Chapter 112: The Lone Ranger in the Storm

Chapter 112: The Lone Ranger in the Storm

The vast data plaza was magnificent.

The new generation of Neural Link simulation technology made the virtual images incredibly realistic.

If observed with the naked eye, every building and every detail in this data plaza appeared completely real.

But the resolution of thought was far higher than that of the naked eye, so when people entered this Universe composed of data, they could still perceive a distinct sense of unreality.

This sense of unreality didn’t stop people from willingly immersing themselves in it. As long as they didn’t consciously resist it, and instead told themselves it was real.

Then it became real enough.

Around the plaza, famous historical buildings from different cultures were scattered everywhere.

Only when they were here would people of different skin colors remember their ethnic origins from a thousand years ago.

Creating the images of these virtual buildings wasn’t to remind humans that they came from different nations. It was to tell everyone that humanity had a long history and must also have a brighter future.

In the previous thousands of years, we had wars and conflicts among ourselves.

But now, we coexisted here, guarding the same starry sky together.

To defend our existence, we would fight to the very end.

Chen Feng was currently sitting at an outdoor table of a cafe called Zhonghua Lou in a corner of the plaza, savoring a long-lost Da Hong Pao tea from the mother trees of Wuyi Mountain.

The sweet tea flowed down his throat, a refreshing chill spreading through his stomach.

The perfect Neural Link allowed Chen Feng’s taste buds to experience a pleasure that even money couldn’t buy.

He planned to summon his AI Brain to choose a holographic simulation task for a test run.

“Friend, new here?”

Someone else took the seat beside him.

Chen Feng looked down at the dull, low-luster badge on his chest.

The badge design, indicating the lowest-ranking intern, exposed his rookie status.

He nodded, “Yes.”

The person spent five credit points to order a cup of Zhu Ye Qing tea and asked, “Need any help?”

Chen Feng looked at the other person with confusion.

His expression was calm, not particularly warm, yet he offered help even though they were complete strangers.

It felt strange.

Chen Feng simply asked directly, “Do you know me?”

“No.”

“Then why are you so eager to help me?”

“There are 361 days left until the war. No one knows what the future holds. Every comrade whose skills we help improve increases our chances of victory a little more. Who knows, maybe you’ll save me someday?”

The person said with a smile.

Chen Feng was stunned for a moment.

He remembered Ye Luming’s apology after what happened yesterday.

Ye Luming told Chen Feng that his bad attitude was actually part of a meticulously prepared teaching plan, which just got completely messed up and was very awkward.

Chen Feng accepted his apology.

Snapping back to reality, Chen Feng let out a slight sigh.

“Thanks for the enthusiasm, buddy, but I can handle it myself.”

“No problem. Look me up if you need anything.”

The person picked up their teacup and left.

Chen Feng breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn’t dare interact with more people.

More connections meant more vulnerabilities, more potential for heartache. Yet, in this overall environment, people in the military were all so kind and enthusiastic.

Their emotions had been suppressed to the extreme, but that only made them more certain of their goal.

As long as they shared the same common goal, they could become close friends in an instant.

Don’t worry about finding no friends on the road ahead, because all fellow travelers share their hearts.

To understand all the nuances of the holographic simulation task database, Chen Feng spent about four hours.

The massive database, with over ten million options, seemed dazzling.

But this wasn’t Chen Feng’s main focus.

After reviewing it, he sighed.

None of the simulation tasks considered the situation he had truly encountered.

Humanity exhausted a thousand years of development, painstakingly preparing a massive interstellar fleet, only for it to be instantly ignited from within and reduced to dust, leaving behind one or several warriors clad in Starblade Armor.

In such a situation, how to fight back?

Or how to escape and ensure the survival of the species.

How to break the Barrier that enveloped the Solar System?

All the simulated combat scenarios were built on either equal strength between both sides, or a not-too-wide gap, where humans had a possibility of victory.

Everyone was good at dreaming, truly believing they could fight a prolonged, hard battle.

Chen Feng couldn’t find the reference he wanted.

But this was understandable. If there was absolutely no chance of victory, what was the point of Simulation Training?

Might as well clean your neck and wait for death.

However, Chen Feng had long passed the stage of getting easily discouraged.

He checked his watch. There were still over four hours until his scheduled chess game with Tang Tianxin. He decided to try a task first, to see how far he could get.

“General, Chen Feng has entered task K197354.”

Tang Tianxin was standing in the combat command room with her hands clasped behind her back.

The projection in front of her showed the scene of Chen Feng in the simulation task.

“The objective of this task is to infiltrate a humanoid alien Warship and obtain its navigation chip. The alien species codename is Ape K19, set to be extremely strong, thick-skinned, irritable, and easily angered.”

“The optimal past combat plan for a trainee soldier is to infiltrate from the top turret of the enemy Warship, requiring the use of a baryon metal cutting function pack.”

“Then traverse the enemy’s ammunition feed channel, successfully entering the inner cabin through the gun barrel. The enemy’s firing frequency is once every three minutes. As long as Corporal Chen Feng observes carefully before boarding, he should definitely discover this pattern.”

“But Corporal Chen Feng’s operation will definitely fail this time because he hasn’t carried any auxiliary function packs.”

The aide explained rapidly to Tang Tianxin.

On the screen, Chen Feng appeared out of thin air ten kilometers away from the disc-shaped Warship, silently floating in space.

The Warship’s design borrowed from the classic sci-fi film/TV series Star Trek’s Enterprise from a thousand years ago.

Chen Feng’s comment was: after all these years, the technical people were still so lacking in imagination, only knowing how to copy the ancients. So disappointing.

“Chen Feng has begun silent gliding, seven kilometers… three kilometers…”

Tang Tianxin nodded slightly.

