Cruze reflected on the unexpected casualties, and Naza urged members to heed the lesson before dismissing them.

After planning the Burning Legion’s next mission to Mecha Wars J, Xiao Ran discovered a privilege that would let him leave Prometheus and return to his original world. Though he was unwilling to abandon his territories, Shanamia, or his Legion companions, he went to meet Naza to ask about the privilege.

• Xiao Ran told Cruze and Fardes to continue recruiting and explained that the Legion’s next Mission Card would send them to Mecha Wars J.
• Xiao Ran briefed the Legion’s core members on the world and led a discussion about bringing enough strength to suppress its factions and potentially make it a Faction Territory.
• Xiao Ran focused on advancing to S-class Pilot and preparing an S-class mecha during the rest period.
• While checking his permissions, Xiao Ran found the Return privilege, which allowed him to leave Prometheus with what he had obtained except for Legion-related things and other participants.
• Xiao Ran considered what he might have to leave behind, then met Naza privately in the Leisure Zone to ask about the privilege.

Xiao Ran learned from Naza that ordinary S-class Pilots received a temporary authority to return to their homeland, while his own authority allowed him to leave Prometheus permanently with everything belonging to him except legion-related things. Torn between returning to his true Earth and remaining with the Burning Legion, Xiao Ran decided not to leave and asked Naza to investigate other S-class Pilots’ authorities.

• Xiao Ran summoned Naza to a private room and asked what return authority S-class Pilots received.
• Naza explained that S-class Pilots could return to their homeland once for up to seven days and bring back technology and selected recruits.
• Xiao Ran compared her explanation with his panel and revealed that his authority allowed permanent departure from Prometheus.
• Naza asked whether Xiao Ran planned to leave, and he considered his ties to the Burning Legion and his desire to return to his true Earth.
• Xiao Ran told Naza to ask the other S-class Pilots about their authorities and said he was going to the Legion Hall.

Xiao Ran visited Winnie to investigate his Permanent Departure return permission, which she said did not exist and could not be found in his records. He was suddenly transported to his original personal hangar, where Prometheus's Main System began addressing him.

• Xiao Ran went to the Legion Hall and asked Winnie about his return permissions.
• Winnie explained that Brigadier General Authority allowed temporary returns, but Xiao Ran told her his permission was Permanent Departure.
• Winnie searched the records and found only the same authority listed for Xiao Ran as for other participants.
• Xiao Ran asked whether he could contact Prometheus directly, and Winnie said she knew of no way to do so.
• Xiao Ran was transported to his original personal hangar, where the Main System of Prometheus's Real Zone addressed him.

Xiao Ran spoke with Prometheus’s Main System and learned that his presence and growth had resulted from a series of accidents and compromises. The system explained that his return authorization would let him leave Prometheus permanently with his possessions, while his territory’s fate remained for him to resolve.

• Xiao Ran questioned Prometheus’s Main System about what it was and why his return authorization differed from other participants’.
• The Main System explained that Xiao Ran had entered Prometheus and survived his first mission despite having zero probability of doing so, prompting compromises that allowed his growth.
• Xiao Ran asked whether the system considered him a bug and had granted his authorization to remove him from Prometheus.
• The Main System said it would not punish or expel Xiao Ran because his actions followed the rules, and it had granted him permanent return rights under the regulations.
• The Main System said Xiao Ran could take everything he had obtained, but could not take his territory; it offered him Dimensional Gate technology so he could fix the territory’s coordinates and resolve its special state himself.

Xiao Ran questioned Prometheus about its core directives and learned that his original world was a hidden pocket universe undergoing a Dimensional Invasion. Prometheus could return him there, but could not breach the strengthened barrier again to let him travel freely between worlds.

• Xiao Ran asked Prometheus about its core directives, and it said only someone with Marshal authority could learn them.
• Xiao Ran asked why participants existed, and Prometheus answered that they were meant to protect everything.
• Xiao Ran learned that his original world was a hidden pocket universe beneath the main universe, not merely a planet.
• Prometheus explained that the hidden world's passages had been severed and that it could not forcibly breach the strengthened barrier without violating its core directives.
• Xiao Ran asked about the invasion, and Prometheus confirmed it was a Dimensional Invasion but not an invasion from the Other Dimension.

