Chapter 493: The Vanished Immortal

The Cult Master looked confused, but Lu Yang was even more so.

“The Immortal Master, the deity your Immortal Cult believes in, the one called ‘Shameless’.”

The Cult Master frowned. “The Immortal Master is indeed our deity, but are you implying he is here with us?”

“Of course. After your Immortal Cult resurrected him, the Immortal Master only had a soul, no physical body. He needed a suitable vessel, so you gathered all the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Immortal Cult for a competition. I won, and under your guidance, I met the Immortal Master.”

“Then, the Immortal Master was beaten up in my mental space. Senior Sister also contacted the imperial court, and they wiped out your Immortal Cult. The few of you were refined into revenants by Senior Sister to atone for your sins here.”

As Lu Yang spoke, the Cult Master’s frown deepened. Lu Yang would certainly not lie about such a matter, so was his own memory flawed, or Lu Yang’s?

The Cult Master called over Master Liu, Master Gao, and others, asking them to confirm if the Immortal Master had appeared.

From the two barbecue masters to the three enchanting ghosts, all denied having seen the Immortal Master.

“As I recall, when all Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Immortal Cult were gathered for a competition, it was to select talented young individuals as reserve cadres for the Immortal Cult. You did win that competition. Just as I was about to present your award, the imperial court burst in and arrested everyone in our Immortal Cult. Afterward, several of us were refined into revenants by Lord Yunzhi to atone for our sins here.”

“The Immortal Master was never present throughout the entire process, from beginning to end.”

“Then why did you keep telling me to expand the barbecue restaurant, open chain stores outside, and spread them across the entire continent? Wasn’t that goal set for you by the Immortal Master?”

The Cult Master denied it again. “No, that’s not it. I felt it was better to find a goal than to live out our lives aimlessly here. So, I asked Fellow Daoist Lu Yang to help us open the barbecue restaurant outside. That’s when Fellow Daoist Lu Yang found the Nine Nether Cult and had them help us open chain stores.”

Lu Yang thought of another piece of evidence for the Immortal Master’s existence. “What about your Immortal Master statues? Before, your Immortal Master statues were so blurry you couldn’t even tell if they were male or female. After the Immortal Master appeared, you replaced all the statues with his true likeness, and the statues held a copy of ‘The Book of Penal Law’ in their hands.”

“That’s not how it was. One day, while I was in secluded meditation, I vaguely saw the Immortal Master walking towards me. He was holding ‘The Book of Penal Law’ and, with a benevolent expression, told me I had done very well, and that we all had done very well. He said he would truly be born in a few more days. When I woke up, I realized this was a dream imparted by an immortal, an immortal opportunity. That’s why I replaced the statues.”

“But before that day came, your Dao-Seeking Sect and the imperial court raided our Immortal Cult.”

The Immortal Master often appeared at the barbecue restaurant, and everyone on the commercial street knew him, but they didn’t know his identity. Lu Yang asked the neighboring shops, and they also had no recollection of the Immortal Master.

Lu Yang also found a few passing Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters who were regular customers of the barbecue restaurant, and they all said they had never seen the Immortal Master.

“Was there really no Immortal Master?” After asking around, Lu Yang began to suspect that his own memory was flawed, or that he had been implanted with a non-existent memory.

“Fairy, wake up, something’s happened.” Lu Yang shook the sleeping Immortal Fairy awake.

After the celebration, the Immortal Fairy, claiming physical and mental exhaustion and overuse of her brain, was sound asleep in the mental space.

In any case, Lu Yang couldn’t understand how the Immortal Fairy, who had sat on the stands the whole time and only acted out one scene with him, could be so tired.

“What is it?” the Immortal Fairy mumbled, stretching out the end of her words, upon hearing the call.

With great effort, she squinted her eyes open, glanced at Lu Yang, and then turned her head back to sleep.

“Let this Sect Master sleep a little longer…” she said, closing her eyes.

“The Immortal Master is missing.”

“What? The Third Boss is missing?”

The Immortal Fairy sat up abruptly. Their Immortal lineage had three members: she was the First Boss, Lu Yang was the Second Boss, and the Immortal Master was the Third Boss. All three had average cultivation levels of Half-Immortal, making them incredibly powerful. Now, with one Immortal Master gone…

“Wait, aren’t their average cultivation levels still Half-Immortal?”

“It seems the Third Boss isn’t that important after all.”

“No, wait, why would he just disappear like that?”

The Immortal Fairy’s reaction, on the contrary, made Lu Yang relieved. It seemed his own memory wasn’t faulty; rather, everyone else’s memories of the Immortal Master had been erased and replaced with other memories.

Lu Yang thoroughly explained everything, from his initial suspicions to the current investigation results.

“Hmm, that’s quite interesting. It sounds like a karmic spell, but such a minor trick is nothing to this Immortal. You are under my protection, so you haven’t been affected.”

“Karmic spell?” Karma was obscure, and at Lu Yang’s current cultivation level, he didn’t need to understand it yet.

“From the moment a person is born—no, rather, from the moment a soul is conceived in the womb—they establish a connection with the world.”

To explain better, the Immortal Fairy conjured a blank sheet of paper and drew a circle on it.

“This circle represents you at birth.”

She then drew another circle not far from the first.

“This is someone else.”

A line connected the two circles.

“After you are born, if someone sees you, you form karma with them. Similarly, if you see them, both of you form karma.”

“If you are strangers, the karma is shallow. If they glance at you and quickly forget you, then the karma between you two disappears.”

“However, if you were born with immense strength and kicked someone’s leg, breaking it, they certainly wouldn’t forget you, and your karma would deepen.”

As she spoke, the line connecting the two circles thickened and darkened, becoming very prominent.

“As you grow up, you encounter more people, and the karma you generate with the world increases.”

“Your childhood playmates, fellow disciples, and elders you met after joining the Dao-Seeking Sect—these are all beings with whom you have formed close karma.”

“Some cultivators choose to cultivate in seclusion precisely because too much karma in the mortal world is detrimental to cultivation.”

“When everyone forgets your existence, the karma between them and you ceases to exist. This is the situation the Third Boss is currently facing.”

Lu Yang hadn’t realized it before, but now that it was explained, he saw that the Immortal Master had only interacted with a limited number of people since his appearance.

The Immortal Master first interacted with the Immortal Cult’s high-ranking members, then with Lu Yang himself, the Immortal Fairy, and Senior Sister. After that, he came to the Dao-Seeking Sect and interacted with people on the commercial street and Dao-Seeking Sect disciples.

As long as these traces of interaction are severed, and the karma is cut—everyone forgets or replaces memories with new ones—then that person loses all connection with the entire world.

“Of course, considering the Third Boss’s cultivation level and how completely everyone has forgotten him, the karmic spells I know wouldn’t be capable of this. Either your era has developed more powerful karmic spells, or someone has formed a Dao Fruit related to karma, like a Karmic Dao Fruit.”