Aura Manipulation

Aura Manipulation is considered one of three most widespread types of magicks in current world, easily rivalling both Modern Magic and Old Magic on pretty much every possible field... at least when it is connected to combat, since it is much more combat-centered than Modern Magic, with next to no non-combat uses. With these few that exist mostly allowing to gain even greater powers... mostly for combat uses.
Today it is nearly as heavily divided as Modern Magic, unlike which it has many regional names – for example martial arts, soul arts, combat magic, odic magic, aura arts and so on, many of them barely even considered by their users as magic, as tapping into Aura can be (especially when it isn't too extensive) unconscious, with many 'extremely talented' swordsmen or acrobats in fact using Aura.
The term 'Aura Manipulation' can be thus safely considered a general term for wide array of combat arts that rely on magic strenghtening that is achieved in a way that doesn't requires to use daemon as mana sources.

Sources

Sources of Aura Manipulation are dual. One is free, ambient aether everpresent in atmosphere, while the second is a belief in existence of some sort of life force, a driving power behind organic life as a whole, some sort of basic, certainly non scientific 'source' of difference between what lives and what doesn't live. It has many names. Some call it Aura, others simply lifeforce, while in far eastern Eternal Empire (where similar power grew) it is called Qi. Many religions incorporated it into their beliefs, considering it a remnant of divine spark, aftereffect of creation or breath of life, power descended from their creator beings when they forged life.
It is ultimately everpresent as life itself, existing everywhere at once, practically neverending. It can be thus considered a variation of mentioned ambient aether, rewritten by popular belief into type of powers that can be more or less safely tapped by inhabitants of the Light.
Aura Manipulators (with thousand of names in many cultures, sometimes considered simply warriors with their skills barely considered supernatural) are those that can tap into this vast source of power, and take it for themselves to use for many types of enhancements and powers. Each living being can be considered a container for this force, as it naturally concentrates in them (the stronger and more healthy they are the more of it in them) and circulates throughout it through veins.
Those that attempt a journey to power through aura manipulation are able to 'train' their body to be able to contain more and more of lifeforce, improving their resistance for diseases and poisons while making themselves able to use stronger arts. Following the discovery of Aura Manipulation this growth was – of course, as Imperium of Karadia loves doing this – 'standarized' into 100 levels of growth (that, of course, has many local names, with Aura Conductivity being the official one).
Normal people have AC of around 1 (dying or very old men) to 8-9 (when extremely healthy and in good condition). By certain types of trainings (that are, of course, a legion) it can be increased up to level 100. It is divided into ten stages (with many names of their own), each having ten levels of AC. The progression of course isn't linear. Every body has a certain natural limits of growth in AC, with need to adapt properly (by, for example, growing 'new' and more supernatural conduits of Aura separate from veins) after it reaches its peak ability. This border levels are more or less typical for every type of being, with bigger species having more overall storage but with AC still putting similar limits to the ammount of power they can use to strenghten for example their punch.
There are nine such borderlevels – numbered 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90, each stage divided into 10 inner levels of AC growth. Each successive breakthrough is harder and more dangerous. After reaching level 100, rather than arriving at another bottleneck, the AC hits it peak, changing the aura manipulator into near godly being considered equal in power to Ascended magicians, while being able to live at least several hundreds of years.


Of course, there is more to Aura Manipulation that simple AC growth. This is just an ability to gather more and more power from outside. Just as Modern Magic has spells and hexes the Aura Manipulation has various Arts, that Imperium categorized in three main categories: Lower Arts, Middle Arts and Upper Arts.

