Gu Zhe watched the changes in the Paper Figure he possessed.
He pondered some of the information he had just received.
It turned out that when an untouched, primordial secret realm's "will of heaven and earth" sensed that all the lives connected to it had perished,
leaving only a single, unified life and consciousness, no refinement was needed. Heaven and earth would directly recognize that being as the lord of the secret realm!
The lord could control the secret realm and access its basic information.
Some rule of this secret realm had recognized his descended consciousness and the Paper Figure he possessed as the dominant force of that sole or unified life-form, resulting in the changes just now.
He looked at the eerie Paper Figure's panel.
[Name: Mysterious Paper Figures (Gu Zhe) (Lord of the Du Xiao Secret Realm)] [Master: Gu Zhe] [Level: Secret Realm Lord, Eighth Sequence] [Traits: 1. Unafraid of ordinary water and fire, 2. Steel body, 3. Swiftness, 4. Great strength, 5. Absolute loyalty] [Skills: 1. Netherfrost Slash, 2. Secret Realm Frenzy, 3. Secret Realm Blessing]
Its ordinary toughness trait had become steel body, ordinary agility had become swiftness, and Quick Blade had become great strength.
It had also gained three skills.
Having seen Du Xiao's performance, he roughly understood how Frenzy and Secret Realm Blessing worked.
However, they could only be used within the secret realm. Outside it, the Paper Figure would have only the strength of its normal level.
As for Netherfrost Slash, it could add a corrosive netherfrost power to its slashing attacks.
It was not the energy breath Du Xiao had used. Perhaps its sequence was one rank lower, preventing it from projecting energy outside its body, or perhaps a different kind of being manifested its power differently.
He would naturally learn the reason in time.
Only then did Gu Zhe take a proper look at the level field.
Secret Realm Lord, Eighth Sequence?
The Secret Realm Lord part is easy enough to understand, but the rest...
Gu Zhe pondered. Is this a class level? Does the supernatural have fixed levels too, just like the rankings of those ghosts?
What sequence was that ghost Du Xiao?
The next moment, a lingering bit of feedback told him that Du Xiao had been of the Seventh Sequence, while a newly born secret realm lord belonged to the Ninth Sequence.
Recalling his assessment of Du Xiao's strength, did that mean the Seventh Sequence corresponded to a Fierce Ghost, with a little extra "aura" advantage over a Fierce Ghost inside its secret realm, allowing it to cling to life for so long?
What does the Eighth Sequence correspond to? The strength of an Evil Ghost? He considered what he had seen and heard of Evil Ghosts in the Netherworld.
My eerie Paper Figure is of the Eighth Sequence. Is that why it can only attach a certain supernatural disruptive power to its attacks or body?
Judging from these details,
did the other supernatural classes or mysterious beings in this world also have sequence ranks or cultivation levels?
The world had undergone a tremendous change. Gu Zhe did not believe he was the only one to have encountered the mysterious.
Ming Xiao Fei, for example, actually had the aptitude to touch the mysterious. She could easily become a Spirit Medium, communicating between the living and the dead and establishing a psychic connection with supernatural beings in the Netherworld.
Once she mastered it, would she count as having crossed the threshold into the supernatural, earning a title like Ninth-Rank Sequence?
She was naturally gifted with extraordinary abilities, possessing remarkable spiritual sensitivity and intuition.
She had simply been unlucky this time. A ghost from a nearby secret realm in the Void had set its sights on her, turning what should have been a mental connection between the living and the dead into actual possession by a soul tentacle.
And another thing.
Why does my Mysterious Origami Craftsman class show Mortal, without any level?
Do sequence ranks only come after mortal? But as a mortal, I already killed Du Xiao, and now I have a Paper Figure subordinate of the Eighth Sequence Lord rank. That doesn't add up.
Is it because my physical body hasn't undergone a qualitative transformation?
Or is it because my class underwent a chaotic, mysterious mutation, so it simply can't be measured by conventional levels?
Gu Zhe had two guesses.
He leaned toward the latter for his first guess. He remembered the notification when his cheat first appeared: it was an accidental chaotic mutation caused by crossing space and time. With something so unique and incidental, it was only natural that its power would not be constrained by a conventional ranking system.
