Spiritual Techniques

Spiritual Techniques are as they sound. Techniques that utilize Spiritual Energy to create a desired effect. A Spiritual Technique refers to three different things potentially. 1: Innate Spiritual Techniques, which is the innate technique every living, sentient being possesses from birth. 2: Fundamental Spiritual Techniques, such as Hardening or Softening. Lastly, 3: Unique Spiritual Techniques.

Up to this point, I have only written about Fundamental and Innate Spiritual Techniques. Fundamental Techniques encompass almost any basic ability that everyone learns or can learn with ease. The whole point of Fundamental Spiritual Techniques is not solely for focus on them. They are called Fundamentals as they serve one purpose: to teach the fundamentals of Spiritual Manipulation.

In reality, the true 'Spiritual Techniques' are the Innate ones and Unique ones.

Upon a certain 'realization' point, Spiritual Energy manipulators will realize that the normal Techniques (Fundamental Techniques) are merely stepping stones. Their whole point is to lead an individual in creating their own Unique Spiritual Technique.

A Unique Spiritual Technique is exactly as it sounds. A Spiritual Technique completely unique to the user. It can be 'copied' or 'replicated' if witnessed, but it will most of the time never compare to the original user. One can never go far in Spiritual Manipulation if they merely copy other's abilities or rely on the Fundamental techniques. A Unique Spiritual Technique can be described as anything aside from the fundamental techniques. They often employ a mixture of different categories of Spiritual Techniques.

The rest of this page will focus almost entirely on Unique Spiritual Techniques instead of Fundamental or Innate techniques, as other pages already describe these.

## Conception

Often, the conception of a Unique Spiritual Technique is driven by two things: Gut feeling, and pre-existing abilities. An avid user of an Innate Spiritual Technique may design a Unique Spiritual Technique that compounds with their Innate technique to enhance it. A Unique Technique is developed by the user based on what their main focus is, and other abilities they already possess. For example, if a person possessed an Innate Spiritual Technique that allows them to conjure rain in a certain area, they may develop a Unique Spiritual Technique that allows them to apply the rain offensively, such as walking across it, or giving it crushing weight.

But, sometimes, someone who has not discovered their Innate Spiritual Technique will be forced to come up with a Unique technique off of gut feeling alone. Often, one will feel drawn to one ability that is cemented in their mind. If they are constantly thinking of an ability they wish they had, this is their gut telling them it is the optimal power for them. Even if one is limited in creativity, they will often find a power that matches.

## Categories

Just like the 'Fundamental' Techniques like Hardening, Softening, and the many other techniques someone may learn or hear about, Unique Techniques fit under certain categories.

These categories are purely picked by the effect and/or most prioritized form of Spiritual Manipulation in the technique / ability.

### Enhancement

If an ability primarily relies on enhancing something, or anything related to enhancing said thing's quality, it is considered primarily an Enhancement ability / technique.

Examples of this include, but are not limited to; a Unique Ability that, for example, enables the user to become stronger, move faster, or punch harder. This would fall under the Enhancement category, as these kinds of effects are mainly caused by Enhancement Techniques.

### Conjuration

If a Unique Spiritual Ability / Technique causes something to manifest out of thin air, or is related to manifesting something from nothing, it is considered a Conjuration ability.

Examples of this include but are not limited to; a Unique ability that allows the user to use spiritual energy to conjure a sword from their palm. Due to the fact this involves 1: seemingly creating something from nothing, and 2: forming of an object, it would be Conjuration.

### Transmutation / Transfiguration

Technically meaning the same thing, although slightly different, these are sort of the same category, but there is a general consensus between users. Transmutation = Changing the form, and/or properties of oneself, or their own spiritual energy / aura. Transfiguration = Changing the form, and/or properties of another individual or object separate from the user through spiritual energy.

An example of transmutation may be changing the properties of one's own aura to make it bouncy, while an example of transfiguration could be changing the shape of a weapon in one's hands. These both include the key aspect of both terms: Changing a pre-existing object into something else, or changing it's properties. Anything that involves this act falls under this category.

### Emission

If a unique ability entails separating your aura from yourself and infusing it into another object, or launching it out in the form of projectiles, or even anything that involves your spiritual energy being separated from yourself, it is classified as an Emission ability. Emission, like just stated, is when your spiritual energy is released from your body entirely, or almost entirely, and it travels away. Emission can also encompass the act of expanding your aura, technically, as you are expanding your spiritual energy away from your main body.

The unfortunate fact about Emission is that there are usually only two uses for it alone: creating simple, destructive shapes of spiritual energy, or covering an area in your spiritual energy. This is why Emission is most frequently compounded with other categories, such as transmutation. Emission alone is practically useless unless you prioritize in ranged attacking, so compounding it with other categories is usually the chosen method. Despite this, anything that involves seperating one's spiritual energy from themselves PRIMARILY is technically considered Emission, even if Conjuration, Transmutation, or even Enhancement is used on the emitted part of Spiritual Energy.

An example of Emission compounded with another category would be Transmutation. Perhaps a user transmutes their aura into bubbles, and grants certain properties to them, then throws them out. This is considered Emission and Transmutation at the same time, technically, but it's main feature is emitting the bubbles outwards, so it is mainly Emission.

### Manipulation

Manipulation is the last of the Unique Ability categories officially recognized by most users. It entails the fine tuned manipulation of one's own spiritual energy, or a created / pre-existing object. This is one of the hardest to learn, because the fine tuned movement of spiritual energy is a hard thing to master. Despite this, anything that entails manipulating another thing, or your own spiritual energy / aura, is Manipulation.

A simple example would be making your sword fly through spiritual energy. This is Manipulation, as you are manipulating and moving the object through Spiritual Energy.

## Unique & Simple Abilities

Unique abilities that are concrete in their uses are usually useless. Think about it. If your whole Unique Ability is being able to summon a pair of wings on your back, there is not much you can do from that unless you massively expand on the abilities of it by creating sub-techniques to compound onto it, such as firing out feathers, or something of the like.

The truly strong Unique Abilities are ones that grant the user a massive catalog of possibilities. For example, if one had a Unique Ability / Technique that transmutes their aura into fire, they have many possibilities and techniques that can derive off of it.

The uniqueness of a Unique Ability is... well, the most crucial part of it. If you use a Unique Technique / Ability that can be easily replicated, or it has very limited uses, it is considered rather weak. If your Unique Ability entails a limited number of possibilities / uses, you will almost always be defeated by someone with a simple technique with tons of possibilities.

This is why when picking a Unique Ability / Technique, a user must try out tons of possibilities before they settle on a concrete idea, as a Unique Ability with limited uses is a weak one.