Cheng Feng’s mapping speed was remarkably swift. Even before the preparation phase had ended, she had already input all the data she could gather within her field of vision, filling in the last missing pieces of the existing map.
However, her late arrival seemed somewhat unreliable, and someone in the team channel subtly complained about it.
Cheng Feng excelled at letting criticism go in one ear and out the other. Acting as if she hadn’t heard a thing, she promptly assigned the twenty members of her team to strategic positions with wide fields of view, ensuring they could monitor the enemy’s movements in a timely manner.
As soon as the preparation phase ended, the comment section opened simultaneously. Hundreds of messages instantly flooded the San Yao Forum and the live stream, scrolling past at a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow. It wasn’t until a minute or two had passed that the pace finally slowed down.
“Here we go! I’m going to keep my eyes on UFU throughout this entire exercise and figure out exactly how they secure their victory!”
“Times are changing! There’s no way every incoming class at UFU can be this cunning. I refuse to believe that’s part of their admissions criteria!”
“UFU’s main commander, I’m coming for you.”
“What’s so interesting about a rookie commander? What kind of outstanding leadership skills do you expect from a high school graduate? They’ve probably never even participated in many large-scale simulation battles, right? You should be focusing on the strongest individual soldiers!”
“A girl next door claims she’s the legendary manual mech operator from UFU. Haha, seriously? I thought it was a guy. Turns out it’s a female operator?”
“How can a manual mech operator compete in the freshman competition? Isn’t she in the Command Category B? That’s completely different. She must be joking with everyone.”
“People still believe the unfiltered bragging of these military university students? No way, right?”
To the audience’s disappointment, after the countdown ended, UFU students made no major moves for a full five minutes.
Upon arriving at the designated holding area marked on the map, they simply lay lazily on the ground, awaiting their overall commander’s orders.
Unfortunately, the commander’s attention was entirely focused on those two squads of light infantry at that moment, leaving no spare mental capacity to arrange for the defense squad. They were simply told to act according to the situation.
At least, that’s what the instructor had told them.
In a situation where they lacked the strength and confidence to assault and score points, simply staying alive was their greatest contribution.
The scene was peaceful and boring, hard to believe this was the war-torn Freshman Competition.
But Cheng Feng couldn’t just stay back and guard the home base with her teammates; otherwise, the data analysis panel would remain blank, and she couldn’t accept that.
As was her habit, she assigned a number to everyone in the team. The guy whose earlier criticism she had overheard was Number One.
Number One was exceptionally proactive. Squinting as he gazed at the hilltop across from them, he took the initiative to suggest, “Deputy Commander, the two of us can provide cover fire for you. How about you sneak across the line to gather some intel? After all, we’re Team Three, and our geographical position is uniquely advantageous – we’re the closest to the other factions, which makes it perfect for a surprise attack.”
Cheng Feng nodded.
However, she didn’t need Number One’s cover. Gripping her gun, she charged out all on her own.
Number One called over a nearby teammate and hastily scrambled after her, lowering his voice to urge, “Tech, don’t be so reckless! This doesn’t fit UFU’s overall combat style at all! Hey, what are you doing? If you get taken out, we’ll be left without a deputy commander! Get back here first!”
To his surprise, Cheng Feng, though petite and seemingly unremarkable, moved with greater agility than even him, a frontline soldier. Shortly after leaving their camp’s line, she vanished entirely from his sight.
Breaking out in a cold sweat, Number One looked up and scanned the map. He noticed that the originally rudimentary surface terrain was being supplemented and refined at an impressive speed.
The newly added data was detailed and clear, including the undulations of the terrain and some large, significant vegetation that could be used for concealment.
Since no enemy troops had been detected, the data collection was limited to simple surface features. But even this was astonishing enough.
Number One’s eyes went wide, stunned.
Although military education had been introduced to younger age groups, allowing students with relevant aspirations to study battlefield data analysis starting from high school.
However, that superficial knowledge could, at best, give young people just a glimpse of the bare basics of data modeling.
Without the benefit of experience and time, even top students would struggle to achieve proficiency, let alone make rough judgments without relying on instrument measurements.
Therefore, frontline soldiers had always treated the maps provided by deputy commanders as mere references.
Deputy commanders themselves, generally afraid that their errors might affect the team’s decisions, tended to lean toward conservative data collection, which further widened the margin of error and truly limited their maps to being just references.
When Cheng Feng’s complete and precise map appeared, it immediately captured the attention of all the freshmen. Everyone found the speed of this modeling utterly absurd.
The main commander couldn’t help but say, “Have you even taken a class? Can you stop randomly building a model?”
“?” Cheng Feng asked innocently, “Can you stop randomly speaking?”
The main commander thought her peculiar tone was deliberately sarcastic. Provoked by her response, his voice turned cold. “We’re all going to be classmates soon. Out of respect for that, I’ll let this slide. But seriously, can you talk normally?”
He was mocking her.
