The Great Jing had only just been pacified, and the fires of war had barely gone out.
With nowhere else to turn, the young Li Hanzhou entered the imperial city's Scripture Repository and became an inconspicuous servant.
No spiritual roots, no immortal bones, no miraculous encounter from heaven. He only wanted to stay alive.
While sorting the remnants of ancient books destined to be burned, he found a damaged ancient cultivation technique.
There were no signs of a miracle, no shortcuts, only the quiet tempering of his body and mind, day after day.
Hidden away in the depths of the library, he swept floors and organized scrolls, never revealing the slightest trace of his abilities.
The years flowed by.
After decades, the servants who had worked beside him grew old and frail, and one by one they were laid to rest.
A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye. The Great Jing Dynasty was shaken, and its founding emperor, Xiao Jian, passed away.
Dynasties rose and fell, immortal sects waxed and waned, and heroes of the martial world came and went.
Others sought immortality, the Great Dao, and power.
Li Hanzhou had only wanted to live in peace, yet by chance he stepped onto the path of time. His body would never age, and his lifespan was endless.
He had witnessed the songs and dances of prosperous eras and seen the bones left behind by chaotic times.
One generation after another, his friends' black hair turned white before they returned to the dust.
The once insignificant servant of the imperial city quietly became a being whom emperors of later ages revered as a divine immortal, and before whom the ancestors of immortal sects bowed.
Invincible across the Nine Provinces, he saw through the illusions of life and death.
Yet through the ages, what bound him most was never supreme power.
It was every chance encounter, every old friend who had shared a part of his journey.
Amid the countless ages, he was an ordinary traveler who never wanted to leave.
