The Beginning of Something to Come

Gu Qing Shan put down the communicator and began to sculpt the preliminary model for the Seraph Mech.

In the world below, a mysterious command was issued.

[Mission complete, all agents retreat]

The giant Interstellar Warship flew away from the concert venue's sky.

The Mech squadrons also started retreating, even Special Force agents that were in the middle of cross-examining the crowd quickly dispersed.

Su Xue Er put down her phone, just in time to see this strange scene, not understanding what happened: "Didn't they say they needed to investigate something? Why did they all suddenly retreat, the Confederate must be mad or something"

In the concert venue, many other people also didn't understand what had just happened.

Only the girl standing on stage was slightly looking up at the sky, or perhaps more correctly, looking past it, at the stars.

4 hours later.

Gu Qing Shan silently returned to Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology Research company.

Returning to his room at the 55th underground floor, he laid down to rest.

This type of continuous heavy workload, even a Qi Training stage 5 cultivator like himself would feel tired.

The Seraph Mobile Mech Armor is already done, he's leaving it to Impartial Goddess for the series of quality tests, afterwards it'll be delivered directly to Su Xue Er.

Due to the technological sensitivity used in building it, the Mech is only available for Su Xue Er herself to use.

Impartial Goddess also requested his permission, for the next step in examining the Mech's capabilities, as well as to prevent the technology to spread, Goddess herself will dispatch the secret forces to protect both the Mech and Su Xue Er.

That way, Su Xue Er's safety becomes guaranteed.

Such a pleasant surprise, Gu Qing Shan gladly accepted.

Besides from that, the technical skills that he contributed, will be compiled and re-categorized by Impartial Goddess, to make it a top-secret level scientific research results report.

Done with the birthday present, Gu Qing Shan stretched his back, crossed his leg on the bed and started meditating.

Circulating spirit energy around inside provides immense benefits, which includes slowly nurturing the body.

Gu Qing Shan gradually sunk into deep meditation.

At this time, the whole world was in an uproar.

Numerous countries all contacted the Confederate, asking for reason for the mass military sortie that happened.

The President had to do his best to cover things up, taking a lot of effort just to get them to half-believe him.

Chang Ning country, the casino.

The sunglasses man and the beautiful woman are standing in a secret room, both of them looking at the messages on their communication devices.

The sunglasses man breathed out: "Scared me to death, I almost thought the Confederated wanted to declare war or something"

The woman was still looking intently at the screen, speaking: "Do you believe the Confederate President's words?"

The sunglasses man replied curtly: "A politician's mouth is always full of lies, something about a large-scale military drill to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Confederate's founding, like hell I'll believe that"

The woman replied: "There's still 21 days until their 300th anniversary, so that reason really is a little bit hard to believe"

Then she asked back: "But what could have happened that would require the sortie of 2 Interstellar Fortresses, 3 Interstellar Warship squadrons, as well as the whole of the Interstellar Mech Fighter Legion?"

The sunglasses man added: "Martial Saint Zhang Zong Yang, Sea King Lee Dong Yuan were also dispatched, both of them were respectively stationed at the border and the sea border for 5 hours, only retreating just now"

The two of them exchanged wondering looks, feeling this to be something big.

Just what the hell happened in the Confederate?

At this moment, the communicator suddenly lit up, from it a hoarse voice can be heard coughing.

Both of their faces became tense as they stood up straight and bowed at the same time: "Your Majesty"

The hoarse voice coughed for a while, before slowly speaking: [Hm, both of you have been working hard outside, especially you, my little princess]

The woman spoke with a low voice: "Father, it is my duty"

The hoarse voice smiled a bit, then spoke: [Both of you are to investigate what exactly drove the Confederate so mad that they would gather that much military strength, only to recall them all in just a few hours]

"Yes"

[That's right, my daughter, Anna, I give you temporary full control of the operation, you'll take full responsibility for whatever happens afterwards]

Full control, a right only given to General-rank officers.

