Mana Stylus

Chapter 207 Mana Stylus

After revealing the rest of the boards, Lucia demonstrated how to pull a mana stylus from them and showed everyone how to use it. After explaining the motions, the children followed her instructions. They pinched their fingers together on the right side of their boards and tapped it. When their fingers made contact with the board, a stylus floated up and into their hands.

The children were amazed as they felt its weight. Murmurs of exclamation filled the room; "Did we just do magic?" and "That just came from thin air!" echoed throughout the space.

As their excitement about the stylus, which seemed to appear out of nowhere, grew, they began using it on the board in front of them, doodling just as one might with a stick, inspired by Lucia's earlier demonstration.

Lucia was surprised by how the children gripped the styluses, having not intended them to use it in that way. However, upon reflection, she realized that this was appropriate, given that they were children and might not necessarily know how to use the styluses correctly. She felt grateful for having the foresight to design them in a way that would withstand rough handling.

Even so, she did not let the knowledge of it being durable dissuade her from teaching everyone how to use the mana stylus in the right way. Scanning the room, Lucia saw several other kids using their styluses correctly and felt that there was still hope.

"Are you all enjoying using these styluses?" Lucia asked. After her question, she received many affirmative nods, shakes of their heads, and verbal confirmations. "I want you all to try holding the stylus between your thumb and your first two fingers. Can you do that? If you need help, please look to me or someone next to you." Afterward, Lucia approached the children who were not holding their styluses correctly and showed a different way to handle them.

After several minutes of trying to persuade everyone, the entire room was now using the method she demonstrated to hold their styluses, with assistance from the older kids. Lucia thanked them once again. Returning to the lectern, she faced the board and, using larger letters than those she wrote for her name, made sweeping strokes to write out the human alphabet.

Time flew by for the kids as Lucia engaged them in learning. She kept the atmosphere lively by mixing in magic and her crudely drawn doodles on the board. Whenever she noticed that their interest or focus was waning, she would either revive their attention with an impressive magic display—such as forming stuff out of water—or take a break from lecturing to allow them to express what they had learned by drawing on the board or doodling.