Shen Ye was a poor scholar who had repeatedly failed the imperial examinations. One day, while copying the Scripture of the Yellow Court for someone, he accidentally spilled ink on a fragment of the text, revealing a hidden cultivation technique. Curious, he began practicing it. Soon, he could see "traces of spiritual energy" invisible to ordinary people, and was discovered by a "Spirit Examiner" who roamed the human world.
That night, the Spirit Examiner slaughtered everyone in the study to seize the fragment. Shen Ye fled in panic with half of the technique, its pages smeared with ink. Only then did he realize that by pure chance, he had stumbled upon the "Formless Longevity Art," a prize the cultivation world had fought over for a thousand years. Yet every one of its owners, despite its reputation for pointing straight to the Great Dao, had met a tragic end...
