Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  Meng Chao read the messages, but did not reply.

  He was thinking about how he should use the internet to contact more of the people in the Yan family and more of the powerful fighters in the future.

  He was in the era of information explosion. There were plenty of things online that declared themselves to be the secret techniques of martial arts, ultimate techniques, and peerless divine arts.

  Some of the secret techniques contained inborn weaknesses, and they were test versions that contained all sorts of flaws.

  Some of the secret techniques were very difficult to practice, and they could easily result in people’s energy deviating.

  Some of the secret techniques had great side effects. They were a Fist of Seven Injuries, which would deal heavy damage to both the enemies and the user itself.

  Most of the normal martial arts lovers with normal brains suspected every brand new martial art when they saw it online. They smiled and forgot about it.

  If it were not for the fact that they were at the end of their ropes, no one would be willing to be a labrat.

  Trying to contribute through creating a post was an incredibly inefficient method. No matter how strong the force execution formula was or how great the calculations for damage output were, they would be drowned out by the surging flow of information online.

  But what if he got to know an online celebrity like Yan Feirou who had a great background and the powerful people behind her so that they could fan the flames?

  Then, he would need to solve two problems.

  First, Meng Chao could not explain how he came about the future martial art and other high-end techniques.

  Second, he did not understand them fully himself. He was purely relying on remaining enigmatic to bluff his way through. He could pretend to be mysterious and awesome, so the people would just use their imaginations to fill in the blanks.

  But if they met up, everyone would start respectfully asking him to explain the scientific logic behind this and that formula. How would he have to answer them?

  ‘It’s better if I create the image of a mysterious, inscrutable, and peerless martial artist. I’ll just push all the responsibility to this mysterious elite, and it’ll make sense. My words don’t carry weight, and no one will believe many of the things I say anyway.

  “Even if I warn others that the Monster War is about to become more dangerous, and the Other World is actually very big and dangerous, who would listen to me? But if there’s a mysterious elite around, I’ll allow the Yan family and other powerful people admire him first before I use him to send warnings. Then, the things I say will be much more convincing.’


  After thinking about this, Meng Chao returned to his room and locked his door. He turned off the private messages that Yan Feirou kept sending him and went to the deep web.

  Meng Yishan and Bai Suxin looked at each other in the living room.

  “Our son locked his door again.” The mother was worried.

  “Ah, such is youth.” The father sighed.

  After Dragon City transmigrated, they did not have communication satellites anymore since connection to them was cut off, and the Internet broke down for many years.

  Then, after the zombie crisis, things gradually calmed down, and the scientists made major breakthroughs in terms of biochemical technology and spirit energy, which allowed them to rebuild the Internet.

  The new Internet made use of a different concept compared to the one on Earth. It was said that it used the concept of crystalized chips made from crystals and made large use of biochemical brains, which were imitations of monster brains. This increased the distance of the transfer of information in an environment filled with powerful spirit magnetic fields and allowed to resist interference.

  The weakness of the new technology was that it made it very difficult to lockdown on terminal addresses. Hence, the difficulty in monitoring and shutting down websites was one hundred times harder than it was on Earth. The Internet was filled with places that the survival committee and Supernatural Tower could not control.

  When more than one hundred of such lawless places were connected together, the deep web was born.

  This was the playground of mad scientists and cultivation maniacs. Many monster organ smugglers and even criminals showed up there as well. They tossed around all sorts of whimsical creations and made all sorts of shady, bloody deals. Together, they created an information forest filled with savagery.

  With familiar motions, Meng Chao logged into a comprehensive forum that he often went to in the deep web.

  A familiar talking style popped up before him.

  [I recently noticed a nest of Bloody Moon Wolf pups. Are there any superhuman above two stars who would dare to form a party to snatch those pups before the military and major establishments?]

  [For those who seek truthful verifications, a professional scientific martial arts research team has recently developed the Thirteen Secret Killing Moves with Thunder Rapier. It’s incredibly powerful and has absolutely no side effects whatsoever. It’s free for all to learn, and those who learn it will definitely master it. We’ll even give you a compensation of five thousand for enteral nutrition should anything happen to you.]

  And in very small fonts were written: [But we won’t care if you end up disabled. You’ll have to bear the consequences yourself.]

  [Have you ever been in conflict with superhumans? Did you have your prey snatched in the fog by your enemies? Do you want to have your problems solved forever? We can talk about this in detail through private messages……]

  These were not the things Meng Chao was looking for.

  He clicked on the section for life science and human anatomy research. The people here spoke normally…… Well, they were not really that normal, but still.

  ‘What sort of image should I come up with?’


  Meng Chao shut his eyes and came up with the image of countless mad scientists and cultivation maniacs.

  Since he called himself Old Fire Relayer, he should be someone with messy white hair, disagreeable, temperamental, flaunt his seniority, but be really strong.

  Meng Chao nodded. He got out the all new email that he had prepared in the morning and which was absolutely clean.

  To learn the deviant ways on the Internet, he had once done his homework regarding the deep web. He knew how he should avoid being monitored and how he should create a brand new fictitious identity.

  He used the email to create a new account. Then, he started going to other people’s posts to create his presence.

