The Four Kingdoms: Gemini City

"You must be Lady Emilia." He stated, scrutinising her tiny figure. He had a hard time believing that a mere 5 year old girl could do anything productive in this class. And if her twin was anything to go by, all she would succeed in doing was slowing down the growth of her older brother. Malcolm was the type of person with a high IQ and low EQ who would rather only teach those that would benefit from being taught and so he was contemplating having her be taught by someone else.

However, before he could say anything Emilia got down from her chair and curtsied in his direction.

"Thank you for taking the time to teach my brothers and I, Professor Malcolm." She said, raising her head and waiting for his response.

Malcolm Lester, son of the minister of finance. He was quite well known in the political world since he is to succeed his father's position. This man was impressed with the girl in front of him. With a single sentence she had made sure that he wouldn't be able to kick her out of the class or that he would refuse to teach her. He couldn't be sure if she had done it intentionally but by saying what she had in front of others she had put his honour on the line. Of course he could disregard that and refuse to teach her anyway but then he would be considered a dishonourable person and people would not want to work with someone they can't trust in this society.

Who would tell? Well for one, her brothers and herself. But even if they don't the servants inside the room are a prime method of travel for gossip, as in all wealthy estates.

"You need not thank me yet. Please take a seat." He supposed he could wait till she proves herself unable to keep up before refusing to teach her. He would then have a legitimate reason.

"Alright, to begin today's lesson, Nicholas you will be taking a test to see how much you have learnt over the last week and Ms. Emilia you will be taking the same test so I can see what level you are at and how I should proceed. Raymond, we'll be basing today's lesson over our last lesson about benefits and costs..." He said as he handed one sheet of paper each to Emilia and Nicholas and then moved towards Raymond.

"Nicholas, Ms. Emilia, your time starts now. Let me know when you're done." He expected them to take the whole lesson doing the paper so he'll have time to focus his attention on Raymond. Just as he was about to explain opportunity costs and it's real life applications he had to pause.

"Professor Malcolm, I've completed the paper." Emilia said. She had barely taken 3 minutes and the question paper was pretty long so just reading it would have taken a minute or so.

Surprised, Malcolm walked over and took Emilia's paper "Let me see..." He said as he flipped through the answers she wrote, expecting many mistakes.

Emilia waited for him to go over her answers, she knew they were all right. It was just basic addition and subtraction, if she couldn't even do that then she'd jump of a cliff. However, a regular five year old would have only just started to learn it so she could understand why he was surprised.

"How...?" Malcolm said as he marked the paper. All the answers were correct. "Ahem, since you have completed this paper perfectly, I'll provide a harder one to better gauge your level." He said, clearing his throat. Now he had to acknowledge the fact that she was no ordinary child and that the Duke was indeed right about her intelligence being above those her age. However she was still only 5, she couldn't have learnt a lot in 5 years. He was right, she couldn't learn much in just 5 years. But she wasn't 5, she was almost 30, so she would go on to surprise him quite a bit.

He quickly wrote down some more questions on another sheet of paper and gave them to her. "Try this one." He said as he went back to teaching Raymond.

Again five minutes later "Professor Malcolm, I'm done with the paper." Emilia notified. This time it was not just addition and subtraction but also multiplication and division, once again, elementary.

Surprised again, Malcolm looked over her papers, marked them perfect and gave her a new, harder paper. This repeated for a while and meanwhile her brothers both had their own thoughts.

Nicholas was feeling embarrassed since he was still on his first paper while his sister was breezing through them but at the same time he felt a determination that he didn't previously have. He wanted to be as good as her, he didn't want to be left behind by his own twin and so he started working harder from that day. The fruits of his efforts, however, were not so great.

Raymond, on the other hand, was angry. He didn't like the fact that his study time was being taken away by his younger sibling. Especially since she seemed to be more capable than he was when he was her age. He was conflicted since he had originally wanted his siblings to be more capable so the load on his shoulders would lessen, but now that he found his younger sister to, seemingly, be much more capable than him he felt lost. He felt redundant. He studied so hard for so long but then she entered the picture and it seemed like she would take everything that he had.

He looked at her, anger in his eyes, but then he saw her writing. She was focused, her smooth brows furrowing, her purple hair falling from behind her ear and her small lips in a slight pucker. Her chubby hands grasped the pen tightly as she moved it carefully, to avoid spilling any ink. He could almost see the wheels turning in her tiny head. He hadn't really noticed before but she was a very pretty child, taking after the features of their mother. Only her eyes and brows matched their father's.

