Top Warzone Analyst Chapter 106

At ten in the morning, the first round of today’s qualifiers began.

After getting up, Zheng Yi first went to class for two periods, then hurried to the computer lab to log in.

The match progressed unusually smoothly. He outmaneuvered his opponents and captured the central battle flag without taking a single hit. The entire process took less than fifteen minutes – his best performance since joining the competition.

Zheng Yi couldn’t help but hum a little tune, feeling that this perfect start was a sign of good fortune for the day. Of course, it also reflected his growing strength.

If nothing unexpected happened, he should be able to lock in his spot in the preliminaries ahead of schedule.

And if things went even more smoothly, he might just become the new ace of the infantry unit, following in Xiang Yunjian’s footsteps.

During the break before the next match, Zheng Yi reined in his swelling ambitions a bit and clicked into the San Yao Forum to check the latest news.

Every day, tens of thousands of new posts flooded the forum’s front page, especially during the league’s warm-up period. Aside from the hot and featured posts, no thread could stay on the front page for more than two seconds.

But the moment Zheng Yi clicked in, he saw the name that made the veins on his forehead throb.

A user with the ID “Ye Guicheng” had posted around six that morning. The title was simple and to the point: “Just wait.”

The body of the post was empty.

And yet – this utterly boring post had been marked as a hot topic.

Zheng Yi clicked on it as if possessed.

And sure enough, it was all just nonsense.

“We’re waiting.”
“So what?”
“Yo~”
“Go get ’em, junior! I’ll bet everything I have on you, senior’s got your back!”
“Commander, show them the terror of a data analyst!”

Zheng Yi skipped straight to the last two pages.

“9 minutes and 14 seconds. Not bad.”
“When will the manual-operated mech pilots finally step up? How can they be this weak?”
“Congrats to Cheng Feng for scoring the first point. And for becoming the last player in this qualifier to have their score reset to zero!”

Zheng Yi recalled the last time he had seen Cheng Feng – when a few of them were forcibly teamed up for that closed beta dungeon in San Yao.

Logically, after going through such an insane rescue mission together, the members of that squad should’ve developed at least a little camaraderie. But for some reason, he always felt an inexplicable dread whenever he faced Cheng Feng. Just hearing the name was enough to give him goosebumps.

…Maybe it was because he had been utterly crushed back then. As a senior, he just couldn’t hold his head up in front of Cheng Feng.

“9 minutes and 14 seconds… what luck. When will I ever get opponents as bad as those manual-operated mech pilots?”

Zheng Yi muttered, made a mental note of the time, and decided to check on Cheng Feng’s matches after his second round.

Soon, the next match was ready to begin.

This round was a bit more turbulent for Zheng Yi. His opponent excelled at positioning and was piloting a Windwing. The two of them kept firing at each other’s weapon bays, but it was nothing but a fireworks show – barely a single hit landed. The tangled fight dragged on for a full 25 minutes before finally ending.

After Zheng Yi exited the dungeon, he immediately went back to that earlier post to check Cheng Feng’s progress.

“8 minutes and 35 seconds. What’s wrong with the manual-operated mechs?”
“Who was the opponent? Isn’t it random matching with anonymous battles?”
“Can we break seven minutes next round? Can the manual-operated mech be any more pathetic?”
“Is anyone streaming it? I don’t want to dig through the archives – just post a screenshot or something.”

The joy Zheng Yi had felt from his two consecutive wins was completely doused by the various comments in the thread.

He wanted to watch Cheng Feng’s match videos too, but unfortunately, his third match was about to begin.

The glaring red countdown kept urging him to log in, so he had no choice but to close the page for now.

Zheng Yi deeply felt that Cheng Feng was probably the great nemesis of his life. Just by clicking into his thread, his once blazing winning streak – which had barely lasted an hour – had vanished into thin air.

In his third match, he encountered a formidable opponent. After some initial probing and skirmishing, Zheng Yi had just gained the upper hand when his opponent immediately went for a mutual destruction move, blasting him out of the arena. Since both ended up with a draw, neither earned any points.

How unlucky.

Cursing under his breath, Zheng Yi found the bookmarked thread and skillfully flipped to the last two pages.

“9 minutes and 28 seconds. As an outsider, I have to ask – is this considered normal speed?”

“It might be normal speed in the underworld. Definitely not in the world of the living.”

“I can’t take it anymore. I’ve decided to go camp out for Cheng Feng’s next live stream.”

“What’s there to camp? Cheng Feng isn’t even streaming.”

“Start a stream, please. I’m willing to pay a penny for a ticket.”

Zheng Yi was somewhat surprised.

Although he had never thought much of manual-control mechs, he knew very well how difficult it was to finish a match in under ten minutes.

Moreover, manual-operated mechs had always been known for their balanced capabilities. As long as the pilot was skilled at transforming, the mech could replicate the standout features of most sensor-controlled mechs.

In short, it was all about “entanglement.”

Manual-operated mechs had a well-earned reputation for being tenacious opponents. And after the latest tech overhaul, that tenacity had only grown.

Zheng Yi had sparred with students at his own level before.

In terms of propulsion speed, a manual-operated mech could even outpace a lightly equipped Windwing. Knowing when to turn tail and run had practically become a signature skill of the manual operations department. Their thug-like guerrilla tactics could drive any opponent up the wall.

Even for him, finishing a match cleanly within ten minutes was a pipe dream, one that would make him call himself a fool for even entertaining it.

And Cheng Feng – she was just a freshman. What gave her the right to pull it off?