His second guess was that the description "mortal" might simply refer to the ordinary strength of his physical body. The eerie power of the Paper Figures manifested by the Mysterious Origami Craftsman belonged to a separate system of innate, mysterious abilities that ordinary level descriptions could not encompass.
Of course, it was even more likely that both explanations applied.
That's why my class is called Mysterious Origami Craftsman, not Supernatural Origami Craftsman!
Even if my actual body is mortal, the Mysterious Origami Skill I wield can display extraordinary powers across ranks, letting me kill enemies several ranks above me.
As he considered all this,
Gu Zhe gained a clearer understanding of himself.
Compared with other people, it was as though they were riding old roadster bicycles while he piloted a spaceship; they practiced the Five Tigers Gate-Breaking Saber while he trained in the Nine Yin, Nine Yang, and Buddha's Palm.
Thus, even if their ordinary foundations were similar, their strength was worlds apart.
There might be other differences he did not know about, and the true gap might be even more extraordinary and immense.
For now, though, that rough analogy would have to do, giving him a barely adequate logical explanation.
Now, what about that name-Lord of the Du Xiao Secret Realm?
So this little world is called the Du Xiao Secret Realm?
As questions and thoughts arose in his mind, the information previously transmitted into his consciousness surfaced in response, letting him understand the reasons almost instinctively.
A little while later,
"So that's how it is!"
The secret realm was not called the Du Xiao Secret Realm because that ghost was named Du Xiao.
Rather, the secret realm was called the Du Xiao Secret Realm, and the ghost that had emerged with it, awakening from deathly stillness, had instinctively named itself Du Xiao.
He did not know whether the name held any special meaning.
And...
The information he received as lord of the secret realm did not end there. Its rules also came with some information about other secret realms and ghosts. That was why Du Xiao had not been entirely ignorant: the secret realm provided its lord with basic inherited knowledge.
Some of that knowledge helped Gu Zhe understand a few things.
It turned out that,
as the spirit tide rose and fell, heaven and earth changed, and rules accumulated within the world, a total of seventy-two secret realms and thirty-six grotto heavens would be born.
Some of these secret realms and grotto heavens were as small as a wooden hut, cramped and eerie, while others stretched hundreds or thousands of miles, resembling real worlds.
The Du Xiao Secret Realm was one of the seventy-two secret realms.
Secret realms bred ghosts and were unsuitable for beings from the material world, but grotto heavens...
Gu Zhe's expression shifted in surprise. Grotto heavens could actually support ordinary life.
Unfortunately, although secret realms and grotto heavens belonged to this world, their actual forms existed in the dimension of the Void.
Even if they had an anchor point in reality, unless that point happened to be nearby and someone like Ming Xiao Fei happened to possess enough spiritual intuition to sense or attract the other side, finding one out of nowhere was far too difficult for ordinary people. The world was vast, and the dimension of the Void separated them, unless the beings within those secret realms and grotto heavens came out themselves.
Even though the Paper Figures Gu Zhe brought into reality through ritual transmutation were mysterious and unpredictable, he still needed Incense Offering to guide them.
His chance to become the lord of a secret realm this time had naturally depended on a fortunate coincidence.
He had never imagined that a ghost possession would lead to all this and yield such rewards.
Both Ming Xiao Fei's mishap and his own involvement had been indispensable. Without either one, this outcome would have been impossible.
More importantly, it had depended on him. Take the Netherworld Land, for example: probably quite a few people knew about it, but how many could expand their business there?
Even if someone with other methods had taken his place this time and managed to drive off the ghost, that would have been the end of it. How could they have slaughtered everything in the secret realm and cleared it out? Only his mysterious Paper Figures, unaffected by the secret realm's suppression, could have achieved this result.
That was not arrogance. It was simply the truth.
With a thought,
Gu Zhe withdrew his consciousness from the lord Paper Figure.
Only his name disappeared from its name field. Everything else remained unchanged.
It seemed the recognition of its status as lord of the secret realm had already been imprinted into the Paper Figure's body.
That was good. It could guard the secret realm.
Gu Zhe still needed to think carefully about how to develop this secret realm.
He surveyed the tiny world.
The ghosts' corpses were slowly dissipating. As they vanished, countless wisps of something resembling foul-smelling black smoke spread through the air before finally becoming invisible.
Fortunately, the Paper Figures were unaffected. This world truly was unsuitable for the living.
With a thought, his consciousness returned to the real world!