Magic (AST)

**Magic** is a supernatural force that is incredibly difficult and draining to utilize. Very few can even tinker around with the basics of magic. Even fewer can use the craft effectively, and of those, only a small fraction, are qualified to wield it at full strength.

## Overview

Similar to how martial artist learn how to manipulate their chi magic works on something similar yet different, Mana. Mana and Chi are kinda like electricity and magnetism, intimately related, but different. Normally, most humans only produce Chi and their body runs exclusively on Chi, but through various means we've found that another form of this energy, Mana, exists in the world.

Now, for a rare few humans, they can produce minimal amounts of Mana as well, but it is a total byproduct to the system normally. What a magus has learned to do is manipulate this Mana and put it to use.

What makes this even more interesting is that Mana is very programmable stuff. Chi is more free flowing, while Mana kinda keeps its shape if you will. So, you can make complex patterns with Mana that would be near impossible with Chi. Add to this that there is a lot of free Mana in the world that you can also access and a good magus can wield a lot of power. For Chi users, using external energy is rare. For us Mana users, it's practically expected.

That isn’t to say that Mana is better than Chi as the two each have their respective advantages. Chi for instance is much more suited to healing the body since the body naturally runs on Chi. That said, some species are said to run on Mana rather than Chi. Those are obviously magical creatures so you don't see them much. You also have some that produce large amount of both energies.

Magus can’t really be categorized as that minority of humans that produce Mana. The mind set is the most important part of being a good magus, although anyone with enough training can do at least some magics. However, having that mana production does usually go along with having that mind set. It's kinda like one tends to cause the other.

It is possible to perform magic with out mana. Usually through the use of some kind of magical artifact that acts as a mana storage vessel. Actually, most magus will make use of such tools eventually as they inevitably out grow their available mana production. You use up all your mana though and your body tries to fill the void by converting your chi. Problem is you don't have much of it to start with and that can get very dangerous. It's doubly dangerous as when you're that low on energy, typically the barriers between the two also decay as you haven't got enough energy to maintain them. Mana and chi don't get along too well usually and, just like bringing a strong magnet up to some electronics, you can get some glitches.

Usually this is the result of people trying to focus external mana sources directly through their bodies, causing them to actually prematurely age, or even kill themselves. That's why artifacts are usually a good idea anyway, as it keeps that mana physically separate and that way you don't have to worry about interference between the two.

## Classifications

### Necromancy

Necromancy is a school of magic dealing specifically with Death and the Dead. It is limited by the fact that magic cannot control spirits. Mages can only trick them now and then. This magic can create a perfect copy of the body, but it will have a new spirit, not the original.

You can make a perfect duplicate, but it won't be quite the same. It is kind of weird that way. If, say, you wanted to bring back a famous scientist because you wanted to discuss one of his theories, you're probably good. But, in a cruel sort of joke, if you want to bring someone back because you love them, you'll be the least satisfied with the result as you'll quickly notice the slight differences in the duplicates behavior compared to the original. The only way someone can perform a actual resurrection is if the spirit hasn’t moved on.

This school requires a lot of skill and experience to perform otherwise you run the risk of creating a ghoul.

### Chi Magic

Chi Magic is a type of magic that specializes in the manipulation of Chi instead of mana. Magic manipulates mostly external energies. Mages use their own mana as a sort of framework, where the real muscle of the spells comes from the surrounding energies. Chi Magic works on this logic and is effectively a highly advanced and complex form of External Chi Gathering. However this form of magic is completely theoretical and has never been successfully accomplished.

While chi and mana are definitely closely related, it's kinda like the relation between ice and water. You can make a sculpture out of ice, but not so much water. That's the primary issue. Magical incantations need a pretty static structure, and to form ki like that you need to constantly adjust it. It just isn't practical to do for anything complex.

Ki naturally in living things, so in practice if you alter the energy flow within those things you can get it to flow in a pattern. However messing with someone's energy flows like that is extremely dangerous hence why it has been used too little success.

## Language

### Circle Form

Circle Form is a 500 years old magical language however it is actually shown to be used in the creation of the Senshi Uniforms which were designed over 10,000 years ago. It is theorized that Sedna was actually the one to make Circle form and only let it out into general circulation 500 years ago.

### Glyphic

Glyphic is an older magical form, one that was reasonably popular before Circle form took over. Runes are a form of Glyphic, though it has many forms though, not just Rune magic. The main reason Glyphic fell out of fashion is that to perform a spell you must build the symbology from scratch each time.