As the kings of low-tier and middle-tier martial arts, Yan Organization were really good when it came to promoting things. The ghostwriters and fans as well as anti-fans that the organization cultivated were really good too. The company was very familiar with the ways of buying media and recommendations as well as increasing exposure.
Otherwise, how could Yan Feirou possibly come to occupy the top spots of the livestreaming platforms as the Ripple Princess?
When Yan Organization went to promote the Ultimate Style, they were professional people doing professional things.
Some of the things they did exceeded even Meng Chao’s expectations. Once he uploaded videos of his fights and sparring session with the students as free livestreamed classes, the first wave of comments was a stream of mockeries and insults.
All sorts of unpleasant comments showed up, and all of them pointed to one thing: Yes, compared to the traditional martial arts like the Overkill Style or Beast Soul Style, the brand new Ultimate Style seems to be slightly more effective when it comes to killing monsters, it can also preserve stamina and spirit energy a little more, and it seems like it improves endurance, but that tiny increase would only made it suitable to kill normal monsters. It was average goods and one of the martial arts at the low end of the spectrum. It could not compare to the Overkill Style, Beast Soul Style, and the other high-end martial arts.
The ghostwriters from Yan Organization were the ones who started those comments.
Meng Chao was extremely puzzled.
He had brought Gu Jianbo to meet the master of Yan Organization, Yan Hengbo, and both of them regretted not meeting each other sooner. The negotiations went on very smoothly, and they quickly formed a strategic cooperation. They were now definitely going to embed Ripple Force as the main basic force execution method at the core of the Ultimate Style’s martial arts system.
They were sailing on the same ship of benefits, so what was Yan Organization doing?
[You don’t understand. The netizens are used to ghostwriters using all sorts of methods to praise the product they want to promote, and they have long since become wary, so doing that would have reverse effects. If we immediately started heaping praises on the Ultimate Style, the netizens would not bother to understand it. They wouldn’t even click on the video to take a look at it.] Yan Feirou told Meng Chao through the chatting app. [But if we first degrade the Ultimate Style, the netizens will become curious, and they’ll click on the video to see just what this Ultimate Style is.
[Also, through the ghostwriters’ insults, we can make it seem that the Ultimate Style is worth nothing, which will lead to a decrease in the netizens’ expectations for the Ultimate Style. So when they will see how dazzling you are when you dance between the monsters, they will think ‘Whoa, that’s pretty good. It’s not as bad as the comments said.’ And subconsciously, they’ll side with the Ultimate Style.
[Also, don’t go thinking that the ghostwriters are criticizing the Ultimate Style to nothing. They’re actually influencing the thoughts of people by inserting their ideas into their heads repeatedly.
[They’re repeatedly saying that the Ultimate Style is very useful for killing normal monsters, and it’s even more effective compared to the Overkill Style, Beast Soul Style, and other martial arts. Once this concept is planted into the netizens’ heads, we’ll have achieved partial success.
[You know the saying, ‘The ones who get the sinking market will be the ones who will rule over the world.’ The stronger the martial art is, the harder it is to practice it, and the market for it is smaller. The Ultimate Style is just like the Ripple Force. Its target is the citizens, and it might go even farther to involve high school students and the grassroots soldiers in the Red Dragon Army.
[This is the most important market, so we shouldn’t be worried about targeting the low-end market. The lower we go, the more people will learn of us, and we will not have a problem with earning a profit, because right now, getting traffic is the best way to earn a profit!
[Last of all, netizens are very smart. Do you think that they can’t tell that there are plenty of ghostwriters leading the trend behind many of the malicious comments? But they won’t be able to guess that the ghostwriters smearing the Ultimate Style’s name belong to it.
[Logically speaking, there is no need for the Ultimate Style to commit suicide by slandering its own name when it has just been born, right? Then, just who would have hired these ghostwriters to defame the Ultimate Style?
[Practically every article criticizing the Ultimate Style compares it with the Overkill Style, Beast Soul Style, and Gun Fighting Style. As people will make comparisons, they will come up with the conclusion that the Ultimate Style can’t compare to the other styles at all. The truth will be clear. The ghostwriters would have to be from the Overkill Style, Beast Soul Style, and Gun Fighting Style!
[Then, the smart netizens will think, “If the Ultimate Style is really just wishful thinking and they’re just causing a ruckus, why did the traditional martial art styles use everything they have to destroy the Ultimate Style’s name? Why are they thinking about nipping this brand new martial art in the bud? It must be because the Ultimate Style has a bright future and the possibility of becoming immensely powerful!]
Her words stunned Meng Chao.
[Are you sure that the netizens are so smart that they can think so deeply?] he asked hesitantly.
[Even if the netizens can’t figure it out, it’s fine. We can help them. The ghostwriters from Yan Organization are professionals. They can rebuke you until you’re not worth a single penny in the morning, but in the afternoon, they can praise you to high heavens. They can lead the tempo of the discussion from various angles and directions.]
Yan Feirou told Meng Chao that the main point was not comparing the Overkill Style and the Ultimate Style and deciding which was stronger. They were to instill a new thought into the netizens’ minds, and that thought was that the Ultimate Style could compete with the Overkill Style.
She then asked him whether he understood it.
