How does Ruby handle method lookup across prepend, include, and inheritance chains internally?

Ruby builds an ancestor chain where prepended modules are inserted before the class in lookup order.

Method lookup follows a linearized ancestor chain. Prepend inserts modules before the class itself, include inserts them before superclass, and inheritance defines the base chain. The VM resolves methods by walking this precomputed chain, not dynamically recomputing it each time. This structure is cached and invalidated only when modules are modified.