Top Warzone Analyst Chapter 107

Zheng Yi was snapped back to reality by a message from his good friend.

The friend had called him twice in a row, asking why he hadn’t come to eat yet. He had a lesson at 1 PM, followed immediately by the next round of the competition, leaving him no time to rest.

By the time Zheng Yi made it to the cafeteria, his friend had already bought him a meal.

Zheng Yi sat down absentmindedly, listening to the person across from him describe how ridiculous that morning’s matchups had been, occasionally chiming in with a word or two. After taking a few silent bites, he abruptly interjected during a lull in the conversation. “Manual mechs seem pretty impressive too.”

“Huh?” His friend had been right in the middle of an important part of the story and found Zheng Yi’s reaction unusually strange, asking with an amused tone, “You’re not even a manual mech major, so why do you care about their stuff? Plotting your strategy for the preliminaries in advance? Dude, adjust your mindset and keep it focused.”

The young man then opened his light computer, searched for Zheng Yi’s name, and after taking a clear look at his specific track record, shook his head. “You went two wins and two losses this morning. Looks like your luck’s just average. Be careful – your ranking’s about to drop out of the top 20%.”

Just thinking about that made Zheng Yi especially frustrated. He complained, “My start was going so smoothly! Everything went wrong after I clicked on Cheng Feng’s post!”

“Are you out of your mind, going to read Cheng Feng’s posts when you’ve got nothing better to do? The qualifiers are almost halfway through, and she’s only just started playing – she won’t even make the prelims. Paying attention to her is a complete waste of time. And on top of that, she’s still just a freshman majoring in manual mech,” the young man scolded sternly. “Don’t forget – we’re destined to be top-tier talents in the infantry department. Set your sights a little higher!”

After speaking with such conviction, he casually swiped across the screen. Glancing at the text scrolling across the holographic display, he narrowed his eyes, then lowered his voice and added with a hint of suspicion, “What exactly has Cheng Feng done to master the algorithm of going viral? Why does she always end up on the trending page? With her kind of built-in audience, she’d make a killing streaming.”

Zheng Yi lowered his head and leaned forward. Unable to explain the stubborn thought gnawing at his mind, he could only huddle mysteriously with his friend and share, “Cheng Feng’s manual mech is actually pretty impressive. She’s seriously something else. Let me show you her video.”

Carrying his tray, Zheng Yi moved next to the young man, pulled up the earlier webpage, and selected replay.

The data stats in the corner showed that in less than half an hour since being posted, the video’s view count had already surpassed 100,000, with over 3,000 concurrent viewers. It seemed to be attracting quite a few bored netizens from San Yao.

Sure enough, explosive and fast-paced battles were the best at grabbing the attention of casual onlookers.

The two of them watched it side by side, then both fell silent.

Their professional instincts made them involuntarily put themselves in the main perspective, thinking about what strategies they would use to counter it. But given the qualifiers’ rules, most of their preparations were geared toward sensor-based mechs. Now, faced with Cheng Feng’s slick and unorthodox maneuvering, they found themselves in a tricky spot – like trying to see with both eyes poked out.

The young man’s expression shifted from its initial casual indifference to one of deep, bitter contemplation – the twists and turns along the way almost impossible to put into words.

He stroked his chin, running through every possible counter-strategy, and instinctively thought of counterattacking by using the thrusters to pull off high-speed maneuvers. But the problem was, sensor-based mechs didn’t have the advantage when it came to speed.

After simulating the battle in his head twice, once he’d calmed down, the young man suddenly realized that his train of thought had already been hijacked by Chengfeng.

Never mind whether this was even his style – recklessly speeding up in a sensor mech was itself a rookie mistake, the kind made by someone whose composure had already fallen apart.

He snapped his light computer shut with a decisive clap and let out a long breath.

Videos like this were a complete menace. They seriously messed with students’ competition preparations.

“She’s definitely going to crash and burn,” the young man said, turning his head with absolute certainty. “With that kind of playstyle, she’s bound to fail!”

Zheng Yi raised his left eyebrow, half-convinced and half-doubtful. “…Really?”

“Just wait and see. Cheng Feng just hasn’t run into any real troublemakers yet,” the young man said, straightening his jacket with the calm detachment of someone who had seen through the ways of the world. “Heh – speed demons always end up with cramped hands. I’m not even a manual mech major, and I know the trick to taking them down. They’re operating with only two hands. Don’t overthink it – just go all out with overwhelming suppression, and you’ll shatter their rhythm in thirty seconds. The burst phase of a manual mech has no stamina. Not unless she wants to destroy her own hands, that is.”

…

In the afternoon’s four matches, Cheng Feng did indeed have a minor crash-and-burn moment.

Her timing on the cannon attack was off, and half of her firepower ended up hitting the wall.

But under the rules of this map scenario, the consequences of a bad bombardment weren’t severe. The mech’s outer shell was tough enough to avoid fatal damage from ricocheting fire. The opposing mechs were caught completely off guard as well – when Cheng Feng circled around for a follow-up attack, they still couldn’t dodge in time.

The final times for all four matches hovered around the ten-minute mark. The shortest was 8 minutes and 43 seconds.

No new match videos were leaked this time, leaving netizens with nothing but a string of numbers representing the times and plenty of room for imagination.

