Kamisato Ayaka—Cid clearly remembered that she was his very first five-star character, pulled after just 27 wishes back then.
But since he was still in his newbie phase at the time, Ayaka could only be leveled up to 40.
He couldn't possibly use a level-40 Ayaka to fight those level 50 or 60 trash mobs in Inazuma, right?
So not long after the newbie period, Ayaka ended up becoming his warehouse manager.
During that phase of straight-up progression grinding, with Ayaka unusable, he had to let Yanfei handle elemental reactions instead.
And then...
Cid still didn't quite understand why, but he really seemed to have an extraordinary affinity with Ayaka.
Kaedehara Kazuha—he'd heard was a meta card, and the crowd control felt really fun, so he pulled.
Shenhe—he couldn't resist and ended up getting her after 47 pulls while padding the banner.
Kokomi—at the time the discourse was all about how she was trash, a bigger Barbara, but her design hit his XP perfectly. Who cares if she's trash or not—he pulled anyway. No matter what anyone else said, he just had to have her.
So without any real team-building awareness, Cid managed to assemble his first five-star freeze team centered around Ayaka.
However, she didn't feel that great for open-world exploration, and during the progression phase he still needed to stack artifacts for energy recharge...
As a result, the early progression phase was still carried by Yanfei, while later on he used Kokomi, Raiden Shogun, and Kazuha for a degenerate electro-charge team.
It wasn't until much later, when he pulled hard for Nahida because of the Theresa nostalgia, that he finally got Dendro cores. After that, pairing her with Zhongli, Kuki Shinobu, and Kokomi meant he never really updated his teams again.
And yet even though he had the godly Shenhe-Kazuha-Kokomi-Ayaka freeze comp, he only ever cleared Floor 11...
Even right up until the moment he transmigrated, Cid had kept this five-star battleship sitting in his warehouse...
It really made one sigh and say what a tragic waste.
All he could say was that fate works in mysterious ways.
And right now, little Ayaka looked very different from her grown-up self.
How to put it?
The future Ayaka, just like her mother, was a proper noble lady—every gesture and movement exuded refined elegance, with a slight air of cool aloofness on the surface. But once you got to know her, she felt like a gentle older-sister type, and the longer you spent with her, the more you realized her true nature was that of a little girl at heart.
But the current little Ayaka...
You didn't even need to get to know her to realize she was a little girl!
The old uncle skipped straight past the plot of "getting to know her" and "exploring her personality"—he immediately saw through to the essence of the little girl!
Right now, although little Ayaka still appeared very proper and well-mannered on the surface, the lively, childlike spark still shone in her eyebrows and eyes.
She completely lacked that cool aloofness she would develop later.
Although she had received proper education and understood rules and etiquette—and could follow them—she still couldn't fully suppress a child's natural instincts.
And at this moment, little Ayaka was looking at the old uncle with those big, adorable, curious eyes of hers...
That innocent, pure gaze of a child...
No, the old uncle felt his guard dropping (sorry, I mean relaxing) a little.
Better to deal with the old fox beside him first.
Seriously, sometimes he felt like a vampire—he could stay completely calm and composed in the face of any kind of darkness or gore, but when confronted with the innocent gaze of a cute child, love, and sunshine, he just couldn't hold it together.
And of course, this little detail was naturally noticed by the old fox standing beside him—the head of the Kamisato Clan.
It's decided—it's you! My dear daughter!
So what was the view from little Ayaka's perspective at this moment?
Today, her father had said there was a very important guest they needed to welcome.
So the whole family went out together to greet them.
Then, from the carriage stepped down an uncle who was smiling very gently... with a somewhat lazy air about him. On this uncle's shoulder perched an adorable little brown cat.
Behind him was a noble older sister who looked a bit cool and distant.
Was this the important guest?
He felt somehow different from the friends her father usually associated with?