Magic


 * -|Introduction=

Magic was once the supernatural arts of Yokai, the manifestation of the very essence that composed their physical bodies. In the past, it was something that was a mystery to humans, and all they could do was use seals and charms to fight against Yokai, (who were weak to these items due to their magical composition). That was however, until Freya Fernava; the Hakutaku hero of humanity who gifted the species several Grimoires that revealed the secret art of Magic to them. These books have since been lost to time, but they are credited with being the source of today's magical knowledge.

Gensekai was created with a burst of pure magical power, the power that erected the metaphysical Gensekai Border. This release of power caused many of the Sages to disappear and become one with the Border. This had the long-term effect of making Mana, the energy that makes up magic become intertwined with the very atmosphere within Gensekai, allowing for anyone who enters to become acclimated to Magic.

A big aspect of magic is intent, if you truly wish to bring harm to someone, your magic will reflect that. However, be prepared to handle the consequences.

Due to everyone within Gensekai gaining a magical acclimation, this also has the effect of giving everyone an innate resistance to all forms of damage, everyone has differing levels of durability which is separate from the amount of mana they may be able to utilize. Meaning some people may have a large pool of mana but low durability, and vice-versa.

Due to this durability, being struck by an attack will bring pain but won't immediately cause severe damage. For example, a sword would strike and hit you, and you would receive a cut but it won't be as severe or bleed if you have a proper amount of stamina. Stamina is drained by taking attacks or exerting yourself, and being attacked at low stamina will result in taking the proper amount of damage, and can be lethal if left untreated. Having a higher durability means you will not lose as much stamina when struck.

After battles, resting will heal minor injuries to their fullest but more damaging injuries must be tended to medically.

More mana also grants a resistance to mentally-based attacks.

Things such as magical crystals can be used and absorbed by users to quickly replenish their mana.
 * -|Basic Techniques=

There are a multitude of techniques that is attributed to the basic usages of magic.

Aura
Mana is constantly flowing through the body, being sourced from outside and slowly absorbed from the body, and released by the user when desired, the feeling is described as opening an inner gate. The differing amounts of mana a person can have is caused by the fact different people can hold different amounts of mana inside of their body for use. The rate of mana natural mana absorption is slow overall though, which is why rest after using magic is so important.

However, mana from within is constantly radiating it's energy, resulting in all people having an aura, which is what it sounds like, the radiation of someone's mana. Auras by themselves are invisible, except when a moderate amount of magic is being actively used, though someone can make theirs visible and invisible at will with practice.

With training, magic users can sense the auras of other magic users. This can be used to get a feel for the magical strength of an opponent, their mental state (as negative emotions can make an aura feel negative), or detecting magical things without needing to see them. However, an experienced user of magic can manipulate how much aura they radiate; making them unable to be sensed if they turn it down enough.

Grave wounds can result in the manipulation of mana, and therefore aura, being affected and can even stop it altogether. Resulting in the leakage of magic as someone dies. Mana can also be bestowed by someone into another person, which is the basis healing magic follows.

Aura Control
The following is the major tenants of controlling Aura, which act as the very basics of magic one should learn if wish to develop in the World of Gensekai. Many of these can come naturally.

Flight
The most important for general everyday life, and the easiest to learn. Flight is regarded as a step above running; and is done by having someone's inner aura become light. This lightness will result in the body being carried up above the ground. Casual flying is minimally impactful on someone's mana reserves but flying with enough speed to exert the body, or flying with injuries will impact reserves and runs the risk of causing a blackout that lead to a crash landing.

Shroud
As previously mentioned, a magical user can control how their aura flows finely. This can be used to reinforce parts of their body or weapons with their magic to achieve differing effects based on the individual, though it's mostly used to boost defensive or offensive power. However, gathering more of one's own aura in certain part of the body will result in other parts having less aura/mana, which means they will have less of the natural protection mana grants. This technique is called 'Shroud'

An advanced application of Shroud is known as 'Envelop', which uses surrounds aura around the senses of the user, (Eyes, ears, nose, etc.) to boost their effectiveness.

Suppress
'Suppress' is the name given to the previously mentioned technique of turning off one's Aura. Like turning the valve on a water line off, it makes the flow of mana impossible to sense to other people, and makes the user of this technique more sensitive to the aura of others. Of course, if a Suppressed user is particularly powerful, other people may be able to sense their aura disappearing. People with particularly perceptive senses can still detect Suppressed users as well.

Suppression can be used to relieve fatigue, but it has the effect of leaving someone vulnerable to attacks as the natural protection aura gives has been turned off. This also lowers the resistance to mental attacks.

An advanced version of Suppression exists, known as 'Concealing' which can make magic effectively invisible. The aptitude for this skill is extremely rare.

Diffuse
The opposite of Suppress, 'Diffuse' is when someone visibly projects their aura outwards. This can be used for intimidation, to display one's strength, and to boost the physical capabilities of the user. How it manifests depends on the individual; to a cool blue mist that makes the area cold, a fiery eruption of flames, and a shock of lingering static electricity in the air. This is incredibly intensive on stamina, and overuse can lead to severe exhaustion resulting in coma or even death.

However, it is possible for the size of someone's mana pool to grow if they used diffusion to the point of severe strain, and recover from it. For obvious reasons this method is ill advised.

Disperse
A sister of the Diffuse technique, Disperse creates a circular radius around the user using their aura that does not manifest physically nor affect the area it encapsulates but rather allows the user to sense the shape of anything within the projected radius, even magic that has been concealed. However the user will need to have finesse and skill to be able to discern and react to fine movements.

