Chapter 72: He Might Be Cannon Fodder

Chapter 72: He Might Be Cannon Fodder

Time flew by, and a week passed in the blink of an eye.

With Ding Hu’s assessment of “not bad,” Chen Feng successfully pushed the Simulator’s performance to its limit. He could now run continuously for over half an hour under 5G acceleration.

During this week, aside from sleeping and spending two fixed hours each day reading historical materials from his new access permissions as if reading novels, he was almost always training.

He worked really hard.

This made Ding Hu both pleased and puzzled.

Chen Feng didn’t seem like someone who easily threw himself into training.

From his words, he also didn’t seem to actively impose a strong sense of mission upon himself like Ding Hu did.

It wasn’t that Ding Hu looked down on Chen Feng on purpose, but this was his objective judgment as a seasoned instructor of new recruits.

To become an excellent instructor, apart from having superb military skills, Ding Hu had also delved deeply into psychology. He could often see a person’s true nature through their words and actions, looking beyond the surface.

The stark contrast between Chen Feng’s personality and his actions left Ding Hu deeply confused.

But he didn’t ask Chen Feng for an answer.

At this rate, Chen Feng would likely pass the individual combat assessment in the Simulator in a few days. By then, he would naturally learn about the crisis humanity faced, and he would surely understand Ding Hu’s good intentions.

On this point, Ding Hu was right.

The reason Chen Feng pushed so hard was because he knew exactly how much time the Universe had left for humanity.

The sooner he mastered the Azure Dragon Armor, the sooner he could access higher levels, gather more information, and also leave the ranks of new recruits earlier to have more private time for free activities. Then he could simultaneously deepen his understanding of this era and prepare to plagiarize songs.

According to the information Chen Feng gathered from Ding Hu, Azure Dragon Armor operators, as a special forces branch, held a transcendent status within the World Army. Shipborne Azure Dragon Armor armored soldiers enjoyed astonishing privileges.

On warships, armored soldiers didn’t have to handle a lot of miscellaneous duties like other branches, even their personal chores were taken care of by specialized logistics soldiers.

Armored soldiers only needed to complete a moderate amount of maintenance training daily to keep their operation skills sharp.

“Huh? You’re taking the individual combat assessment already? Don’t you want to solidify your skills for a few more days?”

In the training building, Professor Ouyang, who had become Chen Feng’s personal operations assistant, looked at him with surprise. “There’s no need to rush like this, is there? Although the maximum acceleration during the combat assessment is still 5G, the machine will gradually increase the load, ultimately simulating a feeling close to 10G. If you’re not careful, you could easily strain yourself.”

Chen Feng nodded firmly. “No need.”

“Alright then, let’s proceed.”

Inside, Chen Feng put on his gear and was about to start the combat assessment program when he heard an electronic prompt tone in his helmet.

“Corporal Chen Feng of the Great Snow Mountain training Base, ID 89757, you have confirmed your participation in the 3019 11th All-Army Azure Dragon Armor Comprehensive Proficiency Competition. You have been assigned to Group T800. Please prepare.”

Outside, Professor Ouyang hit his fist. “Oh no, I forgot about today’s competition! Bad!”

He really couldn’t be blamed.

He wasn’t a professional trainer; his usual work focused on longitudinal research, and he wasn’t very familiar with some military systems.

This All-Army Competition had been held monthly for three years.

Since training bases were distributed worldwide and each base had at most twenty or thirty, at least ten, Simulators, the competition could only be conducted online.

Over three days, all armored soldiers could freely choose a time to log into the Simulator. When more than twenty participants logged in during the same period, a group competition would start.

The competition included five main events: long-distance running, shuttle runs, obstacle sprinting, actual equipment space combat, and ground combat.

Today was the first day of the competition, and it was morning. Usually, only those extremely powerful top-tier operators, seasoned veterans who could withstand over 15G acceleration in actual Azure Dragon Armor operations, would show up this early.

There were many above-average operators at the Great Snow Mountain Base, but there wasn’t a single top expert.

So, in the training building, except for Simulator No. 8, the other machines were empty, and no one came to remind Professor Ouyang and Chen Feng.

