I'm in Shrouding the Heavens Practicing Eternal Life

Buddhists say that humans have eight sufferings.

Birth, old age, sickness, death, resentment, separation from loved ones, unfulfilled desires, and the flourishing of the five aggregates.

Luo Mo experienced seven of them because he wouldn't live to old age.

In his final days on the sickbed, he even comforted his classmates who came to see him, including the girl he liked, who cried very sadly.

Although his stepmother and younger brother took care of him, they always cursed him after his father left, wondering why he wasn't dead yet, having been born with a disease and still living for seventeen years, as if trying to break a world record. There were quite a few variations of their curses, making him feel like he learned a lot of useless things.

So he often wondered why he had to be born into this world?

What was the meaning of life for him?

Why couldn't he be like ordinary people, able to run, jump, and play soccer in the sunlight?

Why was he used to getting injections and swallowing handfuls of pills and capsules?

But as his body deteriorated, even his thoughts became fragmented, his consciousness seeming to suffer from poor contact between nerve synapses.

Inhale

Exhale—

With his last breath, the sound of breathing suddenly stopped. Luo Mo looked at the clock on the wall, and all thoughts ceased at that moment, his short life flashing before his eyes.

Tick

Tock

The clock on the wall played a solo in the silence. He watched the hands slow down little by little, time seeming to stretch infinitely. The second hand was infinitely close but couldn't reach the next tick.

Dong!

A chime like a large bell rang out, and the second hand finally broke free from the invisible swamp, reaching the next tick and continuing happily forward.

Tick—

The instrument beside him emitted a piercing sound, and his heartbeat turned into a straight line.

But Luo Mo became light, as if shedding heavy shackles, and his thoughts were as light as if he were in the sky. He even sat up.

Looking down, he found that he had turned into a translucent, naked human figure, emitting a soft white light.

Turning his head, looking at another version of himself lying on the hospital bed, Luo Mo was first puzzled, then understood.

I'm dead. Is this the soul?

So there really is a soul.

Luo Mo looked at himself on the bed, skinny and pale. Is this what a dead person looks like? It's really ugly.

At this moment, a light attracted the attention of the soul-form Luo Mo. It was a gift from the girl he liked—a small white stone, only the size of a peanut, square and uniquely shaped, woven into a small net bag and bracelet with colorful thin strings.

The girl said that she had been free from illness since childhood, and this stone was her protective stone, so she gave it to Luo Mo, hoping that he would get better.

But Luo Mo clearly heard her say last time that she found it by the river when she was a child.

He reached out and passed directly through the drawer. His soul was not hindered by objects and passed straight through, touching a burning sensation. The square white stone was held by his soul.

Could it really be a god stone? Then you should have protected me and helped me get better. Why am I still dead?

His question was not answered. The next moment, the entire field of vision was constricted into a line, a dot, and his soul was distorted and sucked into a black spot.

The doctors and nurses rushed in, but no one noticed that a pendant was missing from the colorful rope bracelet in the drawer.

A whole new world appeared!

For Luo Mo, this was a scene he had never seen before, indescribable, with countless bizarre and fantastical things. His soul appeared in this bizarre and fantastical world, holding a square, seal-like object, as big as a fist.

Is this that little stone? How did it get so big?

The little stone was scorching hot at the moment, emitting light, guiding Luo Mo in one direction. He couldn't move and could only follow the little stone in this bizarre and fantastical world.

He curiously looked at this bizarre and fantastical world, discovering that there were countless bubbles in this world.

In some bubbles, giants wielded large axes to clear the turbid, while in others, seventy-two divine pillars reached the sky. The strangest thing was that one bubble had a corner broken, and something like a stone door protruded out.

He was being wrapped in the light emitted by the white jade seal and moving forward in this bizarre and fantastical world when the stone door suddenly protruded out. Because it was different from the other bubbles, Luo Mo was curious and took a few more glances.

But this look caused trouble. The door glittered, emitting suction, and actually dragged his vision, even shifting the trajectory of the white jade seal. The trajectory-shifted white jade seal crashed towards that door, and then—

Then he knew nothing. When he woke up again, he only felt incomparable pain, and then his consciousness was drowned in boundless pain, about to collapse and pass out.

But he couldn't do it, struggling and rolling in this pain, yet forever awake, clearly perceiving this pain.

He saw his soul again, a translucent, naked human figure, covered with dense marks. Each mark was dazzling and piercing, like knife blades and sword marks, ceaselessly flowing with brilliance, about to cut him into countless pieces.