[Take this for an example. If you shamelessly hound Battle God Lei Zongchao to fight against you in an arena, it won’t matter who wins or loses between you. Even if Lei Zongchao only casts a glance at you through the corner of his eye, you will still be considered to have won, and he to have lost.
[Even if you anger him and he beats you up in the arena to the point that you can’t even take care of yourself, you will still become famous overnight and have a bright future ahead of you, while he would have lost completely and be too ashamed to even stay in the superhuman circle. Think about this carefully, isn’t this the same logic as what we’re doing right now?]
[It makes sense! Promotion is seriously such a profound art. Now, the Overkill Style is just like Battle God Lei Zongchao, and I’m the Ultimate Style, a third-class fighter who is a nobody. As long as we bind the two of them together, we win!]
Meng Chao was so excited that he slapped his thigh and gasped in amazement. [Big Sis Yan, don’t you also practice the Overkill Style? Aren’t you being too vicious to your own style?]
[When we’re in the world of business, we only talk business. I think that in the future, martial arts will become even more segmented, and the high-end market will be completely different from the sinking market. I support the Overkill Style to fight against superbeasts, especially when it comes to Hell Beasts and Apocalyptic Beasts. I believe that this is the only way to kill them.
[But it won’t stop me from believing that the Ultimate Style is the most effective method to harvest normal monsters en masse. It’s just like what you and Mr. Gu said: There isn’t any problem with cultivating the 108 main meridians and 1,024 branch meridians together.
[Unfortunately, I’ll be at the west lake base over this period of time, which is some distance away from you. A few days later, I have to go into Graveyard Forest with my lecturers to fight against even stronger superbeasts. Otherwise, I’d want to go to the east lake base and visit the alliance of the five universities to test the new cultivation cabin you created.
[Anyway, don’t worry. With Yan Organization leading the tempo in the dark, the Ultimate Style’s exposure and its popularity will keep on growing. Soon. it’ll be trending in the entire city.]
What happened half a month later was just as Yan Feirou predicted.
While continuously attacked by the ghostwriters online and degraded until it was worth absolutely nothing, the Ultimate Style intrigued quite a lot of netizens, and their desire to rebel rose to the max.
Everyone became sick of the mocking words and criticisms toward the Ultimate Style, and they started hoping that it could make a counterattack.
Very soon, that counterattack arrived.
It was not an internet article with empty words, but a swift attack from reality.
And it came from Yan Organization’s conference on Ripple Force V2.0.
Originally, the conference should have been held during the golden period, which was the summer holidays after the national college examination, but due to the future Ripple Force that Meng Chao brought forward, Yan Organization gained far too much inspiration. Yan Hengbo led the researchers into the martial arts lab and started a brand new process of upgrading the force execution method, which lasted almost half a year. Then, they finally came up with a Ripple Force V2.0 Strengthened Version!
The martial arts industry had long since received news about this. It was the first time that one of the three basic force execution methods—Ripple Force, Reckless Bull Force, and Dragon Snake Force—received a true full version upgrade. The performance parameters would increase in all aspects, and it would create an important change in history. The event had a high possibility of changing the power setup of the basic martial arts market in Dragon City.
Reporters gathered in the conference. The online livestream of the conference was also so popular that millions of people watched it at the same time.
Yan Organization did not disappoint the viewers and the reporters.
They gave a demonstration of Ripple Force V2.0, and the marvelous force execution method left people dumbfounded.
Yan Organization put up all sorts of astonishing displays, such as repeatedly striking through nineteen A4 sheets of paper with the ripples that came out of the user’s fist while they stood one meter away. It was very hard for anyone to imagine that a basic force execution method would be able to do this.
[Ripple Force V2.0 is definitely the strongest force execution method in Dragon City!]
Many of the netizens wrote in the comments section of the livestreamed conference.
[The power setup of the basic force execution methods in Dragon City has changed. As the Yan family’s Ripple Force attacks aggressively, will the other Ripple Force styles and the practitioners of Reckless Bull Force and Dragon Snake Force rise to arms and counterattack or just wait for their deaths?]
It was an incredibly sensational topic, and it attracted tens of thousands of insiders and enthusiasts.
But what attracted the most attention in the conference was not Ripple Version V2.0 itself.
Instead, it was the two specially invited guests sitting at the VIP seats.
One of them was Dean Zong Yue of Agricultural University’s martial arts and life science department, and the other was Gu Jianbo, the person-in-charge of the research related to the Ultimate Style.
Gu Jianbo had come to sign the tactical cooperation contract with Yan Organization.
Yan Organization had actually chosen to announce their cooperation with the Ultimate Style during the conference of Ripple Force V2.0, which was an incredibly important event. They even promoted Ripple Force V2.0 as being able to perfectly operate within the Ultimate Style’s system and increase the performance of this brand new martial art to the highest degree. They acted as if it was the key feature of Ripple Force V2.0.
Yan Hengbo, the leader of Yan Organization, also declared publicly that in order for Ripple Force V2.0 to blend with the Ultimate Style even more perfectly, he had been making minor adjustments to it, which was why the launching of the force execution method had been postponed by several months from the initial date, and he was incredibly sorry about that.
Yan Organization placed great importance in the Ultimate Style, and to have Ripple Force V2.0 perfectly embed itself into the core of the Ultimate Style, they would rather refine it carefully and push back its launch repeatedly. This shocking news instantly caused a stir.