Prometheus explained to Xiao Ran that two worlds had appeared at the same node, causing a dimensional invasion, and warned that returning to his original world would likely cut him off from it. When offered the chance to leave Prometheus with his rewards, Xiao Ran chose to remain a participant.

• Xiao Ran asked Prometheus to explain how a dimensional invasion could occur without an Other Dimension invasion.
• Prometheus described the multiverse’s branching structure and explained that two worlds occupying one node caused a dimensional invasion.
• Prometheus told Xiao Ran that returning to his original world would make it difficult to return, and that the world might have changed beyond recognition by then.
• Xiao Ran asked whether there was any way to travel freely between the worlds, and Prometheus said he would have to wait until their collision ended.
• Prometheus offered Xiao Ran the chance to leave with his rewards, but Xiao Ran declared that he would keep his identity as Participant Unit 678.

Xiao Ran chose to remain a Prometheus participant rather than abandon his friends, family, and territories to return to Earth with his rewards. After considering how to exploit Prometheus’s core rules, he learned that his return authority had changed and that he could not choose when he would be sent back.

• Xiao Ran chose to keep his participant identity, unwilling to leave his loved ones and territories behind.
• Xiao Ran reasoned that the territories could change during his absence and that his team might fall into chaos without him.
• Xiao Ran considered Prometheus’s rules and began planning to test them with trusted members of the Burning Legion.
• Prometheus told Xiao Ran that he could return to his original world only after experiencing its invasion, and that he could not choose when his forced departure would occur.

Xiao Ran learned that returning to his original world would require him to travel through dangerous invasion nodes, with uncertain Retention Time, and chose compensation instead of giving up his participant status. Prometheus offered several rewards, including an anti-erasure permission, and Xiao Ran weighed their value.

• Prometheus explained that Xiao Ran could return to his original world only through invasion nodes and would have to wait for a node invasion to end before returning normally.
• Xiao Ran asked why he faced these restrictions when other participants did not, and Prometheus offered compensation or permanent withdrawal from participant status.
• Xiao Ran chose compensation, and Prometheus presented options including Merit Points, Attribute Points, bloodlines, technologies, and anti-erasure permission.
• Xiao Ran considered the rewards and judged the anti-erasure permission and four technologies especially valuable, while weighing the risks of choosing random bloodlines.

Xiao Ran selected his compensation and received a Turn X Gundam and several powerful technologies, then confirmed that an Ultimate Mission could bring legion forces along. He gathered the Burning Legion’s core members at Frie Palace and began discussing his new authority to return to his original world.

• Xiao Ran chose five compensation options, including attribute points, a Follower Slot, technologies, and anti-erasure authorization, then received a Turn X Gundam and four technologies.
• Xiao Ran questioned Prometheus about the unusually valuable rewards, and Prometheus explained that the remaining random technology pool mostly contained advanced technologies.
• Xiao Ran asked Winnie whether Ultimate Mission mode could bring forces from the legion’s territory, and Winnie confirmed that the allowed force depended on mission difficulty.
• Xiao Ran summoned the legion’s core members to Frie Palace and told them that an Ultimate Mission could bring forces equal to ten to twenty times the official members’ combat strength.
• Xiao Ran introduced a new authority that could return him to his original world and asked Naza to explain its description.

Xiao Ran told the core members that his S-class Pilot authority would let him leave Prometheus with his Faction Territory and possessions, but that dimensional invasion might prevent him from returning. Shirakawa Shuu, Giliam, Cruze, and Renard debated the limits of Prometheus and the potential conflict between its rules, leaving the consequences unresolved.

• Naza explained the authority granted to S-class Pilot brigadier generals, and Xiao Ran said his own authority differed from theirs.
• Xiao Ran revealed that leaving would sever his ties with Prometheus while allowing him to take his Faction Territory, followers, and possessions, and that Prometheus warned his world faced dimensional invasion.
• Xiao Ran described Prometheus's account of the structure of worlds and the compensation and regulations it offered.
• Shirakawa Shuu and Giliam questioned Prometheus's explanation and proposed that its influence over worlds might have limits.
• Cruze pointed out that Xiao Ran's right to leave could conflict with the rule against abandoning Participants, and Renard said he could not predict how Prometheus would resolve the contradiction.

Xiao Ran and the Burning Legion's core members discussed how Prometheus might be compelled to abandon him and planned to raise their strength and authority while testing its rules. The group agreed to prepare for the upcoming mission, while Luo and Renard began work on Xiao Ran's new mecha and technologies.