Professor Ouyang hurriedly opened communications and shouted, “Chen Feng, withdraw quickly, don’t participate in this competition.”

Chen Feng asked puzzled, “Why not?”

“It’s not the right time, and the competition mode starts at the dynamic upper limit of 10G. You haven’t trained for that, it won’t work.”

Chen Feng stuck out his tongue and was about to step down, but casually asked, “If I withdraw now, can I participate again later?”

“Not in this edition. Wait for the next one.”

“Uh, what are the benefits of winning?”

“Winning? Don’t joke. All participants’ data will be compiled for an army-wide selection. Only the final comprehensive evaluation ranking within the top one hundred counts as winning.”

“And then?”

“Then you can directly receive the rank of Second Lieutenant and have considerable autonomy in choosing your service Warship.”

Chen Feng’s eyes lit up. “How much autonomy?”

“Basically, you can freely choose among frigates and Combat Ships, aside from the Mothership.”

“Interesting, I’ll give it a try.”

How could he let such a good opportunity slip by?

He didn’t care about winning or losing; he cared about the right to choose!

This meant that if he won, he could use the reason of choosing a service Warship to freely browse and investigate the current status of humanity’s space fleet!

Of course, he would also choose the Warship with the strongest survivability.

Even if all fleets would be crushed like dry weeds and rotten wood when Doomsday arrived, surviving even one second longer on the front lines might allow him to see more things he had never encountered before.

Putting aside the sense of responsibility he wasn’t psychologically ready for and couldn’t bear, even just to satisfy his curiosity, he really wanted to know what exactly the alien race that ultimately destroyed Human Civilization was, and how that magnificent explosion in space began!

“Don’t joke about this, you could easily get injured.”

Professor Ouyang said anxiously.

Chen Feng retorted, “Can it kill me?”

“Well, no, the machine has a life protection system.”

“Then that’s settled! Let’s just do it! Help me with the setup, I’m preparing to join the competition!”

Chen Feng stopped talking with Professor Ouyang and focused solely on reviewing the detailed instructions for the All-Army Competition.

Professor Ouyang had no choice but to do as told.

Not long after, as Chen Feng was about to enter the venue for the first event, cross-country long-distance running, Ding Hu and other armored veterans and training Instructors from the Base heard the news and rushed over.

Over this past week or more, Chen Feng’s fame in the Base had grown. Even though the 100% adaptability matter needed to be kept secret, his rate of improvement was truly astonishing, and that couldn’t be hidden from others.

The Base leadership also seemed intent on promoting Chen Feng as a benchmark to motivate other new recruits.

Like in Ding Hu’s team, besides Chen Feng, Pang De also performed excellently. Others were similarly inspired and trained extra hard, making the entire squad’s average proficiency far higher than other teams.

Ding Hu leaned in behind Professor Ouyang and said worriedly, “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Professor Ouyang shrugged. “He’d have to listen to me first, right? I’m not his Instructor, and we don’t have a superior-subordinate relationship. If it were you, could you have stopped him?”

Ding Hu shook his head honestly. “Couldn’t have.”

“Old Ding, isn’t this Chen Feng of yours getting too full of himself? Only training for a week and directly joining the competition? And in the opening round with so many top players? Tsk tsk, this competition group ID, T800, is terrifying.”

Another Instructor chimed in jokingly from the side.

Ding Hu nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

In human history, the first wildly popular movie with a robot as the protagonist was the opening film of the Terminator series.

The T800 character played by Arnold left a vivid and deep impression on the world.

A thousand years later, few knew about this movie, but with the development of Individual Combat Armor, the designation T800 was somehow given a special meaning and became popular in the military.

Just like when 21st Century Chinese people visited Mount Lu, their minds would inevitably think of the poem “Gazing at the Cataract on Mount Lu” written by Li Bai over a thousand years ago.

Literary and artistic works more easily form a special imprint of collective memory through the sedimentation of history.

Now, many top experts liked to start signing up and queuing around ten in the morning just to get the T800 group ID for this competition.

On average, each year, at least two or three of the top ten overall-rated top players would appear in this group.

With Chen Feng diving headfirst into this, he was bound to be pulverized into cannon fodder.