Do take your time to consider your options, [Matoba agrees mildly.] I am always happy to work out a deal when it is convenient for both parties.
[Or, when the other party is so desperate that he is guaranteed the upper hand in negotiations. That's even better.]
[He definitely appreciates the concise answer- a few things he has picked up, and others he cannot. Cultivation, he imagines, would not benefit nearly so much from the spirit-rich nature of the resort as his own magic. But neither does it interfere, it seems. That's probably an advantage, to be able to keep a tidy internal spiritual habitat when outside influences can't be trusted.]
I would not call them entranced so much as.... no longer counting among "us", [Matoba adds- speaking of those so-called longstanding guests.] Perhaps many of them- the staff, as well- were once normal humans. But there are many stories in my land of humans spirited away to a realm where time passes until their bodies have died away and leave only their souls, without realizing. Likely, it is something just like that.
And we are the next batch. [His smile tilts, a little sardonic.] To see which will assimilate, and which......... Well, to tell the truth, I am still not certain what happens to the rest.
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[Or, when the other party is so desperate that he is guaranteed the upper hand in negotiations. That's even better.]
[He definitely appreciates the concise answer- a few things he has picked up, and others he cannot. Cultivation, he imagines, would not benefit nearly so much from the spirit-rich nature of the resort as his own magic. But neither does it interfere, it seems. That's probably an advantage, to be able to keep a tidy internal spiritual habitat when outside influences can't be trusted.]
I would not call them entranced so much as.... no longer counting among "us", [Matoba adds- speaking of those so-called longstanding guests.] Perhaps many of them- the staff, as well- were once normal humans. But there are many stories in my land of humans spirited away to a realm where time passes until their bodies have died away and leave only their souls, without realizing. Likely, it is something just like that.
And we are the next batch. [His smile tilts, a little sardonic.] To see which will assimilate, and which......... Well, to tell the truth, I am still not certain what happens to the rest.