"I can't believe a true immortal like Senior Riley is so approachable," one cultivator whispered, his eyes wide with awe as he watched Riley move gracefully among the crowd.
"I know, right?" another replied. "Most cultivators of his level don't even bother interacting with the mortal world anymore. They just live in seclusion, cultivating for thousands of years, detached from everything around them."
"And that's only natural," a third said thoughtfully. "When you can live practically forever, what does it matter what happens in the short span of mortal life? I wonder… what it must feel like to exist for an eternity."
The cultivators leaned closer to one another, voices dropping to hushed tones as they imagined it: a life stretching endlessly forward, filled with experiences incomprehensible to ordinary people, yet burdened with the weight of time itself.
To witness even a fragment of that existence in person… it was enough to make their hearts race.
