Top Warzone Analyst Chapter 105

Cheng Feng let out a sigh of relief. First, she opened the backend system and reserved all of tomorrow’s matches, then entered the database and began reviewing the materials section by section according to the catalog.

During the period she had been away at training, it was obvious that the research team at UFU had been working around the clock as well.

The entire resource package had been reorganized into a massive new code library based on mech body parts and weapon types. Compared to the provisional summary version leaked out last semester, this one was far more complete and logical. The number of codes had expanded to more than double.

At the top of the document was written Third Edition. The speed of progress made Cheng Feng suspect she hadn’t been gone for a month and a half, but for a year and a half.

Fortunately, although the size of the code library had exploded, most of the additions were just finer functional distinctions meant to make it easier for future students to understand and absorb. There actually wasn’t that much genuinely new material Cheng Feng needed to strengthen.

Cheng Feng first went out to pour herself a glass of water, then ordered some takeout, making preparations for a long battle ahead. After that, she carried a small stool back to her desk, sat down, and made herself a study schedule chart.

The school’s written tutorials always loved turning a simple sentence into something painfully convoluted, and even the annotations below used stiff, official terminology.

On top of that, Cheng Feng still wasn’t very used to the Alliance’s style of phrasing. Sometimes, when a section of logical explanation got a bit longer, she had to reread it several times, or even reverse-engineer the meaning from the surrounding context before she understood what they were actually trying to say.

So she preferred the plain-language explanations and full video demonstrations posted by users on the San Yao forums.

Fortunately, during this period, quite a few testing threads related to manual-operated mechs had appeared in the forum’s sub-sections. Cheng Feng searched through them while taking notes alongside the tutorials.

This tedious work continued all the way until eight o’clock that evening.

Sitting still for such a long time made Cheng Feng’s shoulders and neck start to ache. She closed the page and went out to exercise for an hour and a half. After showering, she picked up her terminal to take a look, only to find that the homepage notifications had practically been flooded by the small group chat Xiang Yunjian had created.

The four of them were currently fighting over naming rights for the group chat. Judging by the situation, none of them were willing to compromise, and they had already changed the name back and forth dozens of times.

Cheng Feng had completely forgotten what the original group name even was. She clicked into the edit history instead, and from it could clearly see just how obsessed the group was with this tournament.

What’s Good About Summer changed the group name to: “Beat Tao Rui to Death!”

A Little More Reckless changed the group name to: “Birthplace of the Purple Star”

My Family’s Got a Mine changed the group name to: “MVP Trophy Wholesale Dealer”

Xiang Yunjian changed the group name to: “Anti-Caster-Curse Department”

…

This made Cheng Feng feel that if she didn’t participate a little, she’d be letting the spirit of the group down.

So she quietly clicked to change the group name.

Ye Guicheng changed the group name to: “Monthly Income: 10,000!”

The moment that message popped up, the few bored people who had been fiercely arguing suddenly fell silent.

The first to break the awkward atmosphere was Jiang Linxia, sending an “[Owl Confused]” meme sticker.

What’s Good About Summer: Do we really need to sink this low?

A Little More Reckless: Think about Cheng Feng’s cursed luck lately. This kind of jinx is honestly a pretty sincere blessing.

My Family’s Got a Mine: …I kind of want to leave the group now. [Suffering]

Ye Guicheng: ??

Xiang Yunjian: @YeGuicheng, hurry up and go study. Don’t interfere in adult matters.

Cheng Feng felt insulted.

These people were actually sneering at an annual income of 120,000.

The Alliance truly was a luxurious nation. Poverty made her unable to fit in.

Cheng Feng directly switched the group chat to Do Not Disturb mode. Pressing hard against the screen with her finger, she switched over to the San Yao forum homepage, trying to seek comfort from the masses of online users.

The page had just refreshed. With a single glance, Cheng Feng spotted a hot post on the front page that seemed to be about her.

[So this is UFU’s Light of Manual-Operated Mechs?]

The original post featured the selfie Cheng Feng had uploaded the night before.

The little owl stood on her left shoulder, both of them turning sideways toward the camera with cold, distant expressions.

Cheng Feng thought it looked pretty cool, but the netizens clearly disagreed.

“…Owly wowy?”

“What a fiercely cute look!”

“I’m dying laughing. You guys are awful.”

“She’s the holder of three MVP trophies! [dramatic voice]”

“Why did she wait until today to register? I’ve been following Cheng Feng for ages, and there hadn’t been any movement. I thought she wasn’t participating in this year’s tournament.”

“A bunch of top command students got pulled into special training at the military district base, so Cheng Feng missed registration.”

“Registering this late is probably just for testing the waters, right? Better not expose her combat style too early, or next season people will analyze and counter her specifically. That’d make things harder.”

“People analyzing and targeting Cheng Feng? No way. The league hasn’t fallen that far yet. There are already tons of sensor-mech pilots who need analysis. Manual-operated mechs can stand further back in line.”

Cheng Feng took a screenshot and sent it back into the muted group chat.

Ye Guicheng: Are they mocking me?

What’s Good About Summer: You could actually tell? [Surprised]

Ye Guicheng: What’s there to mock?

What’s Good About Summer: Because of your personal slogan?

My Family’s Got a Mine: Why bother with them? Go study your own stuff, kid.

A Little More Reckless: Manual-operated mechs have never really been respected in the league anyway. No need to take it too seriously.

What’s Good About Summer: Well, that’s also because they’ve never really made a name for themselves. Especially in recent years – their results have been awful. Forget the finals; barely anyone even makes it into the preliminaries. San Yao even added a separate testing rule for them in the qualifiers because of this, which made the public even more resistant.