  Old Fire Relayer: Junior, the advanced Seven Spin of your One Hundred Saber Technique is pretty good, but there are three oversights, four flaws, and five fatal weaknesses. Today, I just killed a Grade Five superbeast called Lightning Fire, and I feel good, so I’ll point out one of the oversights for free!

  Old Fire Relayer: Heh. This gun technique is pure rubbish. Don’t misunderstand me, boy. I’m not targeting you. I’m saying that the current seventeen mainstream shooting schools in the market are all trash!

  Old Fire Relayer: Over the past twenty to thirty years, I seldom saw juniors like you who dare to quarrel against me. How reckless! You should be thankful that I have been rehabilitating over the past ten years, and my killing intent has diminished greatly, or else, you wouldn’t live to see tomorrow’s sun!

  Meng Chao uploaded around eight of such posts, which caused the netizens to yell at him, and nodded to himself. He believed that this would be enough.

  Then, with Old Fire Relayer’s name, he posted an academic investigation post regarding Ripple Force. It was not as detailed as the one he messaged Yan Feirou, but he did reveal that he had continuously accumulated experience and modified it during his fights in the depths of the fog. He needed to test it further, and he was currently trying to gather test subjects.

  ‘Now, I can push all the problems I face next on this elusive Old Fire Relayer.’


  Meng Chao smiled faintly. He did not care about how the countless netizens cursed him in all the ways possible under his post and just logged off.

  Running away after pretending to be awesome felt good.

  The strange flame continued flashing at the corner of his eye, and messages continued jumping out. His contribution points started rising at lightning speed. Soon, it increased to more than nine hundred points.

  ‘I might be able to get three thousand points over the night!’ Meng Chao thought happily.

  He had not slept for two nights, and he was extremely exhausted. He fell into deep sleep right away and dreamt that many aspects of the future changed.

  It was three o’clock at night.

  Swallow Building was the headquarters of the Yan family, and it was still bright.

  Yan Feirou and more than ten of the third generation Yan Family Ripple Force disciples had hurried over.

  Even though it was late at night, there were no traces of fatigue on their faces. Their eyes were filled with excitement, which made them turn red. There was delight in their smiles, and they could not hide it.

  Hiss……

  The door to a cultivation room opened before them. A middle-aged man with a body as built as a mountain, an aggressive presence, and a powerful fighting spirit gushing out of his pores came out with a dark look on his face.

  He was the leader of the second generation of people who had learned the Yan Family Ripple Force—Monster Hunter Yan Zhennan.

  “Sir!”


  “Uncle Nan!”


  “Dad!”


  The people from the third generation rushed over to greet him, and Yan Feirou said eagerly, “You’ve been practicing the Demonically Modified Ripple Force for three hours. Was it great?”


  Yan Zhennan stared at his daughter for half a day before he said coldly, “Of course it’s good, or else, how could it have possibly deceived the mighty Ripple Force Princess?”


  When he said these words, the people were stunned.

  Yan Feirou was in shock. “Deceive me? Dad, what do you mean by that? Was it fake?”


  “It wasn’t fake, but it is very extreme and mad!”


  Yan Zhennan’s facial muscles trembled. His heart seemed to be beating in fear. He gritted his teeth and said, “As the saying goes, those who are ahead of the generation by half a step are genii, but those who are ahead of the generation by a whole step are lunatics. This Demonically Modified Ripple Force is at least three huge steps ahead of our era. It’s basically madness!”


  Many of the third generation was stunned by Yan Zhennan’s aura, and they did not dare say a single word even after a long time had passed.

  Only Yan Feirou could still muster her courage. “Dad, this Demonically Modified Ripple Force is very powerful on the surface and several of its parameters surpass our limits. Why did you say that it’s madness?”


  Yan Zhennan sighed. “Feirou and all of you are still young. True, the figures on paper for this technique are very beautiful, and some of the parameters have reached the peak, but what’s the price?

  “To be able to push the human body to the limits when it comes to fighting continuously, it completely reformed the current breathing technique. The consumption rate of oxygen went up by twenty percent.

  “And to be able to inhale large amounts of oxygen within a short amount of time so that our blood can swiftly circulate to all of our muscle fibers, it requires the practitioners to have incredibly well-developed lungs and active red blood cells.

  “If you want even stronger lungs and higher quality blood, you need to use up a lot of cultivation resources and use a brand new stance to build your basics. In fact, the entire practice system will have to be modified. This is what you call affecting the entire system if you try to change one aspect of it.

  “Now, he changed a simple basic force execution method that is easy to learn into an ultimate technique that is powerful but very difficult to train!”


  The group looked at each other at a loss. An ultimate technique? That was too much, right?

  Yan Zhennan spoke in a dark voice. “Did you know that the more I practiced this Demonically Modified Ripple Force, the more terrifying I found it? Whoever created this technique is either a genius or a lunatic. He might even be a complete demon.

  “This technique doesn’t seem to have been created for this era…… but for an even more brutal era. It’s for martial artists who are ten times as strong as we are so that they can fight against monsters who are ten times more brutal than the monsters right now!”


  Chapter 38: A Small Problem with the Martial Arts of the Future

  Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

  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.