As he watched her, he realised that despite the chance that she could take everything away from him, he would never hurt her. After all, she was his sister. Even if they barely knew each other, she was still his blood. And hurting his family for such silly reasons was not something he would ever do.

By the time both brothers had reached their own conclusions, Emilia had finished about 9 papers, each more difficult than the last, until she was presented with algebra, calculus and discrete mathematics. After finishing her last paper and having it graded, she sat back and watched as her professor had a minor breakdown, completely oblivious to the thoughts of her brothers.

"H-How did you learn all this?" Malcolm stuttered out.

"The library." Emilia stated matter-of-factly.

"The library? You learned all this through books?" He questioned her.

"Yes." She lied. Of course not, but what else could she say?

"O-oh. Okay." He said as he tried to digest that information. If she learned all that from just books and at the age of 5! Then she was probably one of the biggest geniuses he had ever seen. Or heard of.

He cleared his throat to get rid of his stutter and then informed her "Since you will not be needing much work in mathematics, you will skip straight to the theory of economics with Raymond, next lesson onwards Ms. Emilia. For the remainder of this lesson please write down 5 of the hardest mathematical problems that you can think of and, on a separate sheet of paper, the answers to them. If you have time left after that please read this book." He handed her a book called 'Economic Behaviour', not underestimating her anymore.

Emilia set about her task, realising that the point of having her write those questions was so that he could gauge her actual level without wasting time having her answer question papers that he would have to write on the spot. She briefly debated writing the actual hardest questions that she could think of but quickly dismissed the idea since those questions would probably be past what she could find in library books. Instead she chose to write questions that she considered simpler but were still hard, in this world they would probably be at the level of college exams in a math-based major.

After she was done with the problems, she gave them to Professor Malcolm and then started reading the book that she was assigned. Once she started reading it, she found that it was basically a guide to economics and it's applications in real life. Having been trained to succeed a multi-billion dollar company in her previous life, economics was one of the things that she had to learn, and learn well. Her grandfather, though kind, was a very strict teacher so she considered herself pretty good at economics overall, probably not the best, but pretty good.

Putting that aside, she read the book anyway. Since it was her first assignment from this class. Also she figured that the poor professor had had enough surprises for one day. She would continue to convince him of her actual level from the next class. By the time she was about half-way through the book, the lesson ended and Professor Malcolm was retiring for the day.

All three of the Von Jaeger siblings stood on the right of their desks and sent him off. "Thank you, Professor." They said in unison. Malcolm acknowledged them with a nod and then exited the room and mansion, heading back home.

By now the sky was dark and their mother had probably already had dinner however the siblings hadn't eaten yet so they went down to the dining hall together and found their father at the head of the table, surprisingly not alone. Their mother was there as well. The reason that Emilia had almost never had a family dinner, in this life, was because of the varying schedules in the household. Her father and brothers were always done with work or studies much later than her or her mother usually stayed up. Since women in this world were mostly used to lazing about the house with no set duties, they usually slept very early, since boredom was also a factor. Especially for Emilia since she knew the value of the internet.

For the first time in a long while, the whole family would eat together. It seems their mother stayed up late waiting for them to get done with the class since this would be the first class for Emilia. Their father was done with his work so he had decided to join his wife and children for the last meal of the day.

"Have a seat." Alfonse gestured towards his three children. He was seated at the head of the table with his beautiful wife on his right. His eldest son, Raymond, sat on his left and his second son, Nicholas, sat besides Raymond. Emilia took her seat beside her mother and opposite Nicholas and soon the first course was served.

The atmosphere was pretty tense, a heavy breath lingering in the air as if someone was about to speak but couldn't find the words. Eventually the silence was broken by their mother.

"Emilia, how did your first day of lessons go?" She said, anticipating a positive response.

"It went well-" Emilia tried to finish but was interrupted by an excited Nicholas.

"-Mama, papa! Mia did so well in economics! She answered all the questions that Professor Malcolm wrote for her perfectly, not one wrong! He even said she doesn't need to learn math anymore..." Nicholas went on as his parents listened to the happenings of the day.

After listening to him, Alfonse and Laura looked towards Raymond, to confirm Nicholas' stories. Raymond nodded, indicating that everything the younger boy said was true.