He grabbed a stool at random and sat down.
Gu Zhe focused on the voice in his mind.
Then...
What seemed like endless streams of data scrolled before his eyes.
No, those weren't data streams, but runes of the Great Dao, runes of chaos.
After a while...
The countless rays of light drew inward.
A simple panel appeared.
[Name: Gu Zhe] [Class: Mysterious Origami Craftsman] [Rank: Mortal] [Class talent: Ritual transmutation] [Skills: None] [Spirit points: 0]
The system panel was clear at a glance.
Gu Zhe had never done this himself, but he knew how these things worked.
After looking over his system...
He focused his attention on each field of the system panel in turn.
Sure enough...
Relevant information flowed into his mind, one piece after another.
His name and class needed no explanation.
His rank was Mortal, which first meant that he was currently an ordinary human with no supernatural power.
It also meant that he could only use ordinary materials to fold ordinary funerary offerings and creations.
Next came his class talent.
Gu Zhe had a feeling that this was very, very important.
Sure enough, once the explanation came through...
Shock appeared in Gu Zhe's eyes.
The name Mysterious Origami Craftsman was well deserved.
As it turned out, his paper creations and funerary offerings were blessed by his talent. All someone needed to do was burn them as offerings, and the faith behind that ritual would cause them to actually appear at their intended destination in a Sacrificial Spirit Realm, such as the Netherworld or the Underworld.
"Does this world really have an Underworld or a Netherworld?"
According to the system's information, this innate ability existed because he had happened to acquire a certain trait while traveling through spacetime, causing a mutation when he took on the origami craftsman class.
It wasn't an ability that every origami craftsman in this world possessed.
Generally speaking, origami craftsmen paid their respects to their ancestral master, then used their paper-folding skills to assemble and cut funerary offerings. Most did it merely to make a living and feed their families.
There wasn't nearly that much mystical nonsense involved.
The Gu family's ancestors had been doing this for generations, and he had never heard of an actual Netherworld or Underworld.
Nor had he ever heard of a fellow origami craftsman possessing genuine supernatural abilities.
Still less had he heard of anyone burning paper money, paper houses, or paper figures in the real world and having them turn into actual objects in another world.
Even novels wouldn't dare go that far!
Even in legendary tales, those eerie, supernatural professions and paper-folding spells could, at most, make paper figures fight like puppets.
If burning some paper really allowed one's ancestors to receive it...
The Heaven and Earth Bank issued notes worth trillions at the drop of a hat, and traditional paper money was burned in great bundles...
Wouldn't the Underworld's currency become worthless?
If such an ability really existed...
Newton would be turning in his grave.
It hadn't existed before.
He had never even heard rumors of it before. Despite the Gu family's generations in the funeral business, there were no definite records of gods, ghosts, or an Underworld.
But...
The past was the past.
Now the system was right before his eyes.
Ritual transmutation?
Could... could I really burn offerings and send them to the ancestors? Could they really reach the intended destination?
The implications grew positively... wonderful the more he thought about them!
He shook his head and set those thoughts aside for now. Once he tried it in practice, he would find out what was actually going on.
Having no skills was perfectly normal.
He knew nothing about paper folding, so naturally he had no corresponding skills.
Gu Zhe wasn't worried about that. Even teaching himself would be fine.
The supernatural part was his talent, not the ordinary paper-folding techniques he planned to learn.
After all, this was an ordinary craft people could learn, not some highly specialized, cutting-edge field like semiconductors or nuclear bombs.
Finally, there were spirit points.
These were used to upgrade his skills.
Hmm!
Wait!
Gu Zhe recalled the information he had received.
My talent can be upgraded too?
I don't have any skills yet, but I do have a talent!
He hurriedly focused on the talent field and mentally issued an upgrade command.
Then...
Sorry, forget I asked!
The spirit point requirement had a long string of zeros. He counted carefully: a full hundred million!
*???*
Do spirit points have that little purchasing power?
Are spirit points worthless? Or is this talent so difficult to upgrade because it awakened by chance amid chaotic spacetime?
He pondered this cheat of his, which had finally arrived, late though it was.
Gu Zhe's expression kept changing, shifting between joy, confusion, and visions of the future...
After sitting quietly for a while...
He stood up.
Looking at the small, shabby shop...
"Whatever else happens, this is a fresh start in life."
"No more being some mediocre rich kid. Now I'm going to be a supernatural funeral shop owner!!"
Uh... Gu Zhe suddenly froze.
Isn't a supernatural funeral shop owner still just a funeral shop owner?
Can ritual transmutation benefit me in the real world?
Am I really just going to sell paper offerings and let the people in the Underworld enjoy themselves?
This doesn't feel all that super!
And how am I supposed to get those spirit points?
A resurgence of spiritual energy?
Meditating to absorb it?
Automatic generation?
He shook his head.
"It can't really be that simple. I'm a man with a system-certified class. As long as I keep figuring things out step by step, I'm bound to discover something new."
"Overthinking won't help. One step at a time!"
Starting from scratch, Gu Zhe now felt as though he had rediscovered the drive he'd possessed in his previous life as a small-town student grinding through exam questions.
It wasn't that most people disliked working hard. They simply couldn't see their progress or results, so they couldn't help slacking off.
But now Gu Zhe had his system class right there before him.
The progress and results of his efforts would show up at any time, filling him with enthusiasm.
"Now this is how life should be for someone who's transmigrated!"
With those thoughts in mind...
He got straight to work.
He went into the storeroom and dug out a few old books that had been gathering dust for years.
After brushing off the dust, he first glanced over their covers.
"Classification of Paper Offerings," "Thirty-Six Styles of Netherworld Offerings," "Folk Paper Crafting Techniques," "Sacrificial Ritual Precautions."
Then he checked the backs.
They were mostly the same.
Publication date: 1982; publisher: Dragon Country Folklore Publishing Group.
All right, then.
These weren't secret teachings handed down from ancient times.
They were books his grandfather had bought while he was alive. Apparently, the old man had believed in lifelong learning too.
In the past, the craft had been passed down through spoken instruction and hands-on demonstrations, without any dedicated books.
The Gu family wasn't a "cultivation clan" from a novel, just a family of funeral workers who made their living from the trade.
Of course, seen another way, although these books had come from a publishing house, wouldn't they have counted as craft manuals worthy of becoming family heirlooms in the less developed ancient world?
He started reading.
Whenever he encountered something he didn't understand, he looked it up online.
He also followed the books' pointers and tried putting them into practice using the old materials on hand.
Gradually...
His childhood memories began to return, along with bits of knowledge he had once found irritating and backward.
Traditional origami craftsmen had existed for one or two thousand years, and their paper-folding techniques incorporated crafts from many other trades.
These included bamboo weaving, painting, calligraphy, paper cutting, and composing poems and couplets.
Although they couldn't match those specialists, they dabbled in all of them. Origami craftsmen were all-rounders among artisans!
For Gu Zhe...
This was a new field, too.
His anticipation for the future drew him completely into it.
He didn't even play on his phone, and couldn't be bothered with the curious inquiries and probing messages prompted by gossip.
Apart from occasionally exchanging texts with his parents to let each other know they were safe, and receiving parcels of personal belongings and documents sent after the house was vacated following the bankruptcy...
He spent all his remaining time grinding, grinding hard... with the same intensity he'd brought to his college entrance exams in his previous life.
Alone in that tiny shop, he began his apprenticeship in paper folding.