"So that's why Second Senior Brother has been wandering the Buddhist Kingdom?"
Lu Yang was utterly astonished. He had assumed Second Senior Brother had simply been blind enough to offend Eldest Senior Sister and gotten banished thirty thousand li to the west, leaving him with no choice but to beg on the streets of the Buddhist Kingdom, sleep rough, and pose as a Buddha statue in temples, scraping by in utter misery.
To think he had overthought it so thoroughly.
"Regrettably, after all these years, he hasn't found any useful clues. Instead, he has been deported by the Buddhist Kingdom several times, having to sneak back across the border each time." Eldest Senior Sister shook her head in regret. Finding clues about an immortal who governed time was simply too difficult.
Perhaps she could pay a visit to the Five Elements Sect and closely examine the Jianmu tree.
"Now that the Jianmu tree has regained its vitality, if Immortal Suiyue is still alive, is it possible he might reinhabit the Jianmu tree's body?"
The Immortal Fairy nodded. "It's possible. After all, remaking an immortal body is difficult. If one can use the original body, one uses the original body."
"There's one more thing: this immortal ran into Ying Tian and the others in the Five Elements Sect's celestial realm."
"What happened? Senior, please elaborate." Eldest Senior Sister stood at the ready. How had Lu Yang and Senior gained so much from a single trip to the Five Elements Sect?
The Immortal Fairy recounted what she had seen and heard in the celestial realm in detail, emphasizing the experience of Immortal Suiyue opening a spatiotemporal channel to converse with her. Naturally, she remained oblivious to the fact that Immortal Ying Tian and Immortal Kirin had only played gomoku to avoid eating her cooking.
Yun Zhi furrowed her brows slightly.
"When I entered the celestial realm, no historical reflection appeared. To think such an enormous event was concealed within the immortals' board game."
Lu Yang was puzzled. According to the Immortal Fairy, anyone who could glean enlightenment from the match would see the historical reflection. How could Eldest Senior Sister have failed to see it?
The Immortal Fairy rolled her eyes, convinced Lu Yang was hopelessly dense and truly helpless without her. "Immortal Ying Tian let future generations see the historical reflection purely to show off. Girl Yun is on par with this immortal—what point would there be in showing her a historical reflection?"
Lu Yang considered this and found it made sense. Even if Eldest Senior Sister did perceive something, she wouldn't be overly amazed by Immortal Ying Tian's tricks.
"Immortal Ying Tian must have served as the think tank among the Five Ancient Celestials, considering how thoroughly he planned things out."
"What nonsense are you spouting? The think tank was obviously this immortal! How could Ying Tian and the others possibly be smarter than me?"
"If they were as smart as this immortal, they would have realized the four of them could secretly team up to bump me off and then resurrect me in the future. Wouldn't that have solved everything without a hitch?"
Lu Yang: "..."
He had to admit it was indeed a solution—just not one any normal person would ever devise.
"I thought you were going to say, Fairy, that the four immortals would tell the past you about the conversation, and the past you would commit suicide on the spot to avoid being killed."
"That was Plan B." The Immortal Fairy was meticulous and thorough; she never settled for just one method.
As if deaf to the internal banter of the Immortal Lineage, Yun Zhi analyzed, "It is a fact that you were assassinated, Fairy. Knowing from you that you would be murdered, the other four immortals certainly prepared something. If their preparations weren't placed on you, then they placed them on themselves, preparing life-saving countermeasures."
"Going by that logic, the Four Ancient Celestials may still be alive, Immortal Suiyue included. They hide behind the veil of history and never make a move—is it because their condition is dire, or is there another reason?"
"Judging from how neither of you could hear any information regarding Senior in the historical reflection, and how the spatiotemporal channel was severed, another force intervened to stop it all."
Even at its worst, the Suiyue Dao fruit wouldn't have been reduced to transmitting merely five words, and Immortal Suiyue himself had mentioned that something was interfering.
"It seems a certain power altered history, preventing future generations from obtaining information about Senior from the past."
The signature on the immortal recipes being changed from 'Immortal Fairy' to 'Immortal Ying Tian,' the ancient immortals substituting 'Immortal Fairy' with 'Immortal Suiyue' when speaking, and other such anomalies all proved this point.
"It appears the information in ancient texts cannot be entirely trusted. Certain parts have been altered."
"The kind of power capable of doing this would likely be something along the lines of the Karma Dao fruit, the Destiny Dao fruit, the Consciousness Dao fruit, or the Words as Law Dao fruit."
Eldest Senior Sister murmured to herself, then looked up and met Lu Yang's eyes. Remembering that Lu Yang was still young and shouldn't be exposed to too much of this yet, she said nothing more.
Lu Yang thought to himself, *Eldest Senior Sister, could you either say nothing at all or finish what you started? What's the point of stopping halfway?*
Among those mentioned, he only knew about the Karma Dao fruit, whose specific capabilities could be deduced somewhat from the second Imperial Preceptor.
The Karma Dao fruit could pull off deception on a cosmic scale—even an immortal wouldn't remember you!
Only an immortal could kill an immortal. Did Eldest Senior Sister mean there had been a sixth immortal in antiquity, one who wielded the Karma Dao fruit and used it to erase their own existence?
The other three Dao fruits surely possessed similar effects!
If there really was a sixth immortal, and the Immortal Fairy was so strong, then the sixth immortal's Dao fruit must have severely countered hers!
Lu Yang secretly glanced at the Immortal Fairy for help. She would certainly know what those Dao fruits did.
What he didn't realize was that as his eyes turned toward the Immortal Fairy, Eldest Senior Sister was shooting the fairy a warning glare.
The Immortal Fairy also felt Lu Yang shouldn't know so much, so she resolutely refused to explain what those Dao fruits could do.
"Speaking of which, what was the mastermind's motive for killing the Fairy?"
This was the point Lu Yang had never been able to figure out. Assuming the culprit possessed the Karma Dao fruit, the Immortal Fairy held no worldly ambitions and had close ties to the Four Ancient Celestials. Killing her was bound to provoke the four of them. What reason could there be to risk one's life provoking such formidable enemies?
"A motive... a reason..."
"A motive... a reason..."
"There must be one—a reason concerning his own self-interest..."
Suddenly, something clicked in his mind, and his eyes lit up with excitement. "Could it be a devouring-type Dao fruit? Where the more Dao fruits one devours, the stronger one's power becomes?"
"Let's tentatively call it the Devouring Dao fruit."
"What if antiquity didn't have five immortals, but seven? The sixth immortal held the Karma Dao fruit, and the seventh held the Devouring Dao fruit. The seventh immortal devoured the sixth, gained the power of the Karma Dao fruit, and masked their own existence."
"Then, to grow even stronger, the seventh immortal set their sights on the Immortal Fairy, striking from the shadows in an attempt to devour the Immortal Dao fruit and become truly imperishable and indestructible. However, something went wrong—perhaps the Four Ancient Celestials arrived in the nick of time, preventing the seventh immortal from succeeding!"
"That would also explain why the Immortal Cult exists! He founded the Immortal Cult wanting to devour the rudimentary Immortal Dao fruit!"
Everything fell into place!
The Immortal Fairy excitedly slapped Lu Yang on the shoulder, convinced this was the truth. "That makes total sense!"
Yun Zhi cut into their conversation. "Enough, Little Junior Brother. Do not involve yourself too deeply in this matter; it is too dangerous. What you need to do right now is focus on your cultivation properly."
"Oh."
Chapter 556