The people were shocked. Was this comment good or bad?
"No matter how strong the monsters are, it's impossible for them to be ten times more brutal than they are right now, right? This person is seeking to push the human body to its limits on a surface level but does not care about the difficulty in learning and the body's ability to endure such pressure. To put it in good terms, this is all empty talk, but to put it in bad terms, he harbors malicious thoughts."
Before his daughter could ask any questions, Yan Zhennan took the initiative to say, "You don't know yet, but the old man has been in isolated training for half a year, and he has mastered his divine technique. Most probably, he will announce Ripple Force v2 next month."
The crowd cried out in shock.
Twenty years ago, the master of the Yan Family, Yan Hengbo had created Ripple Force, but it was not perfect. It could only be used in small fights, and the version number for it always started with one.
Now, the Yan Family Ripple Force had finally entered the age where version two could appear. This meant that the upgrade this time would definitely produce an extraordinary breakthrough.
"Right now, there are at least ten mainstream Ripple Forces in the market. While the Yan Family Ripple Force might be the leading one right now, we have not been able to completely monopolize the technique. But I believe that as we promote version two, the other Ripple Force factions will forever lose the ability to challenge the Yan family."
Yan Zhennan spoke with pride in his voice. "You should understand just how big this pie is. Right now, all the elementary schools in the city teach the Yan Family Ripple Force. The money that the education department of the city gives us for our intellectual property is astronomical.
"We also work with the military to combine the Yan Force Ripple Force with One Hundred Saber Technique to produce One Hundred Wave Breaking Saber. All the soldiers in Dragon City must learn this saber technique.
"Heh, those dozen other Ripple Force factions are dreaming about stealing this pie from us. I reckon that they heard that the old man is about to promote Yan Family Ripple Force v2 and know that if they don't take action now, it will be too late for them!"
The crowd fell into silence.
"But what does this have to do with the Demonically Modified Ripple Force?" Yan Feirou asked.
"What does it have to do? Heh. If I'm not mistaken, this Super Ripple Force has already spread because of you, right?" Yan Zhennan laughed coldly. "If everyone believes that this is Yan Family Ripple Force v2, what do you think will happen?"
Yan Feirou shook her head in confusion. "I don't know."
Yan Zhennan put his hands behind his back and said coldly, "First of all, everyone will think that Yan Family Ripple Force v2 is very powerful and is practically invincible based on the figures on paper. Social media will praise us to high heavens, and unrest will stir in the city.
"Then, these 'friendly factions' will 'unintentionally' discover the weaknesses in the new Ripple Force. They will notice the various problems such as the consumption rate of oxygen and how hard it is to learn this. They will notice that this is a technique that can allow you to slay dragons, but it's used to fight against things that don't exist. It's designed to tackle monsters that are ten times more brutal than the ones we face right now. Whoever made this is just trying to show off. It's not practical, and this version isn't mature at all.
"Next, the social media outlets will make a one hundred and eighty degree turn and point their knives at us. They will lash out at the Yan family for forgetting our roots. They will accuse us for forgetting that Ripple Force is a basic force execution method. Compared to being used in battle, it should focus more on lowering the difficulty for learning and using it.
"These 'friendly factions' will then put on a front and sigh. They will say that a basic martial art should have the mannerisms of a basic martial art. It's not something that can become a high-end martial art just by making random calculations of the performance of the martial art on paper and striving after extreme figures, which is what research labs do.
"Next, the middle schools, elementary schools, and the military will begin to show doubt in the Yan Family Ripple Force. They won't be able to understand the direction of development. If we are really prepared to push our Ripple Force to become a high-end technique and turn it into an ultimate technique, it will not be suitable to be used widely in schools and the military.
"At that time, heh, we would have lost the contract, and these 'friendly factions' will definitely swoop in to take advantage of the situation.
"Even if we manage to keep the contract, they will do something major that will make the headlines before Yan Family Ripple Force v2 is announced, and it will throw things into absolute chaos. This will only be good news to the 'friendly factions', while nothing bad will come out of it."
His words left the crowd completely dumbfounded.
