A useless nobody?!
Su Jin is a blank slate. On the day he was marked at sixteen, he reached into the black stone urn in the ancestral hall. No white light emerged from the urn, only a patch of black. It was black for a moment, then it was gone. No Mark!
Those with No Mark, not even a single Mark, are called Blank Hands. They aren't entered into the register, can be bought and sold to pay off debts, and can be beaten to death without anyone being punished. They don't count as people. They're property.
Those with Blue Marks are commoners, Red Marks are warriors, Silver Marks are geniuses, and one person with a Gold Mark is born every ten years. Ring Marks can protect an entire nation.
But no one knows that hidden beneath the back of his hand is the world's one and only Divine Mark. And the one who sealed it was his father, who vanished fourteen years ago.
Marks are a talent. They determine how quickly you cultivate, and how much you must pay to climb one step higher. Each rank lower multiplies the cost tenfold. High-level cultivators with low-ranked Marks do exist, but they are so rare that they have become legends.
Everyone in the world believes one thing: Marks can be changed. Someone put that idea out there on purpose.
The thing he stole stirred the blank spot on the back of his hand. An old man helped him up, taught him how to cultivate, and broke the seal for him. "If you want to grow stronger, you must first learn how to die."
What he didn't say was that he had waited his entire life for this Mark.
With every layer of the seal he breaks, Su Jin draws one step closer to that position. And the price is that he forgets the person who has been waiting for him all along.