What’s Good About Summer: The more preferential treatment they get, the more people look down on them. Plus, manual-operated mechs are already pretty niche to begin with.

A Little More Reckless: One of the top figures in your manual-operation circle, Ji Ban, got snatched away by the Expeditionary Force before he even finished the finals back then. And he burst onto the scene with his own custom mech from the start, so he’s different from you guys. Lian Sheng only began modifying her mech into a half-manual-operated setup later on, and by then she’d already graduated. So strictly speaking, in the history of the league finals, manual-operated mechs have never really had a place.

Xiang Yunjian: So this is your opportunity. The era of manual-operation hasn’t begun yet. Whether it continues to decline, or whether someone appears who can knock loudly enough to shake the entire Alliance – only the people living through it can decide.”

For someone with ambition, “the era hasn’t begun yet” was the kind of sentence that made the blood boil.

And clearly, everyone in this group was arrogant and wildly confident.

They treated the hardships facing the field as nothing more than a stepping stone – something to use to climb higher and go farther. As for fear, that could wait until after total failure actually arrived.

Xiang Yunjian changed the group name to: “Herald of a New Era”

Xiang Yunjian: No more changing it. This is the one. Kid, hurry up and go study.

Ye Guicheng: Ok.

…

Cheng Feng had always believed herself to be a low-key and modest person. But when she couldn’t help searching for information about Ji Ban, she still felt that becoming a legend who carved out a new era was far more exciting.

After sensors were introduced and widely adopted, the manual-operated mech “Moshi” became a half-finished relic left over from the old era. In the end, through Ji Ban’s father’s persistent maintenance and construction, it became the Alliance’s last manual-operated mech. However, because it never obtained piloting authorization, it could only remain sealed away in a warehouse for a long time.

When Ji Ban participated in the competition, research on manual-operated mechs had already been suspended for decades. The new generation of young pilots had never even seen equipment like it before, and the transformation functions unique to manual-operated mechs were completely beyond their understanding.

With his exceptional operating talent, more than ten years of grueling training, and the cutting-edge craftsmanship of Moshi, the combination of Ji Ban and Moshi appeared on the stage like a torpedo dropped into a calm sea, instantly triggering a tsunami-like upheaval in the league with overwhelming dominance.

Everyone swept up in it was helplessly tossed and turned within those turbulent waves.

Even in posts that can still be found today, one can glimpse the shock people felt at the time.

All threads bearing Ji Ban’s name were filled with comments of awe and fear.

No one dared to confidently claim they could defeat Moshi. Its overwhelming strength even forced San Yao to launch an unprecedented large-scale technical overhaul of sensor mech data.

This proved that manual-operated mechs had once been glorious. Although that glory was brief, the fact that the Alliance restarted research on them shows that they had advantages that sensor mechs could neither match nor replace. They had once reached a peak that made people look toward the future with anticipation.

At the very least, they should not be in their current humble position – one where they are casually mocked by anyone.

A few posts left Cheng Feng feeling increasingly restless, as though something in her blood was beginning to boil. It almost felt like the person who had stood at the turning point of an era and kicked the course of history forward by decades… was herself.

She read several analytical papers about Moshi from that period, then went back to the database to look up Ji Ban’s combat videos.

Compared to the performance of the original Moshi, the parameters of manual-operated mechs currently provided by San Yao had already undergone major adjustments, and both their functions and structures had been repeatedly reformed. Ji Ban’s operating style at the time therefore offered very little directly applicable reference.

Because of this, Cheng Feng had never actually watched Ji Ban’s old videos before.

But after re-examining the combat footage from that era, she could fully understand why just the mention of Ji Ban’s name could inspire such fear.

Ji Ban himself was a man who looked refined and delicate. His physical disability -paralysis of the legs – made his personality more restrained and inward. Yet his piloting style was extremely domineering, agile, and daring, fully exploiting the strongest trait of manual-operated mechs: transformation versatility.

Cheng Feng had always believed her own operating style was already unconventional enough. But when she replayed Ji Ban’s combat recordings at reduced speed, she realized that his tendency to walk the edge of danger was on par with hers – and even more inclined toward overwhelming firepower bombardment.

Moreover, Ji Ban’s familiarity with Moshi far exceeded that of anyone else. Even the code library had been compiled by him personally, which meant many of his command sequences produced results that Cheng Feng could not have anticipated.

Cheng Feng kept reviewing until past two in the morning. Eventually, overwhelmed by the body’s natural sleep rhythm, she drifted into deep sleep. In her dreams, all she saw were overlapping phantom images of two generations of manual-operated mechs.

A sleek black mech moved rapidly through streets and war-torn battlefields. Cheng Feng felt her fingers moving in sync with muscle memory, constantly pressing commands to evade flying artillery while simultaneously searching for enemy units ahead. Every line of code was deeply etched into her mind, yet in certain places, there were traces of something that did not belong to her.

Confused memories overlapped and interchanged. Crimson flames and earth-shaking battle cries emerged across time in her dream, gradually melting into an increasingly vivid sense of pulse and rhythm.

Morning arrived to the sound of pleasant birdsong. Cheng Feng scratched her hair and sat up, then glanced to the side. Her terminal screen was frozen on a shot taken from below by San Yao after Moshi’s victory in battle.

The sun was carried behind the black mech’s back, its pitch-dark metallic body layered with a dazzling, radiant gold light.

Every sharp edge of its frame seemed to declare the same phrase: “Invincible in all directions.”