Feng Jin is about to arrive, she is not hasty, nor noisy. She was launched in the 3.3 version of “Honkai Impact 3: Star Dome Railway”, but she seemed to come from somewhere far away, passing through the wind, bringing the burden of memory. She is wind-attributed, and her destiny is memory. And these labels are just to assign her to a system. The real question is: how do we understand the emergence of a character?
The growth of a character is not just the accumulation of experience and values, but a silent and arduous journey. In this journey, there are systematic material calculations, as well as chaotic waiting and repetition. What we see in Feng Jin is the coexistence of this order and disorder. The list of materials she needs seems clear – fear crushes flesh and blood, courage tears the chest, glory baptizes the body… But these names exude an almost cruel poetry, making people realize: her construction is very much like the process of a person’s self-fulfillment in suffering.
The level upgrade of a character is a series of process nodes: from level 20 to level 80, she has to go through six breakthroughs. Each breakthrough is like a transformation of life, which requires sacrifice, accumulation, and waiting. The breakthrough materials she needs, such as “a cup of drunken time”, itself has a strong metaphorical color – the time makes people drunk and mature. What she gets in the dungeon is not only the resources of the game mechanism, but also an extraction of will.
More importantly, her “traces” system. These small branches on the skill tree are not only the enrichment of the combat mechanism, but also the hint of personality structure. She has to rely on philosophical items such as “seeds of thinking”, “manas sprouts”, and “alayahua” to fill her abilities. This is like a person needs to use self-reflection, faith and thought to build his spiritual core.
Her exclusive light cone is called “May the rainbow light stay in the sky forever”, which is not a scientific term, but more like an idealist’s ravings. It doesn’t even look like equipment designed for combat, but like a letter to the future – even if the rainbow cannot stay forever, there are still people who hope it will stay. Why would a person choose such an unrealistic wish? Perhaps it is because reality is too broken that we need fiction to support it.
Among the materials required for her skills, there is one called “The Relic of the Same Wish”, which can only be obtained through weekly challenges. This periodic restriction sets a rhythm and creates a space for reflection – in a fast-paced information society, can we still wait a week to welcome a small harvest? Feng Jin’s growth process is actually against our eager and forgetful lifestyle.
Feng Jin requires nearly 4 million credit points. This is a heavy number, but if you look at it from another angle – this may be her “value”. You need to spend time, energy, attention, and even some emotional involvement for her. She is not a “cost-effective” choice, but a “high emotional return rate”. The more you invest, the harder it is to leave.
When we develop a character, we are actually developing a relationship. This relationship is not between the character and the system, but between the player and himself. Feng Jin is just a medium, a space for you to project your own emotions. She is the silent and stubborn part of herself who is still willing to remember, build, and move forward despite repeated failures.
Every systematic design in the game is not just a rule, but a mirror. The copy is a metaphor for daily work, the material is a reflection of the time cost, the breakthrough is a symbol of growing pains, and the light cone is a shining point of faith. Feng Jin’s existence is a condensed expression of these systems. She is not a hero, nor a sacrifice, but a participant, the ordinary but extraordinary hard worker that you and I are familiar with.
She will appear in the wind, like an unsent letter, finally discovered after a long wait. You may not need her, but you may understand a long-lost experience in her development process: not to become stronger, but to not be forgotten.
Feng Jin is about to appear, and she represents the most gentle response made by a world in the face of an out-of-control rhythm: May we still be willing to build, and may we still remember our original wishes.