Who Let Him Cultivate?! (WX)-Chapter 502: The Missing Everlasting Immortal
Seeing the creed leader’s baffled expression, Lu Yang became even more baffled himself. “The Everlasting Immortal—your Everlasting Creed’s faith. The one called Bu Yaolian.”
The creed leader frowned. “The Everlasting Immortal is indeed our faith, but from what I’m hearing, you’re implying he’s here with us?”
“Of course. After your Everlasting Creed resurrected the Everlasting Immortal, he existed as a soul and needed to find a suitable body. Thus, you gathered all the Foundation Establishment cultivators in the creed to compete against one another to select an appropriate vessel. I emerged victorious, and you led me to meet the Everlasting Immortal.
“After that, he got beaten up inside my mental space. Big Senior Sister contacted the imperial court, wiped out your Everlasting Creed in one go, and refined you all into tiger-henchman ghosts.”
The more Lu Yang spoke, the more the creed leader frowned. Lu Yang wouldn’t lie about something like this. So is something wrong with my memory or Lu Yang’s?
The creed leader called Chef, Chef Gao, and the others over to verify whether the Everlasting Immortal had manifested in the world.
From the barbeque chefs down to the three Alluring Ghosts, all denied having met the Everlasting Immortal.
“In my memory, that competition between Foundation Establishment cultivators was organized to select promising youths as reserve cadres for our creed. You did win, but just as I was about to award you, the imperial court’s forces stormed in and arrested us all. Later, Lord Yun Zhi refined us into tiger-henchman ghosts, and we’ve since been atoning for our sins here.
“At no point was the Everlasting Immortal involved.”
Lu Yang pressed on. “And what about how you’ve kept urging me to grow the barbeque business and expand it with chain stores across the continent? Wasn’t that goal set by the Everlasting Immortal?”
The creed leader denied it again. “No, that’s not it. I simply thought that rather than muddling through life here without purpose, I might as well find a goal. Hence, I asked for your help in expanding the barbeque business, Fellow Daoist Lu. That’s why you contacted the Nine-Netherworlds Creed to assist with opening our chain stores.”
Lu Yang presented another piece of evidence to prove the Everlasting Immortal’s existence. “Then what about your Everlasting Immortal statues? They used to be so ambiguous that you couldn’t even tell the gender. After the Everlasting Immortal appeared, you replaced all the statues with ones modeled after his true appearance. It even holds a copy of the Penal Code.”
The creed leader denied it again. “That’s not what happened. I was meditating in seclusion one day when I saw the Everlasting Immortal walking toward me in a haze. He held a copy of the Penal Code in his hands and looked at me benevolently, telling me, ‘You’ve done well. All of you have done well. In a few more days, I shall be truly born.’
“After I woke up, I realized it was an immortal sending me a message through a dream, a sign of fate with immortals. Only then did I change the statues.
“However, before that day came, your Dao-Seeking Sect and the imperial court raided us.”
The Everlasting Immortal often appeared in the barbeque shop. Everyone on the commercial street knew his face, though they were unaware of his true identity. However, when Lu Yang inquired at neighboring shops, none had any memory of him. Lu Yang even stopped several senior disciples passing by. They were regulars at the barbeque shop, but all claimed they had never seen the Everlasting Immortal before.
“Does the Everlasting Immortal really not exist?” After a round of fruitless questioning, Lu Yang began doubting his own memories and wondered if someone had implanted false memories in his mind.
“Immortal Fairy, wake up. We have a problem.” Lu Yang shook the sleeping Everlasting Immortal Fairy.
After the celebration ended, the Everlasting Immortal Fairy claimed she was mentally and physically exhausted from overusing her brain and promptly collapsed into deep sleep in his mental space.
In any case, Lu Yang frankly couldn’t understand what part of sitting on the judges’ platform all day—aside from their single staged confrontation—could possibly have tired her out.
“Whaaat?” she groaned, dragging out the syllable petulantly.
With tremendous effort, she cracked one eyelid open just enough to glare at Lu Yang before immediately rolling back over. “Let this sect leader sleep a while longer...” she mumbled as her eyes closed again.
“The Everlasting Immortal is missing.”
“Wut? Our third-in-command is missing?” The Everlasting Immortal Fairy bolted upright.
There are three people in our Everlasting Lineage. I’m the first-in-command, Lu Yang is the second-in-command, and the Everlasting Immortal is the third-in-command. That brings our average cultivation to half-immortal, making us a formidable force. Now that the Everlasting Immortal is missing...
...Seems like the average cultivation is still half-immortal?
It feels like the third-in-command isn’t that essential after all.
“Hold on, how did he go missing without rhyme or reason?”
Her reaction reassured Lu Yang that the issue wasn’t with his memories. Everyone else’s memories of the Everlasting Immortal were erased and supplanted with other memories.
Lu Yang reported everything he had discovered so far, from his initial suspicions to the current findings of his investigation.
“Hmm, that’s quite interesting,” the Everlasting Immortal Fairy mused. “Sounds like a karmic spell, though such petty tricks mean nothing to me. With my protection, you won’t be affected by it.”
“Karmic spells?” The concept of karma was still too abstruse for Lu Yang’s current realm, and he had no need to understand such things yet.
The Everlasting Immortal Fairy explained, “From the moment one is born—no, from the moment a soul is conceived in the womb—connections with the world are already established.”
To illustrate her point, she conjured a white paper and drew a circle. “This represents you at birth.”
She drew another circle nearby. “This is someone else.”
A line connected the two circles. “After you’re born, when others see you, a karmic bond is formed; the same holds true when you notice them.
“Between strangers, the karmic link is faint. A passing glance, and he forgets you quickly. Then, the karmic tie no longer exists.
“But suppose you were born with supernatural strength and kicked their leg broken when you were just born. He wouldn’t forget you then, and the karma between you would deepen.” As she spoke, the line connecting the two circles thickened conspicuously.
“As you grow up and interact with more people, you will establish more karmic ties with this world. Your childhood playmates and the fellow disciples and elders you’ve encountered after joining the Dao-Seeking Sect—all of them share close karmic connections with you.
“This is why some cultivators choose to cultivate secluded from the world. It’s precisely because too many karmic ties in the mundane world hinder their cultivation. When everyone forgets your existence, their karmic bonds with you disappear. And this is our third-in-command’s current situation.”
It was only now that Lu Yang realized the Everlasting Immortal had already formed this many connections with the world around him since his birth—the Everlasting Immortal had interacted with the Everlasting Creed’s higher-ups, him, the Everlasting Immortal Fairy, Big Senior Sister, and the merchants and Dao-Seeking Sect disciples on the commercial street. As long as these threads of karma were severed, everyone’s memories of the person would be forgotten or replaced with new memories. At that time, this person would no longer have any connection with the entire world.
The Everlasting Immortal Fairy continued, “Of course, considering the third-in-command’s cultivation and how thoroughly these people have forgotten everything, the karmic spells I know of shouldn’t be able to achieve this. Either your era has developed more powerful karmic spells, or someone has attained a Dao Fruit related to karma.”
