Top Warzone Analyst Chapter 82

The scene was overcast with gloom; everyone looked as if their souls had been sucked out of them – utterly lifeless.

Mr. Zhou walked off cheerfully. Mr. Xue hung back for a moment, then turned to the group and said thoughtfully, “Don’t shift the blame. The problem is your own. This assessment was clearly aligned with your specialties. If you couldn’t solve it, you should be reflecting on yourselves. Besides, we reminded you many times along the way. Poor observation, faulty information gathering – those are your own faults. Making excuses won’t help you grow, nor is that what you should be doing. If you want to improve, straighten out your mindset and train properly.”

There had, in fact, been many clues along the way. The instructors’ deliberate slowing of the pace was the biggest hint.

Looking back, everyone had actually sensed it in their hearts. But Tao Rui’s paranoid tendencies had misled their judgment. Combined with the instructors’ deliberate misdirection, what was already a suspicious, heavy-hearted assessment only became even more difficult to navigate.

No one knew what to say. They fell silent for a moment, then turned their focus back to the questions in front of them.

Tao Rui crouched in front of the panel with an expression of utter misfortune, his finger hovering over the blank areas of the model as he retraced the road conditions he had observed today.

He could remember most of it – he knew which directions the model’s data had been drawn from – but the specific values were blurry, and some of the minor details included were things he hadn’t paid any attention to at all.

This meant the assessment was extremely detailed and went beyond the scope of their university knowledge. Only a few hints had been given during the previous evening’s lecture.

If the instructors hadn’t explicitly pointed things out, even if they had walked slowly through the mountains, none of them would have been able to solve this problem.

This was clearly an assessment that required teamwork and division of labor after receiving the questions.

The instructors’ arrangement meant they would inevitably have to go through it a second time – maybe even a third.

Tao Rui felt he was cursed with terrible luck. His mood sank as he stared blankly at the endlessly rotating base model on the screen, his mind drifting far away.

The First Military student, seemingly already used to this, reached over and patted Tao Rui on the shoulder, comforting him:

“Don’t mind them. They’re all adults – they should have learned to take responsibility for themselves by now.”

“They’re just trying to mess with your mindset and throw you off while you’re solving the problems.”

“Besides, this actually works in our favor as the home school. None of us really attended last night’s lecture properly anyway. Let’s quickly review it and divide up the tasks.”

The panels were placed close together, and students from the other school were standing right beside them.

Upon hearing this, the Second Military student turned his head slightly in their direction, but he really didn’t have time to argue with them. His eyes swept roughly across the other team’s screen before quickly snapping back to his own panel, busy breaking down the blank sections of the model with the classmate next to him.

Cheng Feng was short, and the area in front of the gate was packed with people – all tall, strapping young men. She couldn’t squeeze in.

Shen Dan noticed her hovering around the edge of the crowd, looking dejected. She stood up straight, moved closer to her on her own, reached up to brush aside her sweat-dampened bangs, put on her cap, and asked, “You want to get in there?”

Cheng Feng nodded.

She thought Shen Dan would help clear a path for her. But she hadn’t expected that this friend of hers specialized in the art of mall shopping battles. Instead, she gave her a hard shove from behind, thrusting Cheng Feng straight into the fray, then called out to the other girls to come over and lend a hand.

The boys in the front rows stumbled forward like stalks of wheat bending in the wind. The one at the very front, caught completely off guard, was pressed flat against the wall, his face smushed against the screen, triggering the system to flash an “Operation Error” alert.

“Oh my, junior – have some restraint! I almost thought you were feeling me up!”

“Stop shoving! Let me out! Can’t I just get out already?”

“Why are you UFU people pushing into us UMU people? Looking for trouble?”

“Go bother the First Military – hold the right people accountable!”

“Shen Dan! Are you with UFU or UMU at heart? Don’t act like a troublemaker like them!”

Forced into a corner, Cheng Feng called out, “Let me try! I’ll do it! Stop pushing, everyone!”

People backed off a little, afraid of what might happen, and let Cheng Feng through.

The air at the center of the crowd was stifling, with the sour stench of sweat hanging in it. Once Cheng Feng got inside, she felt the temperature around her rise by at least five degrees. In this early spring dusk, it was actually a bit stuffy.

She wrinkled her face, held her breath, and stared intently at the pattern displayed above.

The senior student was standing sideways in a very uncomfortable position. Looking down, he happened to see Cheng Feng’s round head. He let out a soft sigh and asked, “Does any of this look familiar to you?”

Cheng Feng raised her hand and fiddled with the display, rotating the background orientation, but her gaze wasn’t actually focused on it. Instead, her thoughts drifted back to that undulating mountain forest.

A few of the senior students behind her whispered among themselves: “This model should be taken from the middle-to-later section, right? That low slope near the rest point?”

“The girls walked slower – maybe they noticed more than we did. Should we let them all come in and take a look?”

Cheng Feng clicked to the next question and saw a model framework she was even more familiar with.

The sections near the start, the end, and a middle stretch that Cheng Feng had privately dubbed the “Path of Abandoned Hope” – she had specifically analyzed the terrain for all of them. Following several key points from the instructor’s documents, there turned out to be a high degree of overlap with this assessment’s questions.