Ah—

In the space of consciousness, he shouted in pain, because there really was pain like ten thousand blades upon him. Those marks glittered, like moving saw teeth, constantly cutting his soul.

He didn't know how long it had been. Luo Mo had already lost track of time. The pain here never stopped, and he couldn't even faint. The body's self-preservation mechanism seemed to not exist for the soul.

Have I entered Avici Hell? Am I to suffer this incessant torment? But I clearly haven't committed any sins.

[Great Collapse Art]

What?

He tried to look at his palm.

[Great Firmament Art]

?

[Great Firmament Art Profound Meaning: Hand of Providence...]

He stared at a mark on his hand. He was clearly only looking at a constantly flashing mark, but he read a huge amount of information.

Could this kind of mark be a carrier of information?

He wondered, and then, in this pain that almost reached his limit but couldn't crush him, he looked at his other hand.

[Great Five Elements Art]

[Azure Emperor Wood Sovereign... White Emperor Metal Sovereign... Red Emperor Fire Sovereign...]

[Yellow Emperor Earth Sovereign Divine Power... Body Refining Method: Yama Golden Body...]

[Great Blood Spirit Art]

[Great Blood Spirit Art Profound Meaning: Blood Dragon Maelstrom...]

[Great World Art]

[Great Sealing Art]

[Great Protection Art]

[Great Karma Art]

[Great Wish Art]

...

He successively looked at the marks on his soul body and actually read a huge amount of information from each one, making his head ache a little.

If he still had a head.

'These seem to be the Three Thousand Great Daos from 'Eternal Life'?'

After a long time, his mind freed up a little running memory from the pain to think about other things.

In his previous life, when his body was still good, he couldn't go out to exercise and could only read books, so novels became his hobby. He had read the novel 'Eternal Life', and the information read from the marks on his soul corresponded exactly to the Three Thousand Great Daos in the novel. It was based on the names of these marks that he made this judgment.

'In that case, that stone door is the Gate of Eternal Life?'

I've been branded with a body full of the Three Thousand Great Daos?

Hiss—it feels like being whipped, it hurts so much.

After who knows how long, a part of Luo Mo's mind seemed to have been freed from the pain, or rather—

'Has my soul gotten a little bigger?'

But there was no reference object in this soul space, he just had this feeling.

As time went on, his thinking gradually became active, and he began to examine the Dao traces on his entire body.

It also felt a bit like becoming a target of gossip, covered in a body full of secret manuals.

He couldn't move either; his soul drifted here, without anything to leverage, and the terrible pain persisted.

Let it hurt, then. Anyway, I don't have any ability to resist right now, not even to faint.

So, he looked all over his body at the Dao traces and then noticed a square white jade seal floating above his head.

【True Spirit Seal】

He received this information when he looked at the seal, but it was also the only information, seemingly its name.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up; he had actually left the space of his soul and felt a sense of heaviness, as if shackles were placed on him.

There was blurred light before his eyes, and he seemed to feel the existence of his limbs, and that pain actually spread out. He couldn't help but shout, but all he heard was a blurred buzzing.

After a while, his stomach was satisfied, and even the continuous soul pain was relieved a little by this sweetness.

Several days passed.

Luo Mo's eyes were finally able to see things clearly, but things couldn't be too far away from him. The thing he looked at most often was his own little hand, chubby and fleshy.

The sound of a rattle rang in his ears, and the man with a hint of tobacco smell on his body came to tease him again.

"Ee—ee—yah!"

Luo Mo reached out and pushed away the approaching face. He couldn't speak yet, so he could only express his dissatisfaction in this way.

"Don't bring that smoky smell near my son. Can't you see he doesn't like you?"

"Does it smell that strong?"

"I can smell it, so would you say it's strong or not?"

"Hehe, I'll be careful next time. By the way, I had Li Banshan tell our son's fortune, and he said that our son will definitely be a scholarly type in the future, able to go to university and write articles. Also, the character 'Mo' is not suitable for him, so ah, it's better to change his name to Shuwen."

"I still think it's best to call him Luo Mo. I just flipped through the dictionary and randomly landed on the character 'Mo,' which means my son should be called Luo Mo, Luo Mo, Luo Mo, Momo..." The woman picked up Luo Mo, "You agree, right, Momo?"

"Ee yah ~"

"See, my son responds when I call him Luo Mo, which means the name Luo Mo is the most suitable for him, and 'Mo' means ink, doesn't that represent culture?"

"He'll respond to anything you say, he's just a child."

"Then you try it. Call him Shuwen and see if he responds to you."

"Okay, I'll try—Shuwen?"

"..."

