I'm reading #s26, 27 much more simply. I'm reading: The first part as simply a statement that there is such a thing as individual awareness: we're all aware. And we're all aware of our surroundings and the things in it. That is, no Kantian problem of the Noumenon. Kant is answering the problem of what is required to have, to ground, a science. Hegel seems to ignore that question entirely and simply assume that what Kant worked so hard to give, is simply there. Then Hegel asks, and will answer, given this stuff (pace Kant) how do we do science? In Hegel's terms, then, we start with the perceptions of, say, a panther, a strictly "animal' perception. (Perhaps Hegel takes the notion of self for granted as well.)

For its part, science requires that self-consciousness shall have elevated itself into this ether in order to be able to live with science and to live in science, and, for that matter, to be able to live at all. — Hegel/Pinkard

Or perhaps there's a dialectic that leads to a developed notion of self-as-being. Maybe the hammer-on-thumb moment that elevates pain from itself to "I hurt," (and maybe if I'm smarter I won't hurt myself next time!).

In any case, awareness beyond mere animal perception.

Then there is the juxtaposition of self-consciousness and science, one as the negation of the other:

or, because immediate self-consciousness is the principle of actuality, by immediate self-consciousness existing for itself outside of science, science takes the form of non-actuality. — Hegel/Pinkard

To become actual, science has to unite itself with self-consciousness.

This coming-to-be of science itself, or, of knowing, is what is presented in this phenomenology of spirit as the first part of the system of science. Knowing, as it is at first, or, as immediate spirit, is devoid of spirit, is sensuous consciousness. In order to become genuine knowing, or, in order to beget the element of science which is its pure concept, immediate spirit must laboriously travel down a long path. — Hegel/Pinkard

The "long path," so far, is going to be the course of recognizing and accounting the continuous process of sublation. That is, a combined asking and answering that in its own process creates its own evolution into its own being. In crude terms, the movement from no questions - and no answers - to elementary and stupid questions, to increasingly refined and even self-reflective questions.

Even the term "question" is loaded, as most learn in 101. Putting nature, the world, "to the question," means to extract information based on a structured asking - the process of science itself - as opposed to passive observation of what is presented, and conjecture and speculation on why it's presented and what it means.

Kant starts with immortality, freedom, and God. He'll argue that these present both irresistible - they cannot merely be dismissed - and unresolvable problems, and then argue out a work-around. Of these first issues, Hegel always has them in view, and understands them as needing to be approached as opposed to being immediately accessed. In other words, in simplest terms, Hegel may be understood at first as a reaction to Kant.

In any case, it is something very different from the inspiration which begins immediately, like a shot from a pistol, with absolute knowledge, and which has already finished with all the other standpoints simply by declaring that it will take no notice of them." — Hegel/Pinkard

Hegel will take notice of everything. The taking notice itself, as well as the noticing, reflected on itself repeatedly until done, will be his approach to absolute spirit.