Yan Feirou broke into cold sweat. "Dad, are you saying that this Demonically Modified Ripple Force came from other Ripple Force factions?"
"They might appear to be your friends in business, but they will stab you in the back. Aside from the people who have been thinking about how to get rid of the Yan family for more than ten years, who would be able to gather so much wisdom from other Ripple Force factions and make this seemingly powerful Demonically Modified Ripple Force to trick you?"
"But this Ripple Force has a strong spirit of the Yan Family Ripple Force. Can they really copy it?"
"Copying the entire thing is naturally impossible, but copying bits and pieces to lead us astray isn't impossible," Yan Zhennan said.
Yan Feirou thought about it, and she felt regretful. "Dad, I was wrong."
"Master, we were wrong!"
The disciples of the third generation lowered their heads out of fear and remorse.
"I can't blame you for this. This person is just too sinister. If my guess is correct, he has been planning this for more than half a year. In fact, the elites from more than ten factions must have been planning this together. No matter how talented you are, you're still flowers on the ivory tower. There's no way you can tell just how great this plot is.
"Fortunately, I didn't go out to hunt in the depths of the fog these past few days, or else, the Yan family would have to face a huge crisis."
Yan Feirou looked at him anxiously. "But the news of this technique has already spread in many forums and chat groups. What should we do?"
"You haven't promoted this Demonically Modified Ripple Force through your public classes, so we can still save the situation."
Yan Zhennan thought about it. "Right now, the most crucial part is that you've received ten thousand from this person. If he hires Internet ghostwriters to cause trouble, the ten thousand can soon turn into an insider dealing that cost a few million.
"Do this. Immediately return the money to the person and make a notice to clear things up. Be stern about it and completely cut off all connections between the Yan family and this crazy Ripple Force.
"I'll immediately go to the public relations department in my squad and settle this matter overnight. We'll try to settle everything before Internet traffic flow increases tomorrow."
Yan Feirou sighed in relief. Thank goodness her father was around.
"Should we ask for instructions from Grandpa?" she asked.
"Forget it. The old man is still in isolated training. He's conducting the final tests before releasing version two. Over the past few days, the entire research team has been working day and night. We can finish settling the trivial matters before we report to the old man." Yan Zhennan waved his hand and disagreed with his daughter's suggestion.
Ripple Force Princess gritted her teeth fiercely and hissed out the name, "Old Fire Relayer!"
Meng Chao slept well. When he woke up, he felt refreshed. His entire body was filled with explosive power, and he eagerly wanted to look for a monster so that he could beat it up.
He checked the contribution points under the strange flame and found that… Huh? Why was it only at 1,443 points? He remembered that before he went to sleep, it had almost reached one thousand.
A whole night had passed, but he had only gained a few hundreds of contribution points. This did not tally with how the numbers had shot up madly last night.
He scratched his head and turned on his phone while he still felt sleepy. He found that Yan Feirou had returned the one million broadcasting coins to his account. She had even exchanged those coins into cash and even paid for all the administration fees.
"What's going on?"
Meng Chao instantly snapped awake. He checked Yan Feirou's newest course of action and found that Ripple Force Princess had uploaded a new video overnight.
She was dressed in black in the video, and her expression was cold as ice. She was completely different from her sweet princess persona in the public classes.
"Recently, there has been a new Ripple Force that has been really popular in Dragon City. It's too extreme and even ranges on madness, and the consequences of practicing it can't be predicted.
"This Demonically Modified Ripple Force also used the name of the Yan Family Ripple Force to mislead the public.
"I hope that the person who developed it will stop before it's too late and live his life well. The entire Yan family and I retain the right to have the law force you to take responsibility for the matter."
Meng Chao was flabbergasted. What did she mean? Extreme? Madness?
Was she talking about his future Ripple Version?
But this Ripple Force was something Yan Feirou had taken a lot of time to upgrade after converging all schools of Ripple Force together. What was wrong with her? Did she actually start punching herself in the face after she went bonkers?
