Chapter 15

The First Magic

Seeing Juan’s rare expression of shock, he burst into laughter. “You were startled, weren’t you?” 

Juan: “……” 

The boy lowered his gaze. “If anyone asks you the same question again in the future, you’ll have one more thing to remember.” 

With that, he sat down on the floor, pulled the old box closer, and used it as a table for the book. He patted the space beside him, inviting Juan to sit down. 

Without hesitation, Juan sat down next to the boy. The moment the boy opened the cover, Juan’s eyes widened slightly, and then— 

He was stunned by what he saw inside. 

A blank page. 

Yes, it was completely blank. Holding Pedro’s magic book, he checked the cover. It was indeed the same book, yet when he tried to flip through the pages— 

He couldn’t turn them? 

That’s right, he couldn’t. 

A voice came softly from beside him: 

“It’s unturnable. I can only flip this page as well.” 

“And… you can’t read the words on it either, can you?” 

Juan: “……” 

He looked at S11, who was resting his chin on his hand beside him, and hesitantly asked, “You see words on it?” 

S11 nodded. “Yeah, it’s all a mess of incomprehensible characters.” 

Juan: …So it seems this magic book is indeed only meant for the inheritor. If he wanted to see it, he would need S11 to read it to him. But clearly, S11 couldn’t read the characters either… 

After thinking for a moment, Juan pulled out a notebook and a pen from his teaching supplies and handed them to the boy. “Can you please write down the words for me?” 

The boy was taken aback. 

Hesitantly accepting the pen and notebook, he opened it, awkwardly holding the pen in his hand. 

Okay, he had actually never written anything before. 

How could a teaching style that didn’t care about outcomes demand students to learn how to write? 

However, Juan hadn’t realized this. In the short time he had been here, he had noticed that people here typed more than they wrote, and many couldn’t even write properly. 

He began to guide the boy on the correct way to hold a pen. “…Put the pad of your right finger here, and your index finger should be straight, not bent. Yes, your fingertip should nearly touch the tip of your thumb, but don’t let them touch… And don’t hold it too high. Grip it closer to the tip…” 

“Don’t lower your head too much; keep your back straight. This way, writing for long periods won’t lead to muscle soreness, and your posture will look nice…” 

As he spoke, he noticed that the boy’s grip still wasn’t perfect, so he gently wrapped his right hand around the boy’s right hand to let him feel the correct grip. 

He wasn’t in a hurry for results. Once he corrected the grip, he showed the boy a few simple strokes and common characters, narrating the origin stories of writing as he went along. 

“…There are many types of writing in this world. Each script is a crystallization of wisdom. The moment sentient beings first attempted to record their experiences, history was born…” 

Juan’s expression was serious, and his tone was average, yet the stories he told were captivating. 

He genuinely loved writing. 

During his travels, books had been his longest companions. He loved reading so much; how could he not love their medium—writing? 

He had even devoted time to learning various scripts from different countries. 

Being knowledgeable made him the best storyteller. Although he might not excel in ornate language, his wealth of knowledge allowed him to draw on many references, making the stories he shared about writing quite enjoyable. 

At least, that was how it seemed to S11. 

He loved listening to Juan’s stories. The latter clearly knew so much. Even though Juan never mentioned his own experiences, whenever he began to tell a tale, S11 could faintly glimpse another world through Juan’s descriptions. 

A world that was completely different from this one. 

It brought him a fleeting sense of joy. 

Thus, under Juan’s guidance, the boy attempted to write various strokes and characters he knew. 

It was quite miraculous. Before today, those characters that had always seemed like chaotic black worms twisting around on the page no longer looked annoying. Now, he even thought their movements were lively.

He began to distinguish them: the character twisting to the upper left was one word, while another character twisted parallel to the left. The strokes varied in thickness with each pen stroke, making the writing more beautiful and fluid. 

Under Juan’s guidance, he learned so quickly that he didn’t even realize he was beginning to write with “momentum.” He even started awkwardly imitating Juan’s writing style. 

All of this was because he was now writing with great enjoyment. 

Interest is always the best supervisor. With enthusiasm fueling him, he wrote with such seriousness that not a single detail was overlooked. He even meticulously drew every punctuation mark. Then, when he had written two-thirds of the page, the previously tranquil room began to change quietly. 

Green light points started to coalesce and flutter from the plants in the room. 

They flew from the tall flowering trees, from the short grass, and even from the neatly arranged “green onion vegetables” by the lake. 

The tiny light points flew around lonely in the air, but as they neared the boy, they began to collide with each other frequently. “You bump into me, I bump into you,” and the more they collided, the larger they became, eventually twisting into a mass. Finally, countless small green ribbons wrapped around the boy’s hand as he diligently wrote. At that moment, it was as if a divine force was assisting him! 

He was so engrossed in writing that he didn’t even notice the changes around him; he just felt his writing becoming smoother and that the pen in his hand was getting lighter. 

But when he finally put down the last punctuation mark, a sudden change occurred— 

He could no longer ignore it. The words he had written on the cardboard box suddenly flew into the air! They danced in the air for a brief moment before diving into the paper below. The boy then saw a thin layer of green rushing up from the paper, and before long, they revealed their true form—a thin layer of grass! 

First, they were seedlings, then they grew robustly, rapidly gaining height, even flowering and bearing fruit. Before long, they stood proudly before the boy, adorned with flowers and fruits. 

“This, this, this—” His mouth gaped open, and with the pen in hand, he pointed at the plants covering the box, almost at a loss for words. 

“This is magic.” Juan quietly admired the incredible scene for a moment, then turned to the boy, a rare smile on his face. “Were you surprised?” 

Faced with that innocent smile tinged with a hint of pride, the boy was momentarily taken aback before he smiled back.