Jhon raised his left hand.
From the space around his fingers, a serpent of pure shadow energy emerged. It coiled slowly around his skin, as if it had found its eternal home there—a living presence, woven from threads that bind birth and forgetting.
The air in the classroom grew heavier. A silent chill spread like creeping mist—not physical cold, but the absence of all vital warmth. A chill beyond existence, a harbinger of what lies beyond the veil of reincarnation.
"Second" his deep voice resonated with supernatural clarity. "Avoid direct manipulation of the soul until you're ready."
The statement echoed like a funeral bell in the silence.
"The cycle is fragile" he continued. "If a novice's touch disturbs it, all of reality nearby may collapse. To tamper with a dead spirit without understanding is to toy with the laws that hold this world together. You don't know what you might unleash... or what might return."
The serpent vanished with a breath of mist.
In the front row, a student with dark eyes raised a trembling hand.
"Master... how will we know when we're ready?"
Jhon turned to him.
His gaze carried the weight of ages. No impatience—only the serene intensity of someone who had once carried that same doubt... countless lifetimes ago.
"When you can walk on the edge of the abyss without slipping" Jhon said.
"When the whispers of souls no longer disturb you, but welcome you like kin."
"When you cross the threshold and return with your clarity intact."
His voice vibrated in the students' bones.
"When that moment comes... you'll know."
The silence that followed was heavy—not the kind that inspires fear, but the kind that precedes transformation.
Jhon continued, unhurried. His words guided the spirit like the touch of a ceremonial blade. He spoke of the fundamentals of absorption meditation—techniques to align vital energy with the world's pulse. Not "supreme skills," but tools. Bridges between awareness and essence.
Each instruction felt like an ancestral whisper piercing the veil of time.
"Sit" he ordered. "And listen to the echo of your absence."
The students obeyed.
For minutes—or perhaps hours—the room remained silent.
Some heard voices—echoes of other lives, other deaths. Some felt their own existence dissolve like salt in an invisible ocean.
Jhon observed.
He did not correct.
He did not interrupt.
He let the Dao of Death touch each disciple with its own voice.
The lesson ended with a single phrase:
"Death is not a door to be opened—it is a passage to be crossed. Alive."
Then he vanished.
A wisp of dark mist danced where he once stood—a sacred memory.
Hours later...
Enchanted bells echoed through the academy's halls.
Jhon walked among masters, guardians, and students like a living shadow. His cloak—woven with the mists of the Underworld—never touched the ground, but floated beneath him like an extension of his soul.
Wherever he passed, runes on the walls glowed faintly. Students bowed subtly. Not out of forced reverence—but from an instinctive response to something beyond divinity.
Jhon was not merely powerful.
He was the link between worlds.
When a young student approached him, his gesture was simple: a reserved smile, a word.
"Continue."
To that boy, it wasn't just acknowledgment.
It was confirmation.
Validation.
A spiritual seal etched into his destiny.
The golden archway opened in absolute silence—as if the portals of reality themselves recognized who approached.
Jhon entered.
Cosmic dust spiraled around shelves. Whispering books. Tomes written before time began. Living runes pulsed nearby.
He exchanged a glance with the Librarian—a formless being made of crystallized thought.
Ancient. As ancient as the first page ever written by the Tao itself.
No words were needed.
『Character Record』
Name: Jhon Argan
Title: Eternal Emperor of Samsara
Age: 780 Trillion Years
Cultivation: Transcendent
Lineage: Primordial Samsara
Immortal Spiritual Root: Root of Eternal Death
Soul: Immortal Soul of Divine Samsara
Dao: Dao of Death • Dao of Reincarnation
Key Trait: Absolute perception of the cycles of existence
Presence: The shape of absence itself
Alignment: Cosmic Neutrality – preserves balance between life and death
Hall of Masters – Central Temple of the Academy
The space subtly warped as Jhon entered. Pillars adorned with living records of ancestral teachings pulsed.
Masters of other Daos—Fire, Water, Earth, Wind—sat waiting.
