The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

Mana and Raven stayed in the library for a long time, looking through many, many books and feeling not the least bit bored by this work!

"Mana! I found something!" Raven cried excitedly, all of a sudden, jumping up from his seat and rushing to Mana with a huge book that was almost one third of Raven's size and probably half his weight as well.

Mana quickly swept away the books on the table in front of her with a quick movement, making space for Raven to put down the huge, heavy book. Raven set it down immediately, and turned to face Mana, his face glowing with joy and excitement.

"What did you find?" Mana asked curiously.

Raven pointed at a paragraph on the open page of the big book with a slim, fair finger. "Look here," he said. "It says that we can extract the spirit possessing a loving body with the help of a magical device. The device will use a mix of five magical elements – earth, fire, wind, water and dark magic – and it will extract the foreign soul and imprison it in a capsule, without causing any damage to the original soul. We can set the parameters to identify the original soul based on the compatibility and tenure and other characteristics that bind the body and the spirit together, so even the blood relationship between Queen Dora and the former Queen Sora would not be a hindrance, and neither will the affection that both of them have for Papa would be the only factor. We will also be able to introduce other parameters that we think fit into the master spell that will run this magical device."

Mana's eyes glowed excitedly as well. "That sounds good," she murmured, peering at the book.

Raven grinned at her. "That's not all," he said happily, turning the page and pointing his finger at another paragraph. "Do you see this part? Look, it says here that if we have the body of the person whose spirit is possessing the other person, and that body is still alive and kept in a state of suspension – it becomes even easier to extract the spirit and send it back to its original body if we construct this extra bit on the magical device!"

"This is perfect! Aunt Sora's body is safely kept back in the imperial palace of the Emerald Kingdom, and it's just in a coma, and Imperial Physician Kale said that there is no problem with it. He will keep her alive and well anyway, so once we have this device, we can easily send her spirit back to her own body and release Ma from her clutches!" Mana said, her eyes glowing like Azar's when he saw a new delicacy. "The Sapphire Kingdom truly deserves its reputation as the best in terms of magical devices!"

Raven nodded, his rainbow eyes filled with anticipation as well. "This is probably what Big Sister Bella was thinking about when she told us to come and research here in the library!" he said.

Mana nodded. "I'm surprised that she didn't remember this device herself, though," she murmured. "Other than you, I don't think that there is any one in this entire world that is cleverer than Big Sister Bella."

Raven flushed. "You think too highly of me," he said shyly.

Mana huffed. "It's nothing more than the truth. You know that you are the cleverest person in this world – that is a fact and has nothing to do with my bias towards you. Besides, you are my fiancé and the dearest person to me in this world – why should I not be biased in your favour? Who am I supposed to favour if not you? That idiot Mars? That scoundrel Liam?" she asked him peevishly, her annoyance dripping from her voice.

Raven shook his head immediately and the expression on his face darkened at the mention of Crown Prince Mars of the Amber Kingdom and his brother Prince Liam of the Amber Kingdom.

"Don't take their names," Raven said quietly. "My blood boils when I hear their names coming from your mouth. It makes me want to tear them into pieces."

Mana was stunned for a moment, and then she burst out laughing. "Good," she said. "Because I feel like I should wash my own mouth out with soap with I mention their names, too. I'd rather speak profane words than mention them!"

She didn't mention how happy she was that Raven was expressing his displeasure and disgust openly now, at least to her. This was certainly an improvement, and once she would definitely want to encourage.

Raven looked quite satisfied by her answer, and Mana flashed him a mischievous smile and asked with a wink, "So, would you rather that I take your name all the time instead, my dear Raven?"

Raven flushed a deep red, but to Mana's surprise he nodded and said honestly, "Yes, I would."

Mana was surprised and happy at this response. She reached out and laced her fingers with Raven's, and told him, "All right, then. That shouldn't be too difficult for me. Most of the time I talk about anything to anyone, I end up talking about you anyway."

Raven blinked. "Really?" he asked. "Why?"

Mana chuckled. "Because you are always on my mind, my silly Raven," she said. "Aren't you a lucky one, holding my attention like this?"

Raven smiled shyly. "I am definitely very lucky to have met you," he said.

"Likewise," Mana replied. She turned to glance at the book. "So, how do we build this magical device…?"

Raven turned his attention back to the book as well. "We will probably have to ask Big Brother Jules, Big Sister Bella and Fox for help with this," he said. "Definitely Fox – we won't be able to construct this without his help."

Mana nodded. "Should we speak to them first, or should we take notes and try and make a blueprint ourselves first, and then speak to them?" she asked.

"Let's take notes first," Raven said. "I'll also copy these pages quickly, so we won't have to keep running back to the library all the time, and it will be easier for us work if all of us had copies of these pages."

Mana nodded in agreement. She was glad that they had been able to come up with a sort of magical photocopying and scanning device – again, thanks to the genius of Fox and the brilliance of Raven – and, of course, Big Brother Jules and Big Sister Bella as well. It was amazing how quickly they got things done once Mana explained any ideas from the modern world and the basic working of those as she understood from a lay person's perspective – after all, she had been a corporate lawyer and not a technical engineer or researcher or anything in the previous world, so she could describe the devices and their uses and the basic ideas behind them, but not the technical details. However, thanks to the prodigious company she kept – those ideas and basic details were enough for this bunch of youngsters to come up with wonderful new inventions and magical devices! Not to mention, they were usually scalable as well as marketable, and they raked in pots and pots of money on a regular basis. The five of them had become independently wealthy by now.

Of course, not wealthy enough to build a grand library that would contain a copy of every single book that was ever published in this world that Raven wanted to gift to Mana on her fifteenth birthday – but definitely wealthy enough to be influential even without their royal titles.

Thus, for the next few hours, Mana and Raven worked diligently, taking copious notes and working on a detailed blueprint of the magical device that they needed to build for saving Queen Dora from her sister's evil spirit. Raven also made several copies of the relevant pages from the book and put them away.

The two children didn't even bother to go out for lunch – in fact, the two of them would have completely forgotten about having lunch if Bella hadn't thoughtfully sent a basket of sandwiches and juice for the two of them with a servant. Since the food was delivered to the library itself, Mana and Raven took a quick break, ate their sandwiches at the desk itself. It was a proper working lunch, Mana thought idly, remembering her life as a corporate lawyer in her previous life, when she was more often than not zipping in and out of board rooms and taking a working lunch as she discussed complicated legal clauses and compliances, and negotiated with clients and counterparties…

Mana shook her head. Even if she missed her beautiful family in the previous world – the fact was that they were all dead, and she had found her family and her dear ones in this world, and she was much happier in this world than she had been in the previous one.. This was her home now.