Before this, no one had told Chen Feng about the silent gliding maneuver before boarding a ship.

Many new recruits had to try and fail dozens of times, or get tips from veterans before they could figure out how to approach the enemy warship.

Chen Feng’s combat intuition was as excellent as his piloting skills. He just lacked some experience, which could be gained through training.

“He’s speeding up!”

“He’s charging towards the left Curvature Engine of the enemy warship!”

“The enemy warship has spotted him! Alert! The Repulsion Field Shield is activating!”

“He fired a neutron bullet, took advantage of the spatial disturbance set by the Curvature Engine, and successfully breached the shield!”

“He didn’t head for the top turret. Instead, he went straight for the external service hatch of the enemy warship! He’ll get surrounded by the Ape K19 space warriors.”

“Five K19 space warriors have surrounded him. At least a veteran with an A-rank rating could possibly…”

Ten minutes later.

Chen Feng, holding a large bag filled with dozens of fingernail-sized chips, leaped into space and pressed the return ejection button.

Behind him, the disc-shaped starship, about the size of eight football fields, was undergoing a chain of explosions, rapidly turning to dust.

“Mission accomplished.”

Throughout the battle, he displayed combat prowess above A-rank, almost crushing his way through everything.

He exploited the enemy’s flaws in the level design to the extreme. His killing efficiency was shockingly high, and he wasn’t affected at all by the splattering enemy blood in the full-immersion simulation.

He was as cold as a killing machine.

Not just like one. He was one.

The simulation command room at Great Snow Mountain Base fell dead silent.

No one expected this new recruit, Chen Feng, to complete the mission in such an overwhelmingly unreasonable way.

Tang Tianxin was the first to snap out of it. “Check his self-evaluation of the simulated mission level design.”

“The warship lacked imagination. The Force Field Shield was too easy to breach. Without understanding the Curvature Engine, one shouldn’t rashly assume the energy field fluctuation during its activation. There’s no clear proof that the curvature effect would affect the Force Field Shield. The Ape K19 design had flaws—it shouldn’t have a tail. The design of the tail weak point was too forced. The irritable and impulsive nature made the Ape K19’s combined attacks too easy to break. As an intergalactic civilization, their willpower shouldn’t be so weak…”

Chen Feng wrote a lot. Basically, there wasn’t a single nice thing said, making the technician responsible for designing this level on the other side of the planet lose face.

Dr. Ouyang, who rushed over upon hearing the news, looked at Chen Feng’s results. “He almost got all the chips in one go, exceeding the mission objective by one thousand four hundred percent. That’s really impressive.”

Tang Tianxin pointed to the last line of Chen Feng’s evaluation and read it aloud. “With such technology, capable of crossing galaxies to conquer us, their ship’s internal structure is almost identical to ours, even the chip placement is the same. It’s utterly ridiculous.”

Dr. Ouyang: “Um…”

Tang Tianxin shrugged. “Bring him here. I need to properly praise this cheeky lad who doesn’t know his limits. Who does he think he is, daring to look down on our technicians? Does he himself know what aliens should be like?”

The assistant officer was about to send a message to Chen Feng when another change occurred.

“He’s entered the next mission.”

“Huh? He just perfectly completed a D-rank simulation mission with A-rank performance, and he’s starting another one already? Isn’t he tired?”

The assistant officer nodded. “Yes. And his overall army ranking has jumped from beyond thirteen million to one point six million. He’s already D-rank.”

“Only D-rank?”

“Well, although he showed A-rank combat ability, this mission was originally for D-rank and below recruits.”

Four hours later.

As Chen Feng prepared to exit the Holographic Simulation System, the medal on his chest had turned into a bright red, gold-rimmed five-star.

The ninety-ninth S-rank rated warrior in the entire army was born.

It took only four hours, a historical top-three achievement.

Thirteen missions in total, all perfectly completed, all with the highest rating, all leaving no survivors.

“Congratulations, Staff Sergeant Chen Feng. You have become a glorious S-rank Starblade Armor Warrior. Extreme environment level permissions are now unlocked. Would you like to begin the challenge now?”

Chen Feng muttered to himself, “Extreme environment?”

Slightly interesting. Probably missions where the enemy conditions are set to be outrageously tough.

Too bad there’s not enough time. Have to go play chess with the General right away.

“Next time,” he instructed the Intelligent Assistant.

“Would you like to create a unique codename for yourself, or simply display your military ID on the leaderboard?”

Chen Feng thought for a moment and snapped his fingers.

“Call me Lone Ranger.”

Intelligent Assistant: “Are you sure? This cannot be changed once confirmed.”

Chen Feng nodded. “Confirmed.”

Instantly, a leaderboard appeared before him, showing the simulation mission rankings of numerous armor warriors in the Holographic Simulation System.

Looking from top to bottom, his prominent name was ranked ninety-ninth.

The details were as follows.

Name: Chen

Military ID: Hua-89757-711

Unique Codename: Call Me Lone Ranger Then

Pfft!

“I meant I want to be called Lone Ranger, not ‘Call Me Lone Ranger Then’!”

“Apologies, the codename cannot be changed once confirmed.”

Ugh, hurts the eyes.

He pushed open the door to Tang Tianxin’s office.

Tang Tianxin looked at him with her cool, clear eyes.

“Hello, Call Me Lone Ranger Then.”

Chen Feng: What the… Damn it.

Bitter wine enters the throat, heart feels pain.

But she was clearly teasing me, yet she didn’t really laugh.

That made the heart ache even more.

Living so repressed must be exhausting, right?

Before making his move, Chen Feng, holding a black chess piece, thought to himself, how exactly could he break through her logically composed, cool heart?

Just being a breeding tool wouldn’t achieve the goal.

He had to make her willing to challenge the rules for him!