A Good Commander
The two weeks of trial training had instilled the spirit of competition deep in every student's mind. So when the top-ranked name on the leaderboard suddenly brought up cooperation, everyone instinctively shot it down.
【Is Xu Lingqu serious? Cooperation?】
【Us? Cooperate?】
【Honestly, the first place suggesting cooperation is obviously to her own advantage.】
【If it weren't for the instructor's rules, I bet everyone would just grab the materials and bolt.】
But soon, some people started to push back.
【Why can't Xu Lingqu talk about cooperation? During the last river ambush, without her, some of you would be floating in that river. And now you're looking down on her?】
【Exactly, think everyone's as narrow-minded as you?】
【If you'd been on your toes last time, you wouldn't have gone out to find rescue supplies at all. You'd have just watched everyone drown.】
Xu Lingqu paid little attention to the squabbling. She had proposed cooperation for one simple reason: she had figured out what the instructors wanted to see in this assessment.
She posted her analysis on the public channel: "This training unusually opened the public chat and map functions and emphasized that looting is forbidden. I believe the instructors' intention is for us to cooperate. Our performance isn't measured by how fast we get out, but by how quickly we memorize the materials and the mech pilots' abilities. Collecting materials individually presents no conflict, and conflicts are forbidden. Lin Xiao, the analyst in our group, pointed out that this terrain is a complete replica of the underground labyrinth from the Sky Network military academy league team matches. I think everyone understands team matches—students from the same school fighting side by side. I reasonably infer that the instructors hope we cooperate so everyone can leave quickly."
A long paragraph scrolled across the public screen. No one spammed; everyone fell silent, reading her words carefully.
Lin Xiao saw her name mentioned and blushed even deeper, but a surge of conviction swelled in her chest. She had to figure out the movement patterns to live up to the trust Xu Lingqu had placed in her with that long post!
After everyone finished reading, replies trickled in one by one.
【As expected of our commander.】
【Well-reasoned and calm under pressure. On the battlefield, having someone like you in the rear would make me give my life willingly.】
【Commander, let me report our location. The road I'm on is the middle one of the six openings. Our materials here are soft-sand silver.】
...
More and more people, after reading the post, acknowledged the cooperation and began reporting their positions. Every analyst was now working at full capacity, brainstorming to calculate positions and patterns.
Xu Xiqin and Jin, having nothing else to do, watched Tang Muwen, who was deep in thought, and idly whispered to each other on the side.
"Our commander really said something gentle and reasonable this time..."
"Yeah, to make these people see sense—it's the first time I've seen her write such a long string of words."
"Tsk, why is someone still picking a fight on the public channel?"
"Who? Let's squat on their path, and when they come, we'll kick them right into a mine shaft."
The exchange of information was in full swing. Lin Xiao let out a long breath—she had roughly grasped the movement patterns of the material points and immediately posted them on the public channel to share and discuss with the other analysts.
Everyone agreed her calculations were correct. Now, using this pattern, they could coordinate their movements and find intersection points to exchange materials.
For instance, the materials needed by Group 6 were currently at Group 8's material point. As long as Group 8 moved once and Group 6 moved twice, they could meet on the same road.
More and more groups began helping each other. The team without an analyst even encountered Xu Lingqu's group during a move. They had only caught the names of the materials and didn't know what they looked like, but with Lin Xiao, that problem was easily solved.
Surrounded by a crowd thanking her, Lin Xiao's face was red, and she couldn't help glancing sideways at Xu Lingqu standing nearby.
She wasn't really confident in herself.
Lin Xiao came from a well-off family. Her father worked at the Capital Star Military Department. Since she was young, her family had expected her to follow in his footsteps, become a cadet at one of the six military academies, and eventually enter the Military Department like her father.
Carrying that expectation, Lin Xiao couldn't quite articulate her feelings toward the profession of a soldier. It wasn't that she disliked it, but it didn't feel like a path she truly embraced either. After all, her family had nurtured her in many directions since childhood. Her individual combat abilities were poor, she wasn't qualified as a mech pilot, and she eventually ended up in the command and analysis track. Her teacher made her choose between command and analysis—she chose analysis.
Back then, Lin Xiao hadn't been satisfied. She considered herself a fairly responsible person, and she didn't understand why she couldn't be a commander. She didn't like the analyst position. In everyone else's eyes, an analyst was just a database, a "cheap substitute" when the AI broke down—it sounded rigid and dull.
How imposing it would be to be a commander—spending the least energy while receiving the greatest protection, raising a hand and having everyone follow orders.
It happened that her father, serving in the military, came home on leave. She wanted him to change the teacher's assessment of her, but her father just looked at her quietly for a long while.
"If that's how you define analysis and command, then you're destined never to be a good commander."
It wasn't until this very moment that Lin Xiao truly understood that sentence.
Xu Lingqu had respected and trusted her from the very beginning. She never treated her as a mere database, believed in the information and judgments she provided, and when mistakes were made, she held the overall situation and promptly led everyone back onto the right path.
Some people were born commanders.
The AI sounded. Instructor Chen announced the opening conditions to everyone through it.
"Opening 7, condition: 140 people."
Everyone's breath hitched. Such a condition fully confirmed what Xu Lingqu had told them, and even those who had been questioning her before fell silent. This time, the instructors wanted to see them helping each other, working together with one heart. Without Xu Lingqu and the efforts of all the analysts, everyone would still be in the dark, and how could they have assembled ten fully equipped teams?
Moreover, if everyone had refused to cooperate, even the luckiest person who gathered everything wouldn't have been able to leave. A lose-lose outcome had been completely transformed into a win-win under Xu Lingqu's leadership.
Now, everyone gathered together. The map was densely marked. At Opening 7, Xu Lingqu stood at the very front.
Lin Xiao looked at her and remembered the second half of her father's words.
"You think being a commander is just hiding behind everyone, sipping tea, reading reports, and making decisions? You're overthinking it too simply. A good commander always stands at the front of everyone."