Chapter 56: 56 - A Resounding Success

Professor Bella's transformation took everyone at IMARI by surprise, but they accepted it quickly enough and her popularity soared even more. The IMARI folk had always been very proud of Professor Bella's work anyway – their bragging simply changed from "Our Professor Bella is awesome! Have you heard of her latest research?" to "Our Professor Bella is awesome! Have you heard of her latest research? And she's as beautiful as she is clever! Isn't she just perfect?"

It didn't take Professor Bella much time to get used to it. Perhaps because it was the unconscious vibes given off by Crown Prince Jules and how protective he was of Professor Bella – or, perhaps, because Professor Bella, if not teaching in class, was almost always surrounded by Crown Prince Jules, Prince Raven, Princess Mana and Fox – that no one approached her with unwanted romantic declarations, despite admiring eyes all over the place.

Little did our protagonists know that almost everyone at IMARI was fully convinced that Crown Prince Jules and Professor Bella were dating!

Currently, Mana, Raven, Jules, Bella and Fox were locked into their exclusive laboratory, debating hotly over the communication device they were working on. Well, Jules, Raven, Bella and Fox were the participants in this debate – Mana was simply doodling on a sheet of paper. Coincidentally, what she was drawing was an early model of a mobile phone from her grandfather's generation. She'd even sketched the keyboard buttons.

Raven caught sight of her doodle. "Is that a design for us, Mana?" he asked eagerly, peering over her shoulder.

The other three hurried over right away.

Fox frowned. "Isn't this too small? Will it be able to retain all the functions we want it to?"

"What if we built a device first and then shrunk it to palm size?" Jules suggested.

Professor Bella's blue eyes glowed with excitement. "We can do that!" she said. "I already have a spell for it which I developed several years ago – I've only been using it to make small toys all this while. It can reduce the size up to one fifth of the original without any effect of functionality, and if we need to make any repairs, we can simply unravel the spell to bring the device back to its original size, and then shrink it again!"

Jules stared at her in a daze. "The more I see you, the more brilliant you get," he murmured absently. Then he realised that he had spoken out loud and he looked away, his face as red as a tomato!

Professor Bella flushed as well.

Mana grinned and winked at Raven.

Fox, the only oblivious person in the group, picked up Mana's doodle. "What are these button-like things?" he asked curiously, looking at the keyboard Mana had drawn.

"They look like…letters and numbers…?" Raven said.

"Yes, they are letters and numbers, so that we can simply type things – as in, press buttons to enter letters and form words – in the device instead of having to write by hand all the time and then copy it," Mana said. "It saves time and cost, doesn't it?"

"So...you want to include text transmission along with sound and images?" Professor Bella asked curiously.

Mana nodded. "We may not always want to – or be able to speak or send an image. Also, it's easier to read typed content than messy handwriting…" She shot an accusing glance at Fox.

Fox bristled angrily. "Excuse me for not being born with a calligraphy brush in my mouth like you royal kids!" he snapped.

To be honest, Mana sympathised with Fox. She dearly missed the convenience of modern fountain pens that she was used to! In fact, if it hadn't been for the muscle memory of this body, she would never be able to hold the calligraphy brushes of this world and write legibly, let alone in elegant calligraphic fonts like Raven or Big Brother or Professor Bella! But despite her sympathy, she had to admit that Fox's handwriting really was quite atrocious – she could hardly read what he wrote. And it was especially strange because the blueprints he drew were so well drawn and accurate that if Mana didn't already know that there were no computers or printers in this world, she'd have thought that a highly technical engineering software had been used to make Fox's blueprints.

"You're just lazy when you're writing words," Mana said, sticking out her tongue at Fox. "Otherwise, how can all your blueprints be so perfect and so precise if you couldn't control your writing equipment properly?" she teased.

Fox was caught between annoyance at being called lazy and pleasure at his blueprints being admired. He knew that Mana was partly right…it's just that he didn't really care about whether his handwriting was legible or not! And no one else had cared until now, either! Besides, his parents were the only ones until now who had bothered to look at what he'd written, what would have been the point of developing an elegant script like Jules or Raven?! But he had to admit, he felt a little inferior in the company of these four royals sometimes, especially when all their notes were put together.

Mana looked at Fox's complicated expression and felt slightly guilty. Perhaps she could introduce fountain pens in this world, Mana thought idly. It would certainly make life easier for them all. Instead of the monstrosity they called a 'pen' in this world, which was actually a calligraphy brush masquerading as a pen! She'd discuss it with Fox later.

"Quit it, Mana – you know geniuses have their own quirks, and everyone knows our Fox is a genius," Jules said, stepping in to calm people down, as always. The quintessential Big Brother, Mana thought fondly, looking at the handsome teenager, who had thrown an arm around Fox's shoulders to calm him down and was peering at her doodle.

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Fox instantly forgot his irritation! Mana was beginning to think that Jules was fast approaching Raven's idol status in Fox's blond head!

"It's a good idea, this 'type with letters'. But why are the letters arranged so weirdly?" Jules asked.

Mana had drawn a QWERTY keyboard. "Ah, this is makes it easy to type because the letters we use the most are at hand…but we don't need to follow this at all; we can put in the letters in their normal order, too!" she said hastily. She'd forgotten that in this magical world, they had no typewriters or computers, so it was rather strange for them to see a haphazard keyboard like this. They may be better off with the normal alphabetical order.

Raven looked at the QWERTY arrangement curiously. He thought for a moment with closed eyes, imagining usage of the keyboard. He looked at Mana in surprise. "If we use both our hands to…type…it really will be much faster than arranging it alphabetically," he said.

"But we won't be using both hands if the device is shrunk to palm size, would we?" Fox pointed out.

"Fox is right," Mana said. "Ignore this."

The others agreed but Raven tapped his chin thoughtfully. He didn't say anything, though, and the youngsters continued to work on the communication device.

Several weeks and several prototypes, later, the group actually managed to make a model pair of phones which worked without any issues. To test it out, Mana and Raven took one device and used their array to return to the imperial palace, while Jules, Bella and Fox remained at IMARI with the other one.

They tested text transmission, sound transmission and image transmission several times. Mana was delighted. Not only were they able to make voice calls, they were also able to send typed text messages and even make video calls!

Just as Mana and Raven decided that they'd checked enough and were about to return to IMARI, King Jaren appeared with Azar in his arms.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Azar cried happily.

King Jaren raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you two supposed to be at IMARI? Raven, did Mana drag you out of class? You don't have to pander to her for everything, you know?"

Mana pouted and glared at her Papa and Raven flushed.

"We were conducting an experiment, Papa," Raven said. "Would you like to see?"

King Jaren's emerald eyes glowed with interest. "Is this the secret project that even Ana is dying to know about?" he asked, grinning broadly.

Mana and Raven looked confused.

King Jaren laughed heartily. "Ana has been complaining that my kids and Fox have abducted her best researcher Bella and you all are working on some big secret project that no one other than the five of you know about," he informed them.

Mana giggled and even Raven couldn't help but smile.

"Let's show you a really cool thing," Mana said, nodding at Raven.

Raven held out the device and made a video call to Jules, Bella and Fox. A live image of the three of them, showing the background of IMARI's laboratory became visible.

"Raven? Why are you and Mana still at the imperial palace?" Jules asked.

King Jaren's eyes became as round as Azar's in shock!

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