When he went to the comment section, the netizens were talking about her statement. There were also plenty of Ripple Force experts who had their usernames authenticated with their real names speaking up.
Zhao Family Ripple Force: I will definitely support the Yan family to get rid of this pest in the world of Ripple Force!
Wang Family Ripple Force: Ripple Force's core competitive advantage is that it has no requirements to learn it, and it's easy to practice it. It's suitable for the elderly and the young. It's not something that should focus on loading up various parameters on paper and pushing the limits of performance while ignoring the difficulty for practicing it and the consumption of energy while we use the technique. This Demonically Modified Ripple Force has gone down the wrong path!
Limitless Ripple Force: Limitless Ripple Force might be better than its predecessor, but we've never forgotten that the origin of Ripple Force is the Yan family. We must never forget the source of our success. We will forever stand together with the Yan family in the face of this mad and demonic Ripple Force!
There were more than ten other Ripple Force factions who took up the stance of 'friendly factions' and criticized the future Ripple Force until it was battered and not worth a dime.
Meng Chao only understood the gist of it after he stared at the gossip for some time.
It was generally about the Yan family suspecting that this future Ripple Force was an imitation that was created by other factions and was only partially similar to the Yan Family Ripple Faction. In fact, it was an evil technique that was created with ulterior motives.
After all, Meng Chao did not copy all the force execution formulae and the calculations for the output of force. There were many things that he could not remember clearly, so the things he wrote were all over the place and only seemed plausible.
Besides, some of the battle parameters were indeed a little ahead of the current era.
After the representative of the Yan Family Ripple Force spoke up, the other factions still did not know the inside story and just decided to cast caution to the wind by taking sides first, because they were afraid of public opinion attacking them.
As they continued discussing with each other, everyone came up with their own conclusions.
The shocking Demonically Modified Ripple Force was definitely not created by other Ripple Force practitioners. It was a creation by the Reckless Bull Force practitioners, Dragon Snake Force practitioners, and their other competitors. After all, there were major overlaps in their target audience.
'That's a strange train of thought if I've ever seen one."
Meng Chao did not know whether he should laugh or cry.
He read a few of the professionals' posts carefully, and he had to admit that their guesses were pretty logical.
The evolution speed of Dragon Citizens would increase for several decades in the future.
Due to the nourishment of spirit energy and the stimulation from war, the shackles of their genes would be completely removed, and the potential of every single cell in the human body will be unlocked. Everyone will begin to evolve madly then.
Even if their external appearances did not change, their lung capacity, the oxygen volume in the blood, their lung capacity, their muscle fibers, the secretion of hormones, the functions of organs, and everything else would increase.
The martial arts of the future were developed and upgraded based on the standards of future humans.
If he dumped future martial arts on the current generation, it would be the same as him using a phone from decades ago to operate a big game in the current era. The results would not be as good as he had imagined.
This problem was not that obvious with beginner level martial arts like Reckless Bull Force and Ripple Force.
But if he activated fiercer and even more amazing martial arts… He would naturally have no problem practicing those martial arts himself because his body had been continuously refined and modified by Kindling, but he had to be careful about promoting them to the world.
'Alright, since you can't tell what's good from bad, I won't be giving you Ripple Force as a contribution!' Meng Chao thought tartly. 'I have Reckless Bull Force, Dragon Snake Force, and plenty of future martial arts with me. I can go to other places to make contributions to society.
'Yan Feirou, we've formed a grudge against each other. Today, you treated my kindness like trash, so tomorrow, even if you beg me on your knees in your yoga clothes and throw yourself at my feet, I—'
He sucked in a deep breath and calmed down.
'Oh well, a Fire Relayer should have the magnanimity of a Fire Relayer. When I make contributions, I should not look for fame and benefits, and I should not be afraid of misunderstandings and suffering. If Ripple Force Princess really comes and throws herself at my feet while crying and admitting her mistake, she will have to be regretting her decision seriously, so I'll begrudgingly forgive her.'
And so, the matter was settled happily.
But it was not as if there was no good news over the day.
Meng Chao had managed to get his third elite monster, Demon Yan.