This question kept circling relentlessly in Zheng Yi’s mind, replaying in 360-degree surround sound as if hooked up to a loudspeaker. As a result, he played his fourth match with a distracted mind and lost within 17 minutes due to a major blunder.

After leaving the computer lab, Zheng Yi kept his head down and started searching keywords on his optical computer.

“10 minutes and 32 seconds. Congratulations – it’s an upward breakthrough. The match time has finally entered the two-digit era. Everyone can save face now.”

“Four wins this easily? This trend is giving me an ominous feeling.”

“Is Cheng Feng’s style of play so bizarre that people can’t handle it? Does it really make sense to let her kill this fast?”

“Cheng Feng just finished command department intensive training! She’s put manual-operation practice on hold for over a month! Especially you seniors from the manual operations track – reflect on yourselves. Getting wiped out like this, don’t you have any shame left?”

“Even I, a sensor-operated major, am getting anxious for you guys. At this level, shouldn’t someone be calling in a deputy commander to analyze the data?”

“[Link] The match footage is here. 10 minutes and 32 seconds – this should be Cheng Feng’s round. You’re welcome.”

One of the mech pilots who had faced Cheng Feng recorded the entire match and uploaded the footage five minutes ago.

The video title perfectly captured everyone’s sentiments: “What the hell. So frustrated.”

Zheng Yi stopped in his tracks, glanced around, and sat down on a nearby wooden bench. He clicked on the video, and his peripheral vision caught the view count in the bottom-left corner – it had already surpassed ten thousand, with over a thousand concurrent viewers.

Looked like he wasn’t the only one with questions.

The qualifiers’ map settings were relatively simple, and the win conditions were pretty straightforward.

To win, you either had to destroy the enemy mech or capture the iconic battle flag.

If the 30-minute time limit ran out without a decisive victor, the system would determine the winner based on the degree of map destruction and the number of NPC kills by each side.

This rule set had given rise to two very distinct combat styles.

The ultra-cautious, reactive style – and the hyper-aggressive, all-in style.

Cheng Feng was clearly a textbook example of the latter.

The video recording was taken from the mech pilot’s first-person perspective.

The player had barely walked out of the respawn point when the map radar locked onto Cheng Feng’s position. She didn’t even bother with signal interference – just straightforwardly, brutally switched to hunt mode. Judging by the movement speed of the red dot, her mech had reached a terrifying 300 kilometers per hour. A little faster and she would’ve taken off the ground entirely.

“Lunatic!”

The barrage of comments scrolling neatly across the screen was exactly what Zheng Yi wanted to yell out loud.

The player in the match was clearly on high alert, but at the same time, provoked by Cheng Feng’s almost taunting behavior. He cautiously adjusted his positioning toward her direction, transformed, climbed to higher ground, summoned his cannon, and prepared to attack.

Zheng Yi held his breath, raising his arm to bring the screen closer to his eyes.

Within the target’s field of view, a dark silhouette suddenly flashed past the magnified scope. The system’s auto-calibration feature couldn’t lock onto Cheng Feng’s trajectory – it spun halfway around and then popped up a red exclamation mark.

The camera view spun wildly. Both the person behind the screen and everyone watching followed the red dot on the mini-map, searching for the manual-operated mech’s location.

The next second, the red dot on the radar flickered and then briefly disappeared. Cheng Feng had activated signal interference.

The player retreated cautiously, looking for cover. Meanwhile, multiple viewing angles and directional cameras appeared on the screen.

This pilot was clearly an experienced student. Judging by how smoothly he processed information and responded to situations, he was very likely a soon-to-be junior – just like Zheng Yi.

Zheng Yi followed his rhythm, searching for signs of Cheng Feng across the split-screen views.

In this regard, Zheng Yi had to admit – he was no match for the manual operations majors.

The multiple display panels zoomed in and out, switching views so fast it was dizzying. Before Zheng Yi could even shift his attention, the player on the field had already locked onto Cheng Feng’s position and started to react.

But Cheng Feng’s attacking style was even more decisive than they had anticipated.

When the two mechs were about to meet head-on at an intersection, Cheng Feng didn’t pause for a moment – she streaked past and, from hundreds of meters away, fired a laser cannon straight at him.

At high speed, through a narrow intersection, Cheng Feng’s timing was impeccable. So precise it looked like she was exploiting a glitch.

Zheng Yi stared blankly, frozen just like the player recording the match. By the time he snapped out of it and tried to block, the outer defensive barrier of the mech had already taken a solid hit.

Five seconds later, the signal interference wore off.

In those brief five seconds, the player was so tense his fingers went weak, sweating cold under pressure.

The audience could hear his suppressed cursing, nodded in empathic understanding, and fired off a few bullet comments to vent his frustration on his behalf.

Over the next five minutes, Cheng Feng gave everyone a perfect demonstration of what it meant to adopt a “since I don’t value my life, I’ll take yours” kind of death-or-glory fighting style.

If it weren’t for the fact that manual-operated mechs had thick enough armor, and that Cheng Feng’s own fingers needed moments to adjust their rhythm, no one doubted that the match could have ended even sooner.

Zheng Yi had never really studied Cheng Feng’s fighting style, nor had he ever considered her a rival.

The two matches she had previously fought against Zhong Yijie had caused quite a stir, but he thought there were too many influencing factors – the biggest one being luck – so he hadn’t found them particularly meaningful as references.

But now, the words scrolling across the bullet comments sent chills down Zheng Yi’s spine.

“It’s different now!!”

“So damn aggressive!”

“Someone’s getting killed here!”