Before the evening matches began, Cheng Feng did some self-reflection and concluded that the high-frequency operation was putting too much strain on her fingers, leading to unnecessary mistakes like that one. The short professional lifespan of mech pilots, after all, comes down to the body’s inability to stay at peak condition forever – whether it’s manual or sensor-based operation.

So she voluntarily canceled her third match of the evening, setting aside some time to relax. When scheduling the next day’s matches, she made the same adjustment.

A full day’s schedule of 12 matches, she cut down to 9.

Cheng Feng pressed on the calculator.

If that was the case, then under the tiered scoring system, if she wanted to secure a spot in the preliminaries, she’d have to avoid breaking her winning streak.

Cheng Feng drew a little red flower on her calendar, then switched over to her account’s backend.

In the upper-right corner of the screen, numerous @mentions had popped up. The red notification markers were giving her a bit of an eye sore.

Cheng Feng turned on her mute filter, but not before casually glancing at the content. Something caught her attention.

[A desperado-style tactic even crazier than the one-wave rush has appeared, @Ye Guicheng. The manual mech path sure runs wild.]

Cheng Feng frowned, reposted the message, and fired back a rebuttal.

[Ye Guicheng: What do you mean, desperado-style?]

She racked her brains for a moment, then pounded on the keyboard.

[Ye Guicheng: This is called “swifter than thunder and lightning” style!]

Her account had no shortage of eccentric fans. The moment they saw her show up, they jumped right in.

“Keep it up, kid.”

“Checked your schedule for tomorrow. Only 9 matches. Looks like you’ve really given up on the league. I get it, but still… kinda disappointed.”

“Is that really you in the video that came out today?”

“Why not just call it ‘Heavenly’ style? It’d suit your name perfectly.”

There were still forty-five minutes left before Cheng Feng’s evening matches. She picked a few replies to respond to, then closed the interface and went back to reviewing her materials.

…

That evening’s matches went smoothly as well. On the first day of the qualifiers, Cheng Feng emerged victorious in all her battles, welcoming a brilliant start.

Although the match times were all very short, her double-digit bottom-tier points didn’t spark widespread discussion. Only the dedicated netizens under that one post continued tirelessly compiling her stats.

On the second day, despite having reduced her number of matches, Cheng Feng’s performance remained top-notch. Not only were there no crashes, but there wasn’t even a single match that went beyond fifteen minutes.

That evening, another video suspected to be of Cheng Feng surfaced in San Yao’s video section. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly informative.

The pilot maintained the same sharp aggression as the day before, carrying the “bombard and obliterate” style all the way through.

Her opponent appeared to be another first-year student, there just to gain some experience. But instead, they found themselves completely suppressed, unable to mount any real resistance. After a desperate struggle, they became the first contestant in this year’s qualifiers – excluding forfeits and rule violations – to lose a match within five minutes.

It was brutal, like a one-sided massacre. Even through the video, you could feel the despair of the person recording.

People tried to seek confirmation from Cheng Feng, but she did not respond.

This situation continued until the end of the third day, when things started to feel off.

Every player who had faced Cheng Feng in battle, to a greater or lesser extent, began to question their own existence. Over three days and a total of 29 matches, Cheng Feng had been matched against students from various military universities across all grade levels, and her notoriety inevitably spread far and wide. Senior students in the manual mech program, alerted by their peers, started paying attention to this underclassman whose fighting style was extraordinarily ferocious – as if she showed up to every battle with her own coffin already packed.

The post titled [Just Wait] quickly began circulating through various professional group chats.

“Today’s average match time went up a bit – 12 and a half minutes. Is Cheng Feng’s fingers starting to give out under the strain?”

“Since when is 12 minutes considered long? What has this world come to? Tsk tsk. You guys are abnormal, you know that?”

“It’s probably because her opponents have heard about her by now and are starting to play more defensively.”

“Yesterday’s 4 minutes and 32 seconds is definitely the highlight of this year’s qualifiers – it won’t be beaten. That poor underclassman is probably traumatized for life. Cheng Feng, have a heart.”

“Friendly advice: don’t get too absorbed studying Cheng Feng’s videos. My win rate dropped a whole percentage point in no time. It’s insane.”

“Alright folks, time to get down to business. Include your school emblem, name, and screenshot of your ID, scan the code to join the group. If you know, you know. [Image]”

Zheng Yi had been lurking in that post the whole time, his attention on Cheng Feng even greater than on himself.

He, too, felt like he was losing his mind – desperate to see Cheng Feng lose just one match, so he could snap himself out of this obsessive state.

But it was already the third day. Cheng Feng hadn’t lost once in three days. That was more shocking than his own mother deciding to stop hitting him.

Driven by curiosity, he added the mysterious group number below and entered his student ID as requested.

After he pressed confirm, the system simply popped up a prompt box: [Strict verification: non-manual-mech majors will not be admitted].

He was rejected.

Not one to give up, Zheng Yi borrowed a friend’s account and applied again.

This time, he finally made it into the group chat, and the previously hidden group name was revealed.

True to his expectations, the group owner had chosen an excellent and straightforward name: [Snipe the Wind]. [1]

The group announcement read: Collecting all manual mech battle videos related to Cheng Feng. New or old, both welcome.

Zheng Yi’s feelings became complicated in an instant.

Cheng Feng had only been competing for three days, and there was already a dedicated analysis group for her – while all he could do was lurk here and watch from the sidelines.

Translator’s Notes:

[1] Cheng Feng’s “Feng” also means “wind” in Chinese, which is why the group name is “Snipe the Wind”.