Art Categories

Lower Arts are category of techniques that tend to be used by aura manipulators up to AC 39 – this doesn't mean that those of higher levels can't use it, this just mean that they also have access to much stronger and more powerful techniques. Even those of level 100 will probably still use them (as they are still potentially deadly) if situation requires them, as they are simply most cost efficient.
Middle Arts are category of techniques that tend to be used by aura manipulators from AC 40 to 69. They are still used by those of higher AC levels, as they are more cost efficient while still deadly. They are also most varied of categories, including many more subtypes of techniques than both Lower and Upper Arts, making them most versatile part of Aura Manipulation.
Upper Arts are category of techniques that tend to be used by aura manipulators from AC 70 to 100. They are very costly in terms of aura – capable of exhausting even AC 100 aura manipulator, capable of causing devastating backlash if its broken prematurely. Many types of such techniques are a well guarded secrets of powerful manipulators, books or scrolls with their description being a treasure worth more than gold.

Techniques

Main Types

Body Cultivation - The so called Body Cultivation is a one of three basic routes of advancement in Aura Manipulation, with its own scaled down version (called Body Enhancement) allowed for all manipulators as a support type. It works through permanent strenghtening ones body by using aura to influence its internal structure. The biggest differences between it and Body Enhancement are firstly much stronger permanent effects and secondly the ability to bestow certain abilities to certain parts of ones body.
In overwhelming majority there are no 'physical' changes, with the effect of Body Cultivation being best described as using ambient mana to power certain 'magical' improvements to ones body, some of them bordering on passive spells that are equally hard and exhausting to competent aura manipulator as breathing is to normal person. Changing its more competent users into true superhuman freaks on a verge of becoming monsters.
Examples can be the ability to breath out fire, being able to easily manipulate ones own hair (to the point of using them as flexible and precise lashes, or 'evil eye' type powers that allow to hypnotize/steal lifeforce/debuff targets by eye contact. Despite the general theme it is in most cases used together with Body Enhancement and 'mundane' weapons since they have their own uses, not to mention being useful even after manipulator runs out of aura.
Weapon Enhancement - Weapon Enhancement is second one of three basic routes of advancement in Aura Manipulation, that is in most cases used simultaneous with Body Enhancement. Weapon Enhancement is used to temporarily store aura in weapons and projectiles to grant them certain buffs and effects, in most cases learned parallel to extensive training in usage of said weapon - after all the fact that swords gets scorchingly hot, seems to bend impossibly or for a split second there is more than one blade means nothing when you can't hit enemy with it.
There are also certain types of weapons that are used ONLY by Weapon Enhancement manipulators, including chain-swords, needles and threads, since they are impossible to be used without aura being used to direct them properly. Even then, such weapons are rather rare, since they can be used only for so long as aura remains.
There are many 'schools' learning arts connected to certain weapons, like bows (with improved aura guidance-like improvement to arrows), spears (with improved piercing ability and many special techniques like making your spear cast fire in front of itself or dozen or so stabs in the period of a single second) and so on. Many - if not most - of them incorporate certain techniques of Body Enhancement support type for increased agility and strenght.
Essence Absorption - Essence Absorption is a third one of three basic routes of advancement in Aura Manipulation, that is considered one that narrows the gap between Modern Magic and Aura Manipulation, by actually relying on daemons in a way. Essence Absorption works by killing and then absorpting and assimilating essence of certain daemons, which allows to strenghten oneself by their powers in both close combat and distance fighting.
The power of daemons one can absorb depends on AC and certain attributes (from purely magical ones - like fire, ice and so on - to physical - like agility or strenght - and moral, like being good or evil). Trying to absorb essence of overly powerful/particularly incompatible in terms of attributes daemons in most cases ends in painful death. Switching from daemon to daemon is possible, but only in case of ones very similar in nature but progressively stronger in power - otherwise you have to learn EVERYTHING from basics.
Lower level techniques of Essence Absorption include manifesting certain traits of absorbed daemon in form of active and passive skills - both self created (it allows certain degree of improvisation and self-improvements - and those learn from earlier practitioners. Higher level techniques go all the way into actually changing into being partially (or almost wholy) similar to the absorbed daemon.