The rattle rang a few times, "Shuwen, see what Daddy has in his hand?"

"..."

"Shuwen, Daddy will give you a cookie~"

"..."

The woman's voice became triumphant, "How about that? I told you our son likes the name Luo Mo, right?"

"That's true, but Li Banshan said the character 'Mo' is not compatible with our son's birth chart—"

"Bah, bah, bah, don't talk nonsense! I think that old thing just wants to cheat us out of money. What age is this, still believing in this stuff."

"Then... we ignore him?"

The woman pondered for a moment, "Let's still ask about it."

Luo Mo, or rather, little Luo Mo, made a babbling sound.

The man came back the next evening, with an unpleasant smell of smoke and dark circles under his eyes, his fingers and face oily. "Li Banshan said that our son can be formally named Luo Mo, and use Shuwen as his courtesy name, so that it can suppress his birth chart."

"How much money did he take from you this time?"

"Fifty."

Little Luo Mo made another babbling sound.

"But I won a lot playing cards, I earned it all back."

This time, Luo Mo didn't laugh.

He had become a baby. After his eyes could see things clearly, he looked around everywhere. After his ears could hear things clearly, he would giggle from time to time. Eating, drinking, pooping, and sleeping were his daily tasks; life was carefree.

It's just that when his physical body fell asleep, his soul wouldn't fall asleep, so he was in a kind of alternative state of eternal wakefulness. The three thousand Dao traces on his soul were constantly giving him pain.

It's just that he got used to the pain after a while. It wasn't as unbearable as it was at first. After all, he couldn't resist, right?

This day, he was lying in his crib sleeping.

He spent most of his time sleeping every day, because children need a lot of sleep, their bodies need it, but his soul was awake.

He had been studying the three thousand Dao traces on his soul for a long time, but it was all meaningless, because he was still a baby, it was impossible to say he could get up and practice martial arts, and the cultivation of the eternal life method had to start from the physical secret realm.

So, after studying the three thousand Dao traces for a long time, he focused his attention on the True Spirit Seal, because he felt that this thing should be very powerful, otherwise it would not have been possible to bring him across the world.

The True Spirit Seal only had a name. Staring at it didn't provide any more information. Luo Mo tried to touch the True Spirit Seal with his soul body, but he was a little short. And his soul body was in a void space, wrapped in the light falling from the True Spirit Seal, with nothing above and nothing below, without any leverage. If his hand wasn't long enough, there was really no way.

But the soul could not be measured by common sense, so today he was trying to control the True Spirit Seal with his sharp eyes.

He stared at the True Spirit Seal, thinking in his heart to move it.

The falling beam of light suddenly shook.

There's hope!

So he once again thought in his heart to move the True Spirit Seal, and this time the amplitude was a little bigger.

The light beam covering his soul body suddenly tilted thirty degrees, and the light penetrated his brow, reflecting into reality.

The light penetrated his brow, as if opening a third eye, and shone on his crib. In an instant, a massive amount of information was presented before his 'eyes'.

Temperature, humidity, hardness, resistance, specific heat capacity, molecules, atoms, electrons, gravity...

Things that could be understood, things that could not be understood. In that instant, he saw a world composed of information, shocking his young heart.

"Wah— — — — — — — —"

The pain, which had risen several levels, instantly struck, forcibly dragging him out of the world of information. The three thousand Dao traces on his soul body suddenly became brilliant, as if they were ignited gunpowder.

The True Spirit Seal instantly returned to its position, and the pain instantly reduced by more than half, but it was still a level higher than at the beginning.

On his soul body, some of the traces that were originally like knife cuts and ax chops had penetrated deep into the soul body, piercing through the outer shell and dyeing that area in color.

Luo Mo didn't recover from this pain for several days. He kept crying, and when he was tired of crying, he would sleep, and when he woke up, he would cry again.

The family even brought an old man to draw talismans, wanting him to drink talisman water, but he slapped the bowl over, and then endured the pain, no longer making a sound, and finally ended this treatment.

He remembered this old bastard, and when he grew up, he would definitely smash his stall and break his windows!

It turned out that the True Spirit Seal had been suppressing the three thousand Dao traces. Without the light of the True Spirit Seal, they could tear Luo Mo's soul apart.

And now, Luo Mo gazed at himself and received new information.

【Time to resist erosion: 90 years】

The three thousand Dao traces, which were originally only on the surface of his body, had cut through the skin of his soul and penetrated inside because he moved the True Spirit Seal this time, dyeing a part of his white soul.

'Time to be eroded?'

This didn't seem like a good thing at all.

He felt like he had opened Pandora's box.