Magic Styles

Magic is the overarching term for supernatural abilities. In order of descending power, it can be divided into the five Ranks: Supreme, Chaotic, Elder, Elemental and Lesser.

## Overview

To perform magical abilities, one must be able to manipulate the corresponding type of Prana. This typically requires having an appropriate physiology. For example, humanity was unable to control the elements until the Elemental Deities gifted the first sorcerers with Type-III Prana, causing their circulatory system to evolve new organs and vessels.

The type of Prana corresponds to how powerful the corresponding magic is. As such, Type-II (Elder) Prana and above are only accessible to beings of the God species, as its immediate presence is destructive to lesser life forms and structures.

## Spirit Dimension

Prana is naturally invisible to the human eye. Normal beings can only see its effects, such as a trail of fire or a spiral of water. However, beings with Type-III Prana or higher are able to perceive the Spirit Dimension, which reveals the flow of Prana underpinning the real-world phenomena. This effectively grants them precognition, granting them a massive advantage over beings with Lesser Prana. Furthermore, being able to see the exact movements of Prana gives sorcerers and deities dramatically improved precision and understanding of their techniques, affording them an otherwise unattainable degree of mastery.

This Dimension itself is then segmented into three levels, with each level successively revealing a higher form of Prana. The Elder Dimension is accessible only to beings with Type-II Prana or higher, and allows them to perceive Elder Prana in addition to Elemental and Lesser Prana. This continues up to the Supreme Dimension, which is accessible only to the Supreme Custodian.

The Spirit Dimension can either be superimposed onto the physical world, or viewed in isolation. Beginners who are still becoming accustomed to the strange and otherworldly perspective tend to opt for superimposition, to anchor themselves in reality. However, as they grow more experienced and powerful, it becomes viable to view only the Spirit Dimension itself to filter out external noise, allowing one to maximise their focus on magical techniques. Very few humans, even among the Senshuken, however, are able to maintain the isolated state for extended periods of time as it is fundamentally disorienting and counterintuitive to how humans instinctively perceive the world.

## Elemental Magic

Control of the elements stems from Type-III, or Elemental Prana. This rank of energy encompasses numerous frequencies that each correspond to one of the fundamental elements: fire, water, earth, air, light and shadow. The overlapping of these frequencies gives rise to secondary elements of lightning, ice, lava, mud and wood.

Due to being far weaker than the God species, the vast majority of humans' bodies are incompatible with Type-III Prana. All but a handful of the first humans to receive pure elemental Prana suffered excruciating pain as their bodies rejected this energy, instead "diluting" it into the compatible form that is seen today, known as pseudo-elemental Prana. This Prana mutates the human body from its genetic code, causing people's bodies to develop a second circulatory system that produces, distributes and controls pseudo-elemental Prana and allows them to manipulate the elements. The exceptions to this are the Senshuken (Champions), who possess true Type-III Prana handed down through the generations, originating from the Deities thousands of years ago.

### Elemental Traits

The frequency, or set of frequencies compatible with a person dictate their elemental affinity/affinities. Humans can have anywhere from 0 to 5 frequencies, although the vast majority of people with affinities (75%) possess only one frequency, and 20% of the population possesses no elemental affinity whatsoever. An elemental trait can be thought of as a gene that underpins the entirety of their physical development. For example, a person with a Flame trait will possess an abnormally high heat tolerance, while a person with Earth trait is more likely to have reinforced bone and muscle structure to support their physically-demanding magic style. It should be noted, however, that all humans regardless of whether or not they have an affinity, possess significantly enhanced physical traits due to the presence of pseudo-elemental Prana in their bodies. The elemental traits simply adjust certain physical attributes higher or lower than the heightened baseline to match their specific elements.

In addition to varying in type, traits vary in strength. Two people with a Flame affinity who possess only one Flame trait will differ in strength based on the intensity of their trait and other factors in their physiological makeup. However, it should be noted that one who has more traits is almost always more powerful than one with less.

#### The Soul Pact

In the case of humankind specifically, the possibility of developing an elemental trait is contingent on an ancient agreement known as the Soul Pact. The Pact prescribes that humans' powers must be derived from the Founding Deities who first came to Earth, and them only. It is only through this link that humanity's elemental and pseudo-elemental Prana can exist. In exchange, humans offer their type-IV Prana (their souls) up to the Deities, enhancing their gods' strength through prayer, worship and practice.

Effectively, this Pact establishes a spiritual link between humans and their deities, without which humans cannot use magic. Thus, in the cases where any of the founding Elemental Deities has severed this link, through death, disappearance or other reasons, humans will not only lose the ability to control those elements, but also the technologies and structures that rely on that element, as well as people's very souls, will fade away. Due to this Pact, the disappearance of the Light and Shadow deities corresponded with the instantaneous, mass death of the entire Light and Shadow sorcery populations, the depowering of their magically-powered technology, and the destruction of their magical infrastructure. Until recently, the Light and Shadow magics were thought to be entirely lost.

*Editor's note: Weaker light and shadow deities are offering type-III Prana to human subjects and creating their own independent Soul Pacts.*

### Trait Interactions

In general, a person's strength is simply the sum of the strength of their individual traits. However, interactions between traits can increase or decrease their overall strength depending on synergies or clashes between their elemental types.

#### Reinforcing Traits

When a person develops two or more identical traits, their affinity for that element will be exponentially increased. In general, this can be expressed as *Affinity = StrengthIdenticalTrait1 \* StrengthIdenticalTrait2 ... \* StrengthIdenticalTraitn.* For example, having three Flame traits of roughly equal strength will result in one's Flame affinity being approximately cubed. Note that Strength is always greater than 1 - i.e. one can never be weakened by having more of the same trait.

#### Conflicting Traits

When a person develops two traits that clash, the elements heavily mitigate each other or even cancel out. In general, this can be expressed as:

*Net Affinity* = *AbsoluteValue(StrengthConflictingTrait1 - StrengthConflictingTrait2)*

There are only three pairs of conflicting traits:

* Fire / Water
* Air / Earth
* Light / Shadow

#### Complementary Traits

This occurs when a person develops a pair of traits that can produce a secondary element. The possible interactions are:

* Flame + Air = Lightning
* Flame + Earth = Lava
* Water + Earth = Mud
* Water + Air = Ice

Although complementarity can be achieved using only two traits, in creating a third element, this secondary element grants an effect similar to that caused by Reinforcing Traits. The overall strength of a sorcerer with complementarity can be calculated as:

*Overall Strength = AffinityTrait1 + AffinityTrait2 + AffinityTrait1 \* AffinityTrait2 + Sum of strength other traits*

In simplified form, it can be written as: *Element1 + Element2 + Secondary Element + Other elements*

Note that the above formula references Affinity in addition to strength. This is because Complementarity is affected by Reinforcing and Conflicting Traits. For example, when a person has the configuration [Flame | Flame | Air], their Flame affinity is roughly squared. The strength of their Lightning is bolstered by the reinforcement effect of their two Flame traits.