• Renard, Cruze, and Xiao Ran reasoned that Prometheus might abandon Xiao Ran only if a serious conflict arose or something happened to him, and Cruze warned that testing its directives would be dangerous.
• Cruze, Char, and Shirakawa Shuu agreed to strengthen the legion first and later use other participants as cannon fodder to test Prometheus; Xiao Ran accepted the plan with caution.
• Xiao Ran assigned Luo and Renard to study his new mecha and four technologies, and Naza explained that he could use a one-time reward to have Prometheus modify his mecha after advancing.
• Xiao Ran told everyone to rest, repair and upgrade their equipment, and prepare for the mission, which he wanted resolved quickly in case he had to leave.

After the core meeting, Xiao Ran used his reward points to greatly strengthen his Mental Power and went to Prometheus to advance his skills and bloodlines. He left the Enhancement Room with major upgrades planned, but still needed to decide how to specialize his Coordinator bloodline and what materials to use for his Innovator advancement.

• Xiao Ran assigned all one hundred reward attribute points to Mental Power, raising it to 368 and greatly improving his perception and psychokinesis.
• Xiao Ran entered Prometheus's Enhancement Room and requested an S-class Piloting Skill, higher Innovator and Coordinators bloodlines, and maximum-level Psychokinesis Bloodline.
• Prometheus confirmed that Xiao Ran could advance his Piloting Skill for free and that the three bloodline upgrades would cost three Special Evaluation S-ranks and one Special Evaluation A-rank.
• Xiao Ran used nearly all the team's accumulated evaluations to pursue the upgrades, following his team's agreement that strengthening him was the highest priority before their coming invasion.
• Xiao Ran realized he could choose a second Coordinator specialization and add special item materials to his Innovator advancement, then began considering his options.

Xiao Ran tested numerous special materials for bloodline enhancement and weighed their projected effects. He chose the Solar Furnace core as his enhancement material.

• Xiao Ran asked how special materials would affect his body and learned that enhancement could proceed without them, but only one high-grade material could be added.
• Xiao Ran gathered materials from his inventory and tested them in the Enhancement Room, finding that only a few could be used.
• Xiao Ran rejected materials such as ELS remains, DG Cells, and the Gatekeeper Dragon's crystal because their effects did not suit him.
• Xiao Ran compared the Solar Furnace, Zifield Crystal, and Metal Cell, then asked whether Zifield Crystal could be combined with the Solar Furnace.
• The system warned that overlapping materials were not feasible, and Xiao Ran chose the Solar Furnace core.

Xiao Ran chose to fuse with a Solar Furnace core because its compatibility with him and GN Particles outweighed the advantages of other materials. After his pilot advancement and three bloodline upgrades, he awoke as a Quantum Pioneer with greatly increased attributes and the ability to release GN Particles independently.

• Xiao Ran decided that fusing with a Solar Furnace core was the safest and most compatible way to strengthen himself.
• Xiao Ran selected pilot advancement and upgrades to all three bloodlines, then fell asleep as the enhancement began.
• Prometheus dismantled the Solar Furnace and crushed silver-white fragments, using them to fuse and reshape Xiao Ran with the core.
• Xiao Ran awoke and examined his status, finding that his Innovator bloodline had become Quantum Pioneer and gained abilities including independent GN Particle release and Quantum Leap.
• Xiao Ran confirmed that his upgraded bloodlines had greatly increased his attributes and that further development of many abilities would require his own training.

After advancing to an S-class Pilot, Xiao Ran chose a designated bloodline reward and a Skill Upgrade Scroll, then returned to his Faction Territory to adjust to his greatly increased attributes and Mental Power. He decided to purchase one month of Retention Time to master his abilities and work on his new mecha.

• Xiao Ran received five S-class advancement rewards to choose from and selected the designated bloodline reward and Skill Upgrade Scroll.
• Xiao Ran returned to his Faction Territory, feeling unable to control his suddenly doubled attributes and surging Mental Power.
• Xiao Ran stayed alone in his room for several days, accidentally hurling objects and damaging furniture as he practiced controlling his powers.
• Xiao Ran regained enough control to move normally but estimated he would need about a month to fully master his abilities.
• Xiao Ran decided to purchase one month of Retention Time to work on his control and his new mecha.