No one expects much from a company workshop. It’s usually the kind of thing people attend half-asleep, thinking about deadlines they left behind or counting the hours until they can go home. That’s exactly the mindset Deputy Manager Seo Eun-hyun and his coworkers are in when they head out together—nothing special, nothing dangerous, just another obligation tied to work. But whatever force governs their world has other ideas.
The trip ends in disaster when a massive landslide doesn’t just block the road—it tears everything apart. When the dust settles, they’re no longer anywhere recognizable. Instead of concrete and trees they’ve seen a hundred times before, they’re standing inside an ancient forest soaked with spiritual energy. This place is known as the Ascension Path, and it doesn’t care who you were before you arrived. The air feels heavy, oppressive, and wrong in a way that’s hard to explain. Even breathing feels different. Survival is no longer a guarantee.
For everyone else, this is pure chaos. For Seo Eun-hyun, it’s something far worse.
He remembers this place.
Not vaguely. Not in fragments. He remembers it because he’s lived here before—many times. Decades at a time. Each life stretched across years of struggle, cultivation, loss, and death, only to be dragged back to the beginning again. He doesn’t return with divine blessings or a system handing him power. He returns with memory. Fifty years of it. Every wrong decision, every failed alliance, every time someone trusted the wrong person and paid for it with their life. That knowledge is the only thing he carries forward, and it weighs on him constantly.
This world operates on a cruel kind of logic. Cultivation isn’t romantic or noble. It’s a hierarchy built on talent and birth. Those with strong spiritual roots are noticed quickly, pulled into sects where resources and instruction shape them into elites. Those without talent are ignored or exploited, left to fend for themselves in a place where even a minor mistake can get you killed. Immortals exist, but they don’t act like protectors. They move through the world like natural disasters, following rules that have nothing to do with fairness.
Seo doesn’t stand out. He isn’t strong, gifted, or chosen. What he is, oddly enough, is experienced in dealing with people. Years in corporate environments taught him how to read power structures, how to speak carefully, when to back down, and when to push. Those skills turn out to be useful here, where social missteps can be fatal and alliances are fragile things that break easily.
His coworkers don’t adapt evenly. Some awaken hidden talents and start climbing quickly. Others realize, painfully, that this world doesn’t reward effort alone. Office hierarchies collapse and reform in unpredictable ways. The same people who once relied on titles and seniority now have to prove themselves every day just to stay alive. Trust becomes scarce. Fear spreads fast.
Regression doesn’t make any of this easier for Seo. Knowing what’s coming doesn’t spare him from it. If anything, it makes things worse. He remembers who will betray whom. He remembers deaths he hasn’t prevented yet. He knows how cruel the Ascension Path can be, and he knows that even perfect preparation doesn’t guarantee survival. The mental toll adds up. Each restart carves deeper scars, and there’s no promise that this loop will ever end.
Still, he keeps moving. Slowly. Carefully. He tests small changes, watches outcomes, learns what can and can’t be altered. His goal isn’t glory or immortality. It’s survival—his own and, if possible, others’. In a world obsessed with talent and destiny, Seo Eun-hyun continues forward through sheer persistence, carrying memories no one else could endure, refusing to let repetition grind him down completely.
This isn’t a story about shortcuts or chosen heroes. It’s about endurance, restraint, and the cost of remembering too much in a place that offers no mercy.