However, the mountain trail they had covered today was long and winding. The data and information involved were far too complex, with many nearly repetitive segments. Cheng Feng had only casually reviewed them in her mind at the time and hadn’t recorded anything. Now that she was back at the base, her memories had gotten so mixed up that nearly seventy to eighty percent of them were already a blur.

The passing threshold for modeling accuracy was over 80%. She knew there was no way she could get it all right in one go. But by sorting through her thoughts, she could reduce the workload by about a third without much trouble.

Cheng Feng pushed her elbow back, signaling the people behind her to make some room. Once enough space had been cleared, she jumped straight into editing mode and poured all the data still lingering in her memory into the system.

Seeing her start to work, the UFU students immediately fell silent and watched her intently as she answered.

Even though they weren’t entirely sure of the answers themselves, seeing them on the screen still jogged their memory.

The gradually improving model began to overlap with the vague outlines in their own memories, becoming clearer by the minute – and bringing them a wave of quiet delight.

The modeling process without a real-world reference was quite lengthy. Cheng Feng had to keep going back and forth, second-guessing herself, pausing now and then to recall details, skipping over unknown parts, and solving the problems in leaps and bounds.

After Cheng Feng filled in everything she could still remember, the progress for that sub-question showed 50% completion. As for the accuracy rate, that wouldn’t be calculated until all the questions were answered.

This was the section she had the most confidence in – the one she had been mentally reviewing over and over again before arriving back at the base – so the completion rate turned out to be a fair bit higher than she had expected.

After going through the entire thing once more, Cheng Feng felt a sense of relief and continued flipping to the later questions.

Her fellow students had already spontaneously cleared about half a meter of space around her. Now that they saw her turn the page, they finally dared to let out a little of their inner excitement.

A senior student pressed a hand on her shoulder, leaned in close, and asked, “Cheng Feng, are you sure what you filled in is correct?”

Cheng Feng replied, “The ones marked in green are certain. The ones in yellow are half certain. The ones in black mean I’m guessing – I have a rough idea of the value range, so if I take some time to try different options, I should be able to figure it out.”

“Wow–”

The group immediately turned sycophantic. They massaged her shoulders and back, fanned her with their caps, and lavished her with over-the-top compliments, bestowing upon her the noble treatment befitting a hero.

“You are truly a model among us! I must learn from you!”

“Cheng Feng, forever the GOAT!”

“The queen of the command seat!”

“Wasn’t she the queen of the big battlefield?”

“Damn! Please stop using these titles – how am I supposed to mock those idiots from First Military from now on?”

“Where’s the water? Can’t you see that we’re all thirsty after the journey back? Get a clean bottle of water, quick!”

Cheng Feng tilted her head and, with an aloof air, took a sip of the water someone beside her handed over.

Tao Rui also glanced over in this direction. He wasn’t very familiar with Cheng Feng, and the surprised look on his face hadn’t had time to fade.

One of the UFU seniors had been keeping an eye on him. Seeing this, he waved his hand and said with a perfectly punchable expression, “Don’t be jealous. Being likable – that’s just a matter of natural talent.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Tao Rui is also the center of attention and deeply loved in our First Military! Why all the sarcasm?”

“Only within your own First Military, really.”

Mr. Zhou walked over with the smart robot to deliver dinner. Seeing the lively atmosphere, he looked a bit surprised and paced around as he said, “You’re all in better shape than I expected. Not bad, not bad. How’s the progress?”

The students resting in the square traded a few lighthearted jokes with him, then pointed ahead, indicating that they were also waiting for updates.

After all, Tao Rui was the leading figure in the Command Department. His sensitivity to maps and key assessment points was exceptional. Despite his rough start, he was the first student among all the military universities to fully deconstruct the five major models. By now, he had already taken out paper and a pen and was assigning tasks one by one based on the strengths of his different schoolmates.

He was pretty frustrated himself – his face had been dark all day, and his tone of voice was stiff, spitting out words one at a time, with a suppressed breath stuck in his throat, as if he were wrestling with himself.

“Here, the model for the second question – about five kilometers from the starting point, the third red circle on the west coordinate, six standard data points. You two will be responsible for that. Also, don’t forget to double-check the fourth point not far from there…”

“Got it! We’re off immediately!”

Over at the UFU side, Cheng Feng had also filled in parts of several other sub-questions, though the completion rate was much lower in comparison.

Even though she was working through the questions slowly, she had thoroughly grasped the key assessment points through the process of constant review. After filling in all the data she could still retrieve from her memory, she quickly reverse-engineered the remaining test points and models.

Taking into account the questions she had already answered and calculating her expected score, she chose the strategy that minimized difficulty and maximized efficiency. She recorded everything clearly on her notebook based on distance, then asked the familiar senior students to help with the task distribution.

The third-year senior students looked at that detailed set of notes and nearly wept with joy. Within five minutes, they had established a two-team rotation system and became the second group – right after First Military – to set out and scout the path.

UFU had started late, but their workload was smaller. Barring any unexpected trouble, they would be the first team to return in triumph.

Mr. Zhou stood with his hands clasped behind his back and called out to the departing crowd with feigned concern, “It’s getting dark – be careful not to get lost up in the mountains. Bedding will be distributed at 7 p.m. If you really can’t make it, the base will take care of your accommodations!”