Support Types

In other words - types of skills that can be encountered in any of the three main progression routes - with some of them progressed independently or, sometimes, as a central progression route, however rarely due to them being too specialized.
Body Enhancement – A type of techniques that include both 'real' techniques and general body enhancement skills. By concentrating aura in certain parts of their body manipulators can strenghten themselves, increase their resistance and improve mobility. Sufficiently profficient ones can make ten meter long jumps, break metal armors with their bare hands or see weapons targeted at them bounce off from their skin.
Both techniques and simple enhancements skills can be divided into passive and active. Passive skill means that user is capable of regenerating aura faster that it is used on it, meaning they are faster, stronger and more resistant permanently, many of them (especially with high level of AC) capable of practically superhuman feats without conscious thoughts. Passive techniques mean being able to temporary strenghten for example their resistance or strenght while expending aura (a type of self-buff).
Active skills can be considered an earlier version of passive skills and means using aura to improve your abilities (for example jump at the roof or nearby building) at will, while tiring himself. Active techniques can be summed up as things like particularly powerful hit with a weapon or temporarily improving your reflexes and coating your fingers with resistance to use your hands to deflect – or catch – incoming projectiles.

Weakness Induction – Weakness Induction techniques work by influencing a singular target with some sort of debuff – be it stealing their lifeforce, making him partially volatile, lowering temperature of his body and so on. Posibilites are endless, however due to the way the Aura works they tend to not be directly dangerous to enemy, with exception of techniques that require physical contact.
It mostly exists as Lower Arts, however there are also few Middle and even Upper Arts grade techniques. They can be resisted, especially by other aura manipulators or magic users.
Area Effects – A type of techniques that tend to occur at Middle Arts level. Area Effects – quite oftenly called auras which leads to many misunderstandments – are AoE passive effects that are created by using internal aura to influence reality around via ambient aether. Thus, for example, making enemies heavier, or slowly sapping their life force, or strenghtening all fires (including the ones created from magic) and so on.
They can be considered a middle ground between Weakness Induction and Domains. They can be resisted, especially by other aura manipulators or magic users.
Domains – Powerful (mostly upper Middle Arts and Upper Arts) type of techniques that tend to include both buffs and debuffs (effect on target depending on the will of the users). Most is wide range, but there are also many narrow ones that mostly incorporate certain type of power suppresion which makes those unable to resist it massively weaker as long as they remain in manipulators' domain, sometimes leading to mass slaughters in span of seconds.
Especially powerful Domains are extremely exhausting even for powerful manipulators, making them a rare but dreaded sight on a battlefield.


Limit Breaks - Limit Breaks are powerful techniques that include temporarily pushing the body over its maximum capacity of aura or by pushing the body over its maximum output. In short - all sort of techniques that, when used, will lead to enemy suffering devastating casualties (due to them in most cases being increadibly powerful) but will also cause side effects to the body. For example inability to further grow AC (sometimes forever, if Limit Break was strong enough), or nigh crippling wounds to the body.
Considered last resort, but with most high level aura manipulators having one or two just in case something went wrong and they needed additional punch power to leave with their lives.
Suicide Arts - Suicide Arts are a true last-resort, used when manipulator is forced into a corner and knows that he won't come out of it alive, so he tries to decides to went out with a bam - or, which also happens, wants to ensure someone else's survival or that the enemies won't lay hand on what he is ready to protect with his life.
Suicide Arts used every single inch of aura in one's body - using even the reserves normally dedicated to powering up body and normally left untouchd - to power a single, immensely powerful technique. Rarely leaving anybody standing.
Aether Incineration - Aether Incineration is a trick that allows magicians - especially powerful ones or those aspiring to a more 'magic warrior' approach - to burn their own magic power to produce aura that their body is unable to create on their own due to lack of long and ardurous training. With their own body enhanced by their usage of magic in a slightly similar way they are able to learn aura techniques at least to some extent.
Of course such mixes are far from being efficient on both sides, their own versatility becoming their biggest problem. Thus aside from prodigies and archmagicians (that are simply too powerful to be bounded by such limits) most of magicians learn at best enough of it to be able to move faster and self defense to at least small degree.