Skilled users can also manipulate the size and shape of this radius, but using this skill for prolonged amounts of time or over large areas is draining.
 * -|Applications of Magic=

The following is the various forms of Magical expression, and includes much of the stuff you'll be more familiar with.

Emitting
This is a large umbrella that defines the usage of magic to attack with elements and all related concepts such as sound magic or reflective magic. Emitting is the act of ejecting one's own mana from their body and applying a specific form to it. Launching a fireball from your hands is an act of emission, releasing a sound from your body that induces dizziness is a form of emission. How this manifests is entirely dependent on the person and how they use their magic. This makes up the grand majority of magical attacks and applications.

People tend to have an array of things that naturally come easier for them to emission, which can be evaluated with some experimenting. Some forms of emission can only be used by certain people due to an invisible gene in their mana that allows for it to be manipulated in some way, which is expanded on in the following section...

Conjuring
A sister to Emitting. Conjuring is when mana is used specifically to create physical constructs composed entirely of a users magic, meaning if the user runs out of mana then the conjured object(s) will disappear. The strength and resilience of a conjured item is dependent on the user, and they can exist a distance away from the user. Sometimes, conjuring something requires the use of conditions to be met, which can be set by the user. Magic with conditions have a trend of being much stronger.

Martial Arts & Faith
These two are outliers compared to other applications.

Martial Arts is mostly based in the practice of using one's own physical body. However, the special techniques and mentality that a martial arts imposes on it's practitioners has the effect of changing the attributes of one's inner mana even if they aren't explicitly used, and this change of attributes grants the user special abilities that may be associated with the art once they've practiced it enough. For example, if you practice a martial art that has the mentality of employing specific grabs to hold onto opponents from a distance, you will eventually be able to actually grab an opponent from a distance.

Faith in a divine being can grant the user certain attributes and abilities as long as their faith is maintained. These abilities are still subject to the user's own mana reserves unless otherwise stated.

Bloodline Arts
Bloodline arts are different from other Applications, this is an umbrella that defines magical spells, abilities, or otherwise that tend to be completely unique to an individual. All other forms of magic can imitate a bloodline art, and bloodline arts can imitate other forms of magic, but if the specific manifestation of something is unique to an individual, passed down by said individual, or passed down by heritage, it is a bloodline art. They tend to be extremely specific abilities, and are regarded as mutations in someone's mana.

Bloodline Arts also applies to any specific abilities or attributes a species may have as a whole.

Incredibly rare.

Potions, Alchemy, Blessings, and Hexes
These three forms of magical application are grouped together given their minor role in the grand scheme of things.

Potions are concoctions made with someone's mana, which is fused with a base liquid and other ingredients to achieve differing effects, which can have an almost infinite array of applications. They are however, usually limited in the sense that they apply effects to an individual who drinks them (or whatever they're splashed on), and not to anything outside of that range.

Alchemy is related to potions, but is denoted by it's propensity of affecting the world around it. Alchemy is rather nebulous is definition but it is associated with the usage of various applications of magic to alter the natural characteristics of things and make them irregular, usually permanently as opposed to potions. It's the main form of magical science.

Hexes are most associated with Witches, but these are spoken incantations that can be used to place various buffing or debuffing effects on people who hear them. They can also be written on paper and stamped onto someone to achieve the same effect.

Blessings (Or Curses) are mostly associated with divine beings, locations, or certain objects. They have the same basis of applying various effects to people, but the range of which they can effect the environment and very structure of the world is much more vast and almighty compared to Hexes. These also tend to act much more subtly.

Runes
Runes are special in the sense that they do not need someone's inner mana to be created. Runes are drawn symbols that can use the mana in the environment to achieve the effects desired. They are inactive when first drawn, and can be made to activate when the artist wills it, automatically, or when certain conditions are met. They can conceal themselves once they are completed until activation as well. More powerful runes require complex arranges of shapes, symbols, and languages within a circle; misdrawing can result in a failure to activate or malfunctions. They can be pre-drawn on large paper and shrunk down for use as well to prevent the conundrum of having to make them in the middle of a situation.

Summoning and Animating
This application uses someone's mana to either summon a beast or create one using the environment in regards to animation. There are two ways to achieve summoning, first of which is manipulating someone's own mana to create an entity. This is incredibly intensive on someone's reserves and the beast will disappear when the summoner runs out of juice.

Another option is finding or forging a contract (Note: It does not have to be a physical contract) that allows for the user to summon an entity from said contract, these can also be called familiars. If the summoned beast is subservient to the summoner depends on the terms of the contract and the amount of power the summoner can exert. Maintaining a summon is a constant drain of stamina, and attacks the summon uses does take from the reserves of the summoner, however the reserves of the summoned entity is prioritized. Summoning with a contract tends to invoke a consequence.

This is also how Mikos invoke the power of their goddesses. It is important to note that summons can also be integrated into the body of a summoner, resulting in a transformation that grants the user attributes of what they are attempting to summon.

Animating follows the same rules as summons created from the mana of a summoner; but instead of acting as a consistent drain; they require an initial burst of magic to be animated and can work on their own after. However, once their physical body is damaged beyond use the magic used to animate them will disperse. They are subject to the strength and traits of whatever is used to make their body.

Magical Weapons, Armors, and Tools
The umbrella that encapsulates the aforementioned objects, how these things interact with personal magic varies depending on the specific object in question. However, there are a few trends. If the magical ability(ies) tied to a conduit is sourced from someone's personal mana, it will follow the same rules of using up mana. However, if the conduit has it's own separate source of power then that will be used.