Cheng Feng was quite displeased.
Number One ran forward a bit and realized the situation wasn’t so simple.
The fact was, the parameters on the map were actually aligning perfectly with the scene before his eyes!
Blood rushed to his head, and his tongue got tangled as he stammered, “G… genius! Awesome! Who the hell are you? Which deity sent you? What’s your IQ? How can you model so fast and so accurately? How old were you when you started learning?”
Hearing this, his teammates, who had been lying low, suddenly perked up and exclaimed in surprise, “What? What? Is the map actually correct? I thought she was just messing around!”
“It’s correct!” Another young soldier who had followed along added, his voice cracking, “I measured it with my fingers – even the distances are accurate!”
A commotion erupted within the team.
“Damn! With a gap like this, our team still needs to play defense? Are you kidding me?!”
“Boss, if you’ve got skills like this, why didn’t you just say so earlier! Forget clinging to that manual mech operator’s fame – we’re no worse than them!”
“Exactly! Commanders and sensor mech operators are UFU’s pride!”
“Boss, wait up! I’m coming to protect you! Boss, you gotta keep yourself safe!”
The salted fish, who had been ready to dry out, suddenly flipped over, their fighting spirit reignited. They decided to give it one more shot.
However, their squad’s conversation couldn’t reach the command channel. Over on the light infantry side, reconnaissance reports kept flooding in. The main commander, stretched thin, casually cleared Team Three’s map data – only for Cheng Feng to restore it with a single click.
Furious, he demanded, “What exactly are you trying to pull? Are you a spy for the other side? Just say something!”
“You’re so annoying,” Cheng Feng replied. “And you’re pretty dumb too. I already told you I wasn’t messing around with the modeling.”
The main commander was absolutely livid. He immediately muted her for five minutes.
“She’s throwing a tantrum.”
Outside the computer lab, Xiang Yunjian propped his chin on one hand and let out a scoff.
This robot had a grudge-holding function. It probably resented people deleting her data more than anything.
That main commander might have already landed himself on her blacklist -permanently.
And not just Cheng Feng. The UFU students watching the live stream felt an inexplicable rage about to erupt from their chests. They were this close to slamming the table and cursing.
A godsend had arrived! And it got cut down before it could even develop!
That surge of excitement and frustration hit almost simultaneously – who could endure that?
Jiang Linxia was already blowing up the group chat: “Why doesn’t Cheng Feng know how to swear? Is her vocabulary really that limited? Huh? Has she had no experience with civilization? How are those few simple words enough?”
Yan Shen: “Be fair. Don’t be so unhinged.”
Jiang Linxia roared back: “Ask any UFU student if they’re not angry right now! Jump over to next door and check out the streams from First Military and Second Military – look how dangerous UFU’s situation is!”
Over on the UFU side, an inexplicable internal conflict had broken out. Meanwhile, over at First Military and Second Military, something unprecedented was happening: they were starting to cooperate.
In fact, speculation about an unexpected alliance between First Military and Second Military had emerged even before the competition began. It turned out that the main commanders of these two teams were alumni from the same high school and, reportedly, had a pretty good relationship in the past.
Netizens were eagerly anticipating that these two military universities might, through the connection of their commanders, bury the hatchet and join forces. And indeed, they did not disappoint.
Not long after the start, the two forces successfully rendezvoused and got straight down to business. They unanimously decided to first eliminate the “fisherman” who might profit from their conflict, and only then settle the score between themselves as the “sandpiper and clam.”
Every time UFU swooped in to pick up the scraps, it left a bad taste in their mouths, too.
However, given the numerous precedents of backstabbing, neither side could fully trust the other.
Initially, they planned to each dispatch a squad, forming a 40-person force to strike straight through the middle and crush UFU’s home base.
But after discussing it for a while, both sides grew anxious about the consequences of failure. Somehow, the plan was scaled down from 20 participants each to just 10.
In the end, they decided to split it fifty-fifty, hastily cobbling together a small team. The remaining half would follow behind, ready to provide support depending on how things unfolded.
To ensure fairness, they lined up in two separate columns and advanced side by side.
This scene left netizens with question marks popping up over their heads.
“This year’s competition is still just as baffling as ever…”
“Is this what they call cooperation? With all that undercurrent of tension and defensive posturing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they draw their guns and start blasting each other the next second. Totally unnecessary.”
“You forced this pairing, and look what it got you – 1 plus 1 equals less than zero. Is this really what you wanted to see?”
“UFU’s timing is impeccable. With a common enemy, their ‘cooperation’ is now solid. Thank you, UFU, for the free points!”
“That deputy commander from UFU is absolutely godlike. Go check out their stream!”
“There are only six UFU scouts coming their way. No matter how dysfunctional this makeshift team is, there’s no way they can lose to just six people, right? And one of them is just a deputy commander.”
On the map, that ragtag makeshift team was about to run head-on into Cheng Feng and her group. Less than two hundred meters separated them.
