'What?'

Everyone thought they were hearing things.

"Blasphemy! How dare you challenge Master Mo?!"

Amongst the crowd, the martial artists from the Mo family retorted.

Master Mo was a god to them and was considered a legend ever since he stepped into this world. The reason the Mo family attained the status of the strongest family was due to Master Mo. Even though they were afraid of Ye Lingchen's power, they still had to protect their master's honor.

Ye Lingchen calmly assessed the Mo family members, ignoring the small fries.

"Mr. Y, Mo Tianqi specializes in Heart Destruction Palm. His control over inner force is a lot more refined than regular martial artists. His inner force would eat away at an opponent's meridians, making him extremely troublesome to deal with. Martial artists of the same level would be no match for him. There was an endurance training master that died to that palm of his. Now that he's become an innate state martial artist, his power would only be more terrifying," Su Tianhong explained.

"That's right, Mr. Y. You must be careful!" Master Chen chimed in as well. He then said, "What about this. We take our leave and come up with a solution. Our four great families are willing to join forces with Mr. Y. When the time comes, our combined strength will let us take Mo Tianqi out!"

It was only natural for the four great families to plot against the Mo family. Upon seeing Ye Lingchen reject the Mo family's recruitment and killing Huo Shan, they were elated and all had the urge to bring Ye Lingchen to their side.

With Mo Tianqi ascending into the Innate Stage, he was unrivaled in the Sichuan-Tibet region. If he had taken action, the families in the Sichuan-Tibet region would go through major reshuffling. When that time comes, the four great families would definitely be picked on.

Before Mo Tianqi, they could only find power in numbers. It was all the more important to bring an expert like Ye Lingchen into their ranks.

"Do I need you to teach me how to do things?" Ye Lingchen asked casually then walked straight to a park bench nearby, taking a seat.

The crowd shrugged, not daring to speak further. They were extremely respectful to Ye Lingchen.

'He is likely another Innate Stage martial artist. Even if that wasn't the case, he wasn't far from being one.' Su Tianhong speculated. 'I wonder what's Mo Tianqi's current strength like. If the four great families joined forces, we might be able to fend him off.'

"Master Su, come over here."

Right then, Ye Lingchen's words sent a shiver down Su Tianhong's spine. He immediately walked over. "Yes, Mr. Y?"

"Relax. There are some things I need you to teach me." Ye Lingchen chuckled.

"I'm unworthy to teach you but I'll definitely share all that I know," Su Tianhong took his side immediately.

"What is the Innate Stage?" Ye Lingchen asked.

Su Tian Hong was curious. Could it be that he was not an Innate Stage martial artist? However, he quickly explained in detail. "Practicing martial arts would only make one a regular martial artist. It develops the techniques and the body. This can only be considered as a form of exercise. When the training reaches a certain stage, inner force would be born. That's the so-called inner force martial artist. By then, their power would go through a qualitative change. The next level after that would be the Innate Stage!

"From our predecessor's records, the difference between Innate Stage and inner force stage was that the latter depended on the limited Qi within one's own body. Meanwhile, the Innate Stage can guide the spiritual energy in the vicinity. From that, one could experience a great boost in destructive power and strength."

Ye Lingchen nodded. Innate spiritual energy and acquired inner force had a qualitative difference. From observing Huo Shan, Ye Lingchen could tell that Huo Shan was only barely able to utilize the spiritual energy in the air, but his strength multiplied!

"Do you know if there are any stages beyond the Innate Stage?" Ye Lingchen asked curiously.

"There is." Su Tianhong nodded unexpectedly. "It is recorded by our predecessors. I'm not sure about its authenticity, but it mentioned that beyond the Innate Stage was called Trinity Convergence! Beyond that, I have no idea."

Ye Lingchen's brows twitched and looked at Su Tianhong in surprise. 'It exists!'

"Who are those predecessors you're talking about?" Ye Lingchen asked.

"That's our ancestors. In fact, our four great families descended from sects." Su Tianhong spilled the beans, not daring to keep anything hidden.

Along with the advancement of society, a lot of sects that existed in the past slowly faded away from view as they were assimilated into general society. The sects had great power and practiced martial arts. During times of unrest, they developed at an alarming rate. Some formed companies while others formed families and clans.

Of course, there were still some sects that did not blend into modern society and remained in solitude. One example would be the Shaolin temple or the Xing Yi Sect. However, they were the minority. It was unknown if they had any martial arts experts in their midst.

That was not difficult to understand. The thing that surprised Ye Lingchen was a phenomenon that Su Tianhong mentioned.

Under normal circumstances, martial arts were being forgotten. Even these people were only treating it as a form of exercise to improve their health. When it came to power, they were only a little stronger than regular people. However, since maybe 10 or 20 years ago, they noticed that improvements during martial arts training became exceedingly quick!

There were records in their sects that were treated as wuxia novels where one could break a tree with a punch. All the talk about Inner Force or Innate Stage was just made up. However, all of a sudden, they noticed it was real!

As they practiced, their body improved greatly and could break a tree with a single punch!

That caused all the passion in these family members to grow. Although they were in an era of science and technology, martial arts was a power they had control over. With powerful martial arts, a lot of things became much easier. That directly affected their strength!

Therefore, they naturally developed a strong passion for martial arts!

Nevertheless, sometime later, the Warrior's Department appeared out of nowhere. The government started having talks about martial artists and surreptitiously pushed for the public to learn more about martial arts, helping their interest grow.

Although most commoners did not realize, the number of martial artists had been growing since then.

Of course, all that was done covertly behind the backs of the commoners. Even if they noticed it, they would only think of it as a recent trend.

Take Superman Y's incident for example. The public only felt that it was a miraculous occurrence that faded away over time as the hype only died down.

As for why martial arts was getting easier to practice, none from the four great families had any idea.

Ye Lingchen rubbed his nose as he speculated.

The effects were getting more and more obvious. Nowadays most people have already accepted the existence of the Warrior's Department and martial artists. Martial arts were deeply entrenched in their hearts. In time, even if the world announced the authenticity of a martial art expert, the public would not feel that it was out of place.

Ye Lingchen had already noticed some abnormalities since a while back. Summarizing all the changes he had seen and how organizations like the Warrior's Department appeared in various countries at the same time, something had obviously happened…