Master Roshi's immortality

[Travis Touchdown]

Master Roshi drank an immortality elixir in order to live as long as he has. Since he was killed by the Mufaba technique and subsequently revived with the Dragon Balls, does the magic of the elixir still affect him or did its effect end with his death and now he'll eventually die of old age like a normal human?

[The Time Traveller]

He clearly says he lied about the elixer.

[bkev]

He clearly says he lied about the elixir.

He also mentions a different one when giving Goku Kintoun, if I'm not mistaken.

[Herms]

Here's what I wrote about the subject for my Viz translation review:

Tr:
Sea Turtle: What “souvenir for the land of the dead”? Haven’t you drunk the immortality elixir?
Kame-sennin: Th-that doesn’t matter!!

Viz
Sea Turtle: Need I remind you that this “dying old man” drank the immortality elixir?!
Kame-sennin: Don’t bother me with the details!!

This may seem pretty minor, and it would be, except that in the Piccolo Daimao arc, Kame-sennin tells Tenshinhan that he can’t die since he has drunk the water of immortality, but then takes it back, saying that the water of immortality doesn’t exist, and that it was a lie. Now, for that dialogue, in DB vol.13, Viz changes Kame-sennin’s line a bit so that the part about the water of immortality not existing drops out, making it ambiguous just what he lied about (that he drank the water of immortality, or that he couldn’t die?). It’s almost certain that Toriyama hadn’t thought of those events in the Piccolo Daima arc at this point, but even so, with them in mind the Japanese dialogue is more consistent with the idea that there really is no such thing as the water/elixir of immortality: Sea Turtle isn’t certain that Kame-sennin has drunk it, and Kame-sennin neither confirms or denies that he has (his line is very literally “either way is fine”).

Also, in Japanese Kame-sennin calls the thing he supposedly drank something different here than in the Daimao arc: here it’s the medicine/elixir of immortality (furou-fushi no kusuri, literally medicine of agelessness and deathlessness), while in the Daimao arc it’s the water of immortality (furou-fushi no mizu). However, Viz calls it the immortality elixir here, and the elixir of immorality during the Daimao arc.

[Dayspring]

Here's what I wrote about the subject for my Viz translation review:

Tr:
Sea Turtle: What “souvenir for the land of the dead”? Haven’t you drunk the immortality elixir?
Kame-sennin: Th-that doesn’t matter!!

Viz
Sea Turtle: Need I remind you that this “dying old man” drank the immortality elixir?!
Kame-sennin: Don’t bother me with the details!!

This may seem pretty minor, and it would be, except that in the Piccolo Daimao arc, Kame-sennin tells Tenshinhan that he can’t die since he has drunk the water of immortality, but then takes it back, saying that the water of immortality doesn’t exist, and that it was a lie. Now, for that dialogue, in DB vol.13, Viz changes Kame-sennin’s line a bit so that the part about the water of immortality not existing drops out, making it ambiguous just what he lied about (that he drank the water of immortality, or that he couldn’t die?). It’s almost certain that Toriyama hadn’t thought of those events in the Piccolo Daima arc at this point, but even so, with them in mind the Japanese dialogue is more consistent with the idea that there really is no such thing as the water/elixir of immortality: Sea Turtle isn’t certain that Kame-sennin has drunk it, and Kame-sennin neither confirms or denies that he has (his line is very literally “either way is fine”).

Also, in Japanese Kame-sennin calls the thing he supposedly drank something different here than in the Daimao arc: here it’s the medicine/elixir of immortality (furou-fushi no kusuri, literally medicine of agelessness and deathlessness), while in the Daimao arc it’s the water of immortality (furou-fushi no mizu). However, Viz calls it the immortality elixir here, and the elixir of immorality during the Daimao arc.

I think Kame-sennin was refering to the fact that whatever elixir he did drink didn't make him truly immortal, meaning incapable of death, so much as incapable of dying from old age. That way both comments are true: he took an elixir that granted immortality, but no such elixir exists that can grant true immortality.