Fleet of the Ageless

The Xianzhou Luofu of the star sea condensed inside the sphere, with the Jade Gate floating there like an entrance to the moon and the stars. Countless people have come here in search of the secret of long life, only to turn back in disappointment.

The Xianzhou Luofu set out from an ancient country thousands of years ago, crossed space, met the divine, and sought the elixir of immortality.

The enormous ecological ark moved slowly into the star filled sky, as though falling into a clear moon hanging silent in the night, the long road leading to a destination unknown. On that lonely journey, people sank into sleep, woke, and sank into sleep again by turns… Pods of whales chased the meteors falling from the zenith, and a crystalline structure crossed light years that stretched on and on. Those who sought long life saw with their own eyes that a transcendent power existed, and were quietly glad, more resolute than ever in their faith in the search for immortality.

The Xianzhou Luofu's journey of several thousand years was gradually drawing to a close, and at the faint boundary between reality and illusion it met the master of Abundance. Yaoshi worked a miracle upon the ark and in an instant created the “Ambrosial Arbor”. Its shade was like cloud, blotting out the sky, its roots thick and dense, covering over the Xianzhou… The Xianzhou Luofu became like a living thing that had been given life.

Those who sought long life swallowed the fruit of the “Ambrosial Arbor” and found the “endless lifespan” they had dreamed of. The people of the Xianzhou called themselves heavenly beings and began to enjoy a life without end. They used the “Ambrosial Arbor” to expound the way of the immortals, and produced miracles of every kind.

Yet where there is a peak of prosperity there will be decline, and where there is extreme joy there will be tragedy. Only three generations later, when the people could no longer survive, did the people of the Xianzhou understand the truth of the “miracle”: it was a disaster no one could bear.

In that hour of peril, a hero drew the Imperial Bow and cut down the Ambrosial Arbor. The people of the Xianzhou took back their human dignity and swore to “return to being mortals, and erase immortality from the cosmos”. In the years that followed, the Xianzhou began to hunt across the galaxy, taking on the duty of wiping out immortal abominations. The Foxians regained their freedom and their sky, the Vidyadhara sealed away infection and calamity, and the three tribes formed an alliance. From that the Xianzhou Alliance came into being.

Prosperity and calamity travel side by side, and heroes and legends appear along with history.

Today, deathless long life has shaped the Xianzhou Luofu, giving it after all its rises and falls a character all its own, at once classical and modern. Merchants of the cosmos passing through need only pause a moment to feel what it is like for time to stop flowing.

In earlier days it was thanks to the Ambrosial Arbor that the Xianzhou Luofu became the supreme fleet of the Xianzhou. Later the Xianzhou Luofu met disaster because of the Ambrosial Arbor, and bore the consequences of long life on its own… The vines of the Ambrosial Arbor have grown into the Luofu's fate, and are hard to separate from it.

The master of “Abundance” buried a seed of cause and effect at the heart of the Xianzhou Luofu, granting those who sought long life the miracles of the Ambrosial Arbor. It is called a miracle because when it happens, everyone can grasp its meaning at once.

The Ambrosial Arbor holds a covenant with the divine and overflows with vital force, and the endless lifespan that seekers of long life longed for is all contained within it. From then on the ancient taboos and laws became meaningless, and the doctrines of old age and death became a thing of the distant past. People followed the “way of the immortals” to develop the Arbor further, so that the earth could be dug without ever running dry, that bodies could be freely transformed, that chickens and dogs grew clever enough to speak… countless technologies that were hard even to imagine took solid form beneath the vines of the Ambrosial Arbor.

However, catalyzed by time, the Ambrosial Arbor slowly wore away the veil that covered it and began to show a hideous face, and the long lived began to suffer the pain of long life.

The immortals kept multiplying without ever tasting death. The people aboard the ark grew as thick as a plague, and hunger spread everywhere. In Xianzhou society the young had ambition but could hardly rise, while the old always held the high positions, the structure was on the verge of collapse and the whole edifice tilted… The Aurumatons rebelled, enemies invaded from outside, and after a thousand years of chaos people came to recognize the darkness hidden in the bloodline of long life. What was called the “heavenly body” was only a technology far beyond human intelligence, and falling into “mara struck” stood as a warning to the people of the Xianzhou that they and the abominations were only one step apart.

In the hour of despair, a hero loosed an arrow that tore the sky, and the Ambrosial Arbor was severed… Yet though the Ambrosial Arbor was destroyed, the fate of the Xianzhou was never cut away along with it.

It draws invasion from outside: the Abominations of Abundance descend, digging through flesh, blood and warped bone, swearing to devour the people of the Xianzhou alive. It also bewitches the people of the Xianzhou themselves, who break the taboos of the Medicine King's secret teachings, delve deep into the Abundance secrets of the Ambrosial Arbor, and rebuild an empire of the power of long life… While inside and outside alike still face a long lasting calamity, the remains of the Ambrosial Arbor climb up out of the darkness like vines, lying in wait to rise again, intent on beginning the disaster anew.

Fortunately, the Xianzhou Luofu never lowers its guard before that “withering tree”, and they have sworn to bring the source of every distortion to its final end.