But when Jhon took his seat, all straightened.
The silence that followed spoke louder than a thousand speeches.
"Your progress is remarkable" said the Master of the Dao of Fire. "Disciples report lucid dreams... memories of past lives."
"That is to be expected" Jhon replied. "When we face eternity with eyes wide open."
Then Selene Aetheris arrived.
Robes of pure light.
An aura of calm.
Eyes that pierced the veils of time.
Her presence filled the air like a silent tide.
The forbidden tome rested between them as pulsing runes hummed softly.
A silent standoff measured in breaths.
Jhon passed his fingers over the book—without touching it, feeling its spiritual resonance.
"It's more unstable than I thought" he finally said. "The seal trembles with unease. Memories yearn to escape."
Selene nodded.
"The souls of these youths were touched by the cycle prematurely. Fragmented dreams. Constant déjà vu. Lapses in consciousness..."
She closed her eyes.
When she spoke again, her voice carried the wisdom of generations:
"The Dao of Reincarnation is not a path. It is a mirror. In it, cultivators see all their forms—killer, healer, tyrant, martyr. Every past life is a seed planted in the present. Those who touch this Dao… do not harvest power, but their own essence."
Jhon watched in silence.
Light bent around Selene as space itself yielded to her.
"These overlapping consciousnesses" she continued, "weigh down young spiritual bodies. They confuse rather than guide. They corrupt instead of strengthening. Without deep meditation anchoring... the souls shatter."
"You want me to guide them across the bridge" Jhon fully understood.
"Yes" Selene replied. "They trust you. Their fear isn't of death—it's of being forgotten."
Jhon murmured,
"Then we shall teach remembrance."
The next morning, the advanced meditation chamber was silent.
Five young disciples sat within circles of astral jade dust. The walls displayed runes that suppressed emotion. The air hung dense—not with raw energy, but with introspection.
Selene paced slowly around them while Jhon stood at the center, regulating the energy flow.
"Today's meditation doesn't cultivate Qi" Jhon's low voice was firm. "It confronts the oldest shadow: who you once were."
He raised his hand.
Runes glowed.
Space bent.
The world shifted.
Each disciple was enveloped in fields of spiritual projection. Flashes of past lives erupted—
A bloodied sword.
Fields on fire.
The cry of an abandoned child.
The stillness of a millennial monk.
"Do not resist" Selene stood behind a trembling girl. "These memories are not enemies. They are reflections. Embrace them... but don't become them."
Jhon walked among them.
"The Tao of Reincarnation is not conquered by force. It is traversed through acceptance. Every identity you've lived has shaped your current self. Every mistake. Every triumph. Every death... was a seed."
A young boy beside him trembled violently. Sweat streamed down his temple. Eyes glazed by impossible memories.
Jhon knelt beside him.
"Are you seeing a life where you failed?"
The boy nodded silently.
"Then see also what you learned. See where you fell... and where you rose. The truth of the Tao is not in perfection... but in the cycle."
Gradually, the trembling ceased.
The jade circle beneath him lit up—stabilized.
Selene looked at Jhon.
"He crossed the first bridge."
Jhon stood.
"One step further."
Hours passed.
The disciples remained in their jade circles.
Each now wrapped in a pale light—reflections of partially harmonized consciousness.
Selene retrieved the forbidden tome, still sealed.
Unnecessary for now.
"What comes next?" she asked Jhon as they watched the youths meditate.
"Now" he said, "they will dream. Dreams of unlived lives. Their task: to remember without attachment. To learn without repeating. And above all... to accept the wholeness within."
Selene looked at their serene faces.
"It's a long process."
"But a necessary one" Jhon answered. "No Tao is more dangerous... or more liberating... than the one that reveals us completely."
They left without another word.
The disciples meditated as the jade circles pulsed—anchoring millennia-old memories into young bodies.
Outside, the Eryndor sun shone high—unchanging, silent, witness to the eternal cycle of birth, death... and awakening.