If Teyvat is compared to a university, a five-star character is a “recommended student” born with resources at the top. As soon as he appears, there are colorful lights and applause in the hall, just like the second place in the imperial examination in the old days, who has the reputation of “looking solemn” before he even opens his mouth. As for the four-star character, Ai Kefei is one of them. She can only squat at the door to listen to the lecture. Occasionally, she is called in to answer a question, but she needs to speak clearly and brilliantly to avoid being asked to leave.
According to the game settings, a four-star character has no light. But according to Ai Kefei’s understanding, “light” is not given by heaven, but polished by hand, just like the poor scholars in the old days, who worked harder than today’s postgraduate entrance examination.
When she first appeared on the stage, she was just a “supporting role of a supporting role”. Although the sea-blue robe is exquisite, it is far less fairy-like than the white gauze fairy dress of Shenli Linghua, nor is it as charming as the high-cut battle suit of Ye Lan. There is no big news about her skill mechanism. It is not a “nuclear explosion”, can’t be “hung up and evaporated”, and has never “moved Wanye”. She is like the person sitting in the last corner of a dinner party, who doesn’t know the host and the guest and is embarrassed to pick up food.
But it is such a person who has devoted herself to the “cultivation” business like crazy.
She wants to reach level 90, wants talents of 10-10-10, weapons of refinement 5, and holy relics with all items of critical hits and explosion damage, and the main and secondary items are not wrong. Her determination can be compared with the old-fashioned belief in the Song Dynasty family motto “there is a golden house in the book”.
She runs around Liyue every day, brushing secret realms, and killing bosses, like a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty preparing for the provincial examination. She examines herself three times a day: “Have I brushed enough Mora today? Did I drop gold in the dungeon today? Did I get the ‘philosophy of justice’ I want in the weekly dungeon today?”
She needs 168 beryl conchs, full of life. If you ask her why she needs so many, she won’t speak, but will only take out a strategy document with frayed edges from her sleeves, and tell the refresh point, refresh time and location of each conch. Her familiarity is comparable to the ancients who memorized “Thousands of Poems”.
Such diligence should have won some results. However, the reality is like the marriage in “Besieged City”, “people inside want to go out, people outside want to come in”, and the more she cultivates to the extreme, the more she finds that she is still the marginal person. She ranks at the top of the leaderboard, but no one knows; she has studied the skill multiplier in detail, but no one pulls her into the team.
She has become a kind of “silent strongman”.
In every Abyss Challenge, she is often just a “substitute for speedrunning”; in every updated strategy, she is at best “if you don’t have XX, YY, you can use her”. She doesn’t blame the heavens or others, she has long seen through that this is an ecosystem where “noble and cold characters are favored, and down-to-earth and hardworking characters are spare tires”.
She said: “I am not the protagonist, but I am not a supporting role. I am the one who knows that I have to practice even if I don’t go on stage.”
You see her standing outside Mondstadt, watching the windmill turn, there is no disappointment in her eyes, only an unspeakable “I’m used to it” – these four words are much more difficult to write than “I’m in pain”.
Occasionally, she will be pulled into the team. She doesn’t ask why, regardless of the output, just to make the set of skilled operations flawless. Others care about numbers, she only cares about whether the process is smooth and the movements are accurate, like an elderly but still skilled calligrapher, every stroke is clear, regardless of whether you know the seal script.
She was once mistaken for a five-star character.
It was during a game, a teammate asked: “Wow, this character is so strong, is it a new five-star?” She didn’t answer, but quietly threw out an E skill, then slid, landed, attacked, and hit hard, a set of actions that flowed like clouds and water, just like Zhao Mengfu’s cursive script. The teammates were stunned, but she just smiled softly: “No, I’m an old character. A very old one.”
After that, she turned around and continued to brush her materials.
Aikefei is not without temper, she just boiled her temper into concentration. She is not without emotions, but she wrapped her emotions into the refining and cultivation plan. One of the things she does most in the game is to stand at the door of the world tour in a daze, standing there for five minutes without saying a word, like a young man standing outside the threshold of academia, chewing the salty taste of breakfast in his mouth, but staring at the sentence “Those who know it are not as good as those who like it” at the door of the library.
She became a character and a person, a character ignored by the times but unwilling to give up, a player who walks alone in the midst of the clamor.
She may never become the “version answer”.
But she will always be “her own answer”.