Chapter 510: Higher Clearance
To NERV's environmental technology department, this was nothing short of a minor technological earthquake.
Prior to this, treating waters polluted by Angel combat required deploying large-scale equipment for extraction, isolation, and complex chemo-biological degradation—a lengthy, costly process with limited results.
Ryo's method, however, seemed to offer the possibility of a near "one-click purification." Although the synthesized amount was currently minute and its application range limited, the underlying principles and the potential it displayed were astonishing.
Project reports and outcome demonstration videos were swiftly submitted to higher echelons.
Ritsuko Akagi personally reviewed all the data once more. Her technological intuition made her realize that this was absolutely no simple "accident"; there had to be an exquisite, not-yet-fully-revealed control theory behind it.
She signed off with her opinion, recommending an elevation of the project's resource priority and strengthening the "protection" and "observation" of Dr. Ryo and his research outcomes.
Misato Katsuragi also saw its value from a tactical perspective—if the battlefield environment could be rapidly purified, it would drastically reduce the secondary disasters and logistical pressure brought about by Angel battles.
Thus, Ryo's "Experimental Station No. 9" was quietly upgraded.
His funding increased, his equipment received limited supplements, and his surveillance level was synchronously elevated.
He had successfully leveraged a genuine, strategically valuable, yet "harmless" (since it could not create life and thus would not interfere with SEELE's plans) technological achievement to pry open NERV's internal resources, winning himself a firmer position and more room to maneuver.
He knew he was walking a meticulously calculated tightrope: he had to demonstrate enough value to gain attention and resources, while simultaneously ensuring this value wasn't so high that it would make SEELE feel threatened and intervene directly.
What he threw out was a carefully trimmed, enticingly flavored but nutritionally limited technological breadcrumb—just enough to attract the big fish that was NERV to continue swimming around him, creating the conditions for his eventual contact with deeper secrets.
That isolated body of water, which had just regained its azure hue, was the most successful bait he had cast.
The meager resources brought by NERV's increased investment were meaningless to Ryo.
What he truly desired was higher internal clearance, the pass that would allow him to freely enter and exit the deep sectors of NERV Headquarters, and the opportunity to approach core secrets—especially Rei Ayanami.
Therefore, after his initial results shocked NERV and successfully secured more resources, he immediately initiated his next move.
He dumped the daily operations and management of "Experimental Station No. 9" entirely onto Shigeo Tanaka and Miyuki Suzuki.
The newly assigned auxiliary technical personnel were also directed to be led by these two "veterans," continuing the repetitive environmental monitoring, data recording, and preparatory work for attempted "catalytic particle" synthesis according to his fixed procedures.
He himself swiftly withdrew from the tedious daily affairs, playing the role of a "worldly-ignorant" genius researcher completely devoted to critical technological breakthroughs.
His desk was soon buried under piles of documents covered in complex formulas and design sketches.
He began to continuously and frequently submit reports to NERV's technology management department and to Ritsuko Akagi herself.
The core content of these reports was highly consistent: emphasizing the "extreme crudeness" and "severe constraints" of the current experimental conditions, repeatedly demonstrating the "decisive significance" of stable, large-scale synthesis of "catalytic particles" for achieving the strategic goal of "marine purification," and attaching list after list of increasingly precise and expensive "essential equipment."
The equipment on these lists ranged from high-precision energy focusers to ultra-pure material synthesis cabins, from multi-dimensional space-time parameter monitoring arrays to bio-active containment field generators...
The names all sounded exceptionally cutting-edge and logical, but many of these devices were not only exorbitantly priced; more importantly, they typically belonged to types highly regulated within NERV, requiring special clearance to requisition and use.
Some were even marked as "Restricted for requisition by specific laboratories within Central Dogma (Deep Headquarters)."
Ryo's strategy was crystal clear: he was no longer satisfied with playing in the sand by the sea.
By demanding this equipment, he intended to bind the "necessity" of his project to the core facilities of NERV Headquarters.
The tone of his submitted reports grew more urgent each time, and the arguments more rigorous, fully displaying a researcher's anxiety over technological bottlenecks and thirst for a breakthrough.
"Lacking Equipment XX, particle synthesis efficiency cannot break through the one-percent threshold..."
"The absence of Instrument YY renders us unable to parse the key parameters of the particle's stable period, posing a massive safety hazard..."
"Requesting to requisition Equipment AAA from Headquarters' Laboratory ZZ for joint experiments; this is the only path to verifying the feasibility of large-scale synthesis..."
These reports flew onto Ritsuko Akagi's desk like snowflakes.
Initially, the Technology Development Department could still politely refuse or delay using excuses like "insufficient clearance" or "equipment shortages."
But after every rejection, Ryo would submit an even more detailed technical explanation, pointing out the infeasibility of alternative solutions and emphasizing the "massive losses" caused by project delays.
He even "inadvertently" revealed during several informal exchanges with Misato Katsuragi—who had shown interest in his project—that the "technological bottleneck" might impact the potential for rapid battlefield environment purification in the future.
The pressure began to transmit.
Ritsuko Akagi had no choice but to seriously evaluate these requests.
From a technical standpoint, she admitted that many of the equipment demands Ryo proposed truly hit upon the critical difficulties of the synthesis experiments.
The value of these "catalytic particles" had already preliminarily manifested; if stable mass production could truly be achieved, their strategic significance was beyond doubt.
However, completely relocating his research to the deep sectors of Headquarters involved security and confidentiality tiers that were an issue on entirely another dimension.
She convened an evaluation meeting.
At the meeting, supporters argued that necessary support should be given to critical researchers to yield greater results, while opponents worried about the risks of an outsider accessing core facilities.
Ultimately, Ritsuko Akagi made a compromise decision, which was exactly what Ryo had anticipated: partial approval.
Ryo received an approval with a drastically reduced equipment list, but it came with a critical piece of information: given that some of the approved equipment were large, permanently installed devices that could not be moved to Experimental Station No. 9, "Dr. Ryo" was thereby granted temporary, restricted access clearance to the internal areas of NERV Headquarters.
He was permitted to head to several specified core laboratories during specific time slots, accompanied by security personnel, to use this equipment for "critical experimental verification."
Looking at the clearance upgrade notification displayed on the communication terminal and the attached map of Headquarters indicating his permitted range of activity, Ryo knew that the web he had meticulously woven had finally caught its first important fish.
The gates leading to that giant underground city hiding all secrets had finally cracked open a sliver for him.
Next, it was a matter of seeing just how many truly valuable things he could excavate from within, under this limited clearance and strict surveillance.
(End of Chapter)