How does one finish reading four incredibly dense, highly technical volumes in an impossibly short timeframe?
For anyone else, the only option would be to plow through them one by one, rotating back and forth until their head spun. But the one facing this predicament was Flandre—and as everyone knew, she possessed a signature Spell Card: Forbidden Four of a Kind.
Its mechanism was disarmingly straightforward: it split her form into four distinct incarnations, each endowed with full, independent operational agency without interfering with the others. Or rather, it was a fundamental division of her existence into four perfectly equal selves.
And so, fresh out of the bathroom after washing her face, four identical Flandres marched out in a row, each marching up to the table to claim a volume of her own.
Beatrice tumbled out of her bedroom rubbing her eyes and letting out a long yawn, only to freeze dead in her tracks. Sitting side by side at the dining table were four tiny Flandres, every single one wearing an identical, dead-serious expression as they buried their noses in their respective books.
"What in the world are you doing?" Beatrice asked, utterly bewildered.
Nearby, Hong Meiling offered a lazy stretch. "Ms. Patchouli saw Flandre running around playing games every single day and worried she was losing her academic edge, so she assigned her some heavy reading."
Understanding dawned on Beatrice's face, though a second thought quickly struck her. "Will Flandre get lonely staying cooped up here all the time? Should we look into enrolling her in a local academy?"
The moment those words left her mouth, Meiling gave her a look that plainly said, Are you out of your mind?
Meiling pointed a finger toward the table. "Take a look at what Flandre is actually reading. Aside from Ms. Patchouli, how many people in this entire city could even teach her?"
Beatrice leaned over and peered at the intimidating title resting in front of the first Flandre—Complete Compendium of Banshee Incantation Mechanics—and instantly realized the absurdity of her suggestion. Flandre's theoretical foundation was already high enough to lecture senior university professors. If you threw her into a standard classroom, what could she possibly learn?
More importantly, what kind of instructor would even dare stand at the podium in front of her?
As for attending school just to make friends...
One couldn't be fooled by Flandre's adorable, childlike appearance; her actual cognition and lived experience far outpaced any child her age. Peers who physically looked like her would never be able to keep up with her thought process. It wasn't a matter of arrogance, but rather an insurmountable gap in intellectual processing and fundamental perception.
When the cognitive divide between two individuals was wide enough, genuine, equal play became impossible. This didn't just apply to Flandre and ordinary children—it held true for many adults as well.
Most of the time, when Flandre interacted with normal people, she was consciously accommodating their pace. If she possessed the prickly, unforgiving temperament of a certain plaster-headed professor who couldn't stand fools, given Terra's current average academic standard, she would probably have to wear a mask just to shield herself from the sheer frustration.
Take the very texts sitting on the table right now. If you dropped them into Lungmen's top educational institutions, the faculty would likely have to beg Flandre to teach the course, considering practically no one else could make heads or tails of the formulas. Flandre could comprehend them only because she had previously studied the underlying mechanics under Fremont's guidance. Had these books been thrown at her when she first arrived on Terra, she would have been just as lost as anyone else.
Consequently, standard public educational institutions were completely useless to her.
Beatrice watched the four Flandres sitting in a row, then turned back to Meiling with a look of genuine concern. "Reading four complex books simultaneously... won't her mind get completely scrambled?"
In Beatrice's eyes, no matter how many forms Flandre split into, she was still fundamentally a single entity. Even under Great Yan's notorious cramming-style education, shoving the contents of four advanced theoretical manuals into a single brain at once would make anyone dizzy—especially when all four subjects were intricately interconnected. It would be entirely too easy to mix up the concepts.
"Hmm... is it possible that Flandre is simply a genius?" Meiling stroked her chin, pondered the thought for a few seconds, and offered her earnest assessment.
Beatrice blinked, thought back to the legendary tactical lectures Flandre had delivered over at the Lungmen Guard Department, and suddenly realized Meiling had a point.
"Uh... I suppose I can't really argue with that," Beatrice muttered, scratching her head before glancing at the wall clock. "Well, I need to head off to work. If you two need anything, just tell the estate maids; they'll take care of whatever you need."
Meiling nodded comfortably. "Don't worry, house-guarding is my specialty. As for Flandre, I imagine she'll be on her absolute best behavior for the next few days and won't be running out to cause trouble."
Reassured, Beatrice gathered her things and headed out the door.
By evening, when Beatrice returned home from the Guard Department, she walked into the living room to find two Flandres still sitting at the dining table engrossed in their books, while the other two were seated in front of the TV, furiously mashing buttons on arcade sticks.
As for their great Sleeping God, Hong Meiling, she was sprawled peacefully across the sofa in an exact carbon copy of the position she had occupied when Beatrice left that morning.
Beatrice walked over and stared down at the slumped gatekeeper in sheer shock. "Have you been sleeping here the entire day?!"
"Of course not!" Meiling mumbled, fluttering her eyes open defensiveness. "I played games with Flandre for a while in the afternoon and got tired, so I just came over here to rest my eyes for a minute..." She pointed lazily toward the two Flandres at the console.
Beatrice walked over to inspect the screen, only to find the two Flandres engaged in a brutal, high-stakes match of The King of Fighters '97. Both had selected the exact same team roster and were locked in a fierce, pixel-perfect duel.
"Uh... Flandre," Beatrice began, scratching her temple. "Weren't you supposed to be studying hard?"
"I am studying hard!" one of the playing Flandres stated without taking her eyes off the screen, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at the two clones still reading at the table.
"Then what is this?" Beatrice gestured toward the arcade sticks, completely unable to process the logic.
"It's an advanced technique I learned from a simulation game called Great Yan-Style Parenting!" the playing Flandre declared triumphantly. "Studying increases stress, while playing games reduces stress. By studying and playing simultaneously, my net stress level stays at absolute zero! That way, studying becomes twice as effective with half the effort!"
"Uh..." Beatrice opened her mouth, felt a tidal wave of potential retorts rise in her chest, and found herself utterly choked for words.
"Are you... actually sure game logic applies to real life?" Beatrice asked after a long pause.
"It definitely works!" Flandre answered with absolute seriousness, executing a flawless multi-hit combo on her double. "Look at me—I feel super relaxed right now, and the studying over there hasn't fallen behind even a little bit!"
Although Beatrice felt deep down that something about this logic was fundamentally broken, she couldn't clone herself, so she had no way to scientifically verify whether Flandre's claim held water. Seeing how completely deadpan and confident the little girl looked, she could only temporarily accept the explanation.
"I had no idea cloning Arts could be utilized like this," Beatrice mused aloud, resting her chin in her hand. "Speaking of which, couldn't this be turned into an academic paper? Hmm... maybe titled On the Application of Self-Replication Techniques in Psychological Stress Management?"
"Probably not," Flandre replied, shaking her head. "Because my Four of a Kind isn't like ordinary cloning Arts. The four of us can actually be considered completely separate individuals..."
She proceeded to explain the fundamental distinction between her Spell Card and standard replication Arts on Terra.
Ordinary clones were puppet constructs tethered entirely to the primary host's conscious focus, meaning the original caster remained aware of every single action in real time. But each iteration created through Four of a Kind possessed its own independent consciousness and subjective awareness. Until Flandre actively dispelled the spell and folded the clones back into her core, the main body had no idea what her duplicates had experienced or learned.
As for why the ability was designed this way in the first place, the core reason was shockingly simple:
It made playing multiplayer games with yourself actually fun. After all, if you could read your opponent's every thought in real time, where was the joy in winning?