Anna opened her eyes wide, tried her best to make her trembling voice appear calm: "Thank you, father"

The hoarse voice spoke: [Hm, take care of yourself, and remember to stay safe]

The communicator shuts down.

"Your Highness Anna, congratulations" the sunglasses man whole-heartedly said.

The woman called Anna looked at the communicator, still in shock, feeling all emotions from sweet to bitter rushing all at once.

She had left the palace because she didn't want to be used as a sacrifice for political influence, and instead used her talents and effort to work for the best interests of the Empire.

His Majesty the king also didn't want to force his own daughter, only saying that if she can't handle the struggle outside, then she must return to the palace for the political marriage with the Holy Church.

The king had also let her find her way up the ranks from the bottom without any special treatment.

And that meant immense risk, even if princess Anna was a stronger person than most, she still faced the threat of death many times over.

Luckily, she finally made it to the top, furthermore gaining the acknowledgement of his Majesty.

Quickly pushing her own feelings down, Anna became calm and spoke: "Let's start working then"

"Yes"

After a night of toil, both of them still couldn't find any clues.

Impartial Goddess' algorithm is already almost perfect, so they had no chance if they wanted to find out the truth from the Military sortie.

After all, even the 3 main force Generals and the President knew nothing of what happened.

Anna tiredly massaged her forehead, yet not taking her eyes off the holographic screen.

"Your Highness, coffee"

"To keep my spirits up, please give me a Brandy instead"

"Can't you drink a little less alcohol?"

"Nope"

Anna answered with a smile, taking the bottle of Brandy and got back to work.

Under her feet, about 7-8 empty bottles are already neatly lined up.

Suddenly, she thought of something, turned back and looked at the images on the projection screen.

"What?" the sunglasses man asked.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Confederate surveillance camera footage from all counties" the sunglasses man replied.

Anna blinked and asked: "What about our member recruitment mission? How many drones did we send out?"

The sunglasses man slaps his head and replied: "691 drones in total, shit, I forgot that asides from tailing the target, the drones can also record real-time information of the area as well"

The two of them quickly downloaded the footage and watched them one by one.

Time slowly passes.

Anna suddenly called the sunglasses man, pointing at the screen: "Look at this"

The sunglasses man looked at Anna's screen, seeing on it a Mobile Mechsuit, flying from the top of Chang Ning Steel Mech Technology company's highest floor.

The sunglasses man quickly operated his Holo-Brain, both hands quickly typing on the keyboard.

"Open the satellite images from space"

Intercept the image transmission from space satellites takes a bit more time, so they silently waited.

A bit later, the images are shown.

They saw the scene of over 10,000 meters in the sky, a mid-sized Interstellar Warship received the Mobile Mech, then flew straight up to space.

"At that time, the S.W. Divine Temple Interstellar Fortress also happened to be straight above from Chang Ning's airspace"

"You're right, it's possible that this Interstellar Warship was used to carry someone onto the Interstellar Fortress"

The sunglasses man mumbled to himself: "Then the problem now is, who was on that Mobile Mechsuit?"

Princess Anna suddenly asked: "Where was Gu Qing Shan at the time?"

The sunglasses man's hands quickly typed again: "I'll check"

A line of text quickly appeared on the Holo-Brain.

"Biological readings showed upwards movement, at the height of 19,217 meters, the radar could no longer track the signal"

Both of them looked at each other and remained speechless for a bit.

After a while, princess Anna slowly ordered: "Announce the news, the day after tomorrow at 9 A.M, St. Orlank Empire's head princess will make an official visit to the Freedom Federation, her first destination being Chang Ning County"

The sunglasses man hesitated for a bit and said: "Your body double is still at the farthest reach of the Empire doing her charity work, not counting information travel time, two days simply isn't enough to make it across 3 countries to get here"

Princess Anna continued: "Then add another sentence, this time the princess will try using a super-speed flight shuttle"

The sunglasses man asked: "Don't you think that's a bit too rushed?"

Anna stared at the surveillance report on the screen, quietly muttered: "No, I'm more afraid that we might be too slow"