"Oh, a new update... Ahahaha, Mu Bai, you really gave it to me!"
Lately, Shu Bao has been finding himself on that very Wikipedia page more and more often.
Just like now, his mind is trying to figure out what share of the drug market the Black Church occupies, and his hand suddenly clicks on a familiar bookmark.
Puzzled by the reasons for such a demarche on the part of his own body, he came to disappointing conclusions:
"It's kind of dull without the guys."
Shu Bao thought of his comrades from the previous world, with whom he'd been through thick and thin, even interrogated at the tax office. It was already the second month in this interesting but alien reality. Would he ever see his comrades again? Would they, by then, have turned into balding men with beer bellies?
The young man shook his head, driving away the heavy thoughts.
Those were "Alexander's" contacts, and now he is "Shu Bao"—a complete orphan without friends, who is starting to go crazy with boredom.
"I'll go see what the old man is doing," the young man thought, and went down to the library floor. Spending his days working and reading, he only saw Old Luo at mealtimes. Shu Bao had no idea what his employer, landlord, and cook did in his spare time.
"Look carefully, you illiterate piece of junk," came the librarian's voice from the computer area.
"I type "g-o-r-g-o-n" and, ta-da, the computer shows all the matches: "Stories of Egypt: The Gorgon Family," "The Image of the Gorgon in Art," "The Depraved Gorgon and Her Insatiable..."
"Are you bragging about my work, old man?" the young man interrupted, saving everyone present from an awkward situation.
"Ah, Shu Bao, I didn't expect to see you in daylight," the old man rejoiced, and immediately explained to his guests, "This is little Shu, the one I was telling you about. A straight-A student, very knowledgeable about computers and economics. He'll become a mage next month."
"Shu Bao, characters like 'Book-Treasure'? A fine name for a librarian," laughed a tall old man, Luo's age.
"So you created this accounting system? Good job," said a strong-willed woman of about forty, nodding approvingly.
"Shu Bao, this is Madam Chu and Old Tao, my colleagues," the old man introduced the guests. "Madam Chu is in charge of the Ming Wen School library. And you'll see Tao many times; he works at Tian Lan."
Tian Lan was the only magic school in the city, and the young man planned to enroll there. In fact, he'd already submitted his documents and received preliminary approval—all that remained was an interview with the director.
"I'm counting on your patronage," Shu Bao bowed playfully, causing smiles from the three librarians.
Then an idea occurred to him and he pretended to sigh.
"I can't believe that in just two or three days I'll be done here and free again. A month and a half of hard work, how quickly time flies..." he said casually.
Madam Chu: "!"
Old Man Tao: "!"
Being old foxes, they immediately grasped the subtext.
"We in Tian Lan could really use a system like this. How about putting in a little effort for the benefit of your school? After all, you'll be using it yourself..." Old Man Tao began, but Madam Chu interrupted him.
"Don't listen to him, little Bao, come to us at Ming Wen. It's an elite school for girls, and even during school breaks, the library is filled with beautiful ladies from good families. Who knows, maybe you'll meet your destiny there?"
The two old men stared at the woman in shock. Wasn't she going too far to send a young man into an all-girls school just to make her job easier?
"Um, Teacher Wen has a very beautiful daughter..." Old Man Tao began hesitantly.
"Please, stop," said Shu Bao.
What other girls? A relationship would only slow down the speed at which his hand counts the bills.
"I can help you both, but in a different way."
After some haggling, the parties agreed that for 500 yuan per person, Shu Bao would install, configure, and teach how to use the system. As for the book-carrying duties, they could leave it to some students.
Madam Chu wanted to lower the price even further, but Old Man Luo came to the boy's rescue, mentioning that the "computer repairman" had cost him a whopping 20,000 yuan (he'd only paid a quarter of that in cash, though). And while it might seem easy, Shu Bao had been studying computers since childhood, knowing where to look.
The woman reluctantly agreed.
That day, the young man realized that many people in this technologically backward world were still unaccustomed to computers. His mediocre user skills were, in their eyes, close to divine, which meant...
"Here's my opportunity."
For the next year and a half to two years, magic won't bring him any money, but it will require additional investment to accelerate growth. A small business would be ideal for filling this budget gap.
Having verbally agreed on 1,000 yuan for half a day's work, Shu Bao also asked for referrals to his friends. He wasn't stingy here, promising to pay a whopping 100 yuan for each new client—a substantial sum for a simple referral.
He will offer the same to new clients, and soon orders will flow to him like a river.
God bless the referral system.
End of July, two weeks later.
"Hello? Son, can you see me? Hello?" said the man with the headset on his head, looking at the monitor.
"I see you perfectly, Father! I'll turn on the camera now, too, just wait," a young voice rang in his ears, and a second later, an image of a young man in an officer's uniform appeared on the monitor.
"Amazing!" the man exclaimed. "It's like you're sitting right in front of me! Wait, I'll show you the picture Mom drew..."
Shu Bao stood a little to the side of the man, smiling as he looked at the two satisfied customers.
It was a complex order by his standards—he had to figure out how to connect external devices to the magical equipment, search for a suitable headset in stores, and tinker with drivers. And then, he had to instruct a young military man over the phone to do the same on his side.
Initially, Shu Bao focused solely on electronic accounting, but by popular demand, he expanded to offer other services. Fortunately, there were websites for computer enthusiasts in this world, too, albeit not as many.
Combining his experience from the past with his skill at searching online, the young man could handle most orders. Otherwise, he simply advised which specialist to contact.
Shu Bao spent an entire day responding to a man's request to make a video call, but became a thousand yuan richer.
It was awkward to charge such large fees for what he considered a trivial task, but the guys on the IT forums were asking exactly that much for their services. Who was he to argue with market rates?
Day by day, the young man's understanding of his field grew, and the number of orders only grew, sometimes reaching three or four a day. In addition to the six thousand yuanShu Bao received from the librarians, he earned another sixteen thousand yuan in two weeks. He spent five of them on a used laptop and a push-button phone for work, and paid another four to referrals, leaving him with approximately 13,000 yuan.
By non-mage standards, Shu Bao was rapidly becoming rich, and even for novice hunters this was a decent income.
Despite this, the young man was dissatisfied.
"There's no time to make it before awakening; new ideas are needed."
Income from IT services opened new avenues for him, but only scratched the surface of the best ones. Seeing opportunities he couldn't realize was depressing.
Deep in thought, he began pacing his small room. On the twentieth or thirtieth circle, his gaze fell on his desk, where a letter bearing the seal of the magic school lay.
"Exactly, I still need to go to the interview with the director," the young man thought absentmindedly, continuing to think about new ways to earn money.
And then something clicked in his mind.
Shu Bao quickly turned on his laptop and began surfing the internet, visiting websites with statistics, hunters' forums, and even a magical materials exchange.
Hands fluttered over the keyboard, occasionally pausing to jot down some important numbers in a notebook. Once enough numbers had accumulated, they were subjected to mathematical manipulation, again and again, until only one remained, underlined twice.
Having double-checked all the calculations and counted the number of zeros in the final result, the young man laughed loudly.
"Awakening, school, money! I smell a big score!"