Mentus

Mentus is a very versatile adimus ability comprising a whole host of skills from simple telekinesis to complex abilities like quickening. Almost all adimus classifications can use mentus and the vast majority of the population know at least some basic mentus skills.
Because mentus uses converted adimus energy—known as mentus energy—it is taxing on the mind and body in a similar way to doing physical tasks. How taxing it is depends on many factors including the mentus being used, the proficiency and age of the user, and even the environment. There are many types of mentus skills, some far more complicated than others and the ability to use a mentus skill can depend on innate talent, genes, and training. Also, certain mentus abilities are restricted to specific adimus classifications because they require either a specific adimus configuration, energy frequency, or both.
Use of mentus is one of the main ways to strengthen a person’s adimus since it’s the most widely used ability. Stronger mentus users have more resilient adimus immune systems. This is the main reason why higher adimus ranks live significantly longer.

Origins

Mentus was first taught by the first epouranal mages at the beginning of the PM era. They taught the general population about the adimus and how it worked, and by doing so people were able to activate their dormant adimuses and start using adimus based abilities, including mentus, which was the main skill being taught by the epouranals. At first, it was believed that all adimus abilities were mentus abilities since the epouranals often did not make distinctions.
It was not until centuries later that scientists were able to further study the inner workings of the adimus and discovered a clear distinction between adimus abilities, such as language translation and the adimus immune system, which were universal and performed within the adimus itself, and mentus skills, which were performed outside of the adimus and required the conversion of adimus energy to mentus energy first.
Further research in the mid TS era uncovered that certain adimus classifications, collectively known as mentant-non ranks, allowed them to use specific mentus skills that were not available to everyone. This included channeling, which was previously thought to be a mentus skill that everyone could learn but some people were just not able to do solely based on talent or effort.
The modern definition of mentus is any skill that uses mentus energy, as opposed to raw adimus energy. Mentus is always performed outside of the adimus and outside of a person’s body, as opposed to adimus energy which is internal to a person and almost always only found in a person’s adimus.

Mentus Energy

Mentus can only be performed when adimus energy, which is found in the adimus of a person’s brain, is converted into mentus energy, which can be used outside of the body. Mentus energy is very similar to adimus energy and at times the two are conflated. When adimus energy is converted to mentus energy, there is no energy loss, so a person’s adimus energy pool has a one-to-one relation to the amount of mentus energy they can use.
Converting adimus energy to mentus energy is not an automatic process, unlike many other adimus abilities. In order to use mentus-based skills, a person needs to first be able to channel their raw adimus energy into useable mentus energy and the process can be easy or difficult based on a variety of factors including when they start learning mentus and what their adimus rank is. Some people are more naturally gifted at using mentus energy than others, but most people can typically channel enough mentus energy for basic skills such as creating mentus fire or limited telekinesis.
Mentus energy can be collected and stored outside of the body. This can be done in a variety of ways. Mind mages store large quantities of their own mentus in their mentus quartz, which is created using mentus and is typically used only that individual’s mentant energy. Stored mentus energy is much like a battery and is capable of powering complex tasks at a large level. This is one of the main principles behind city cores, which collect latent mentant energy—typically the residue of mentus that remains after a mentus skill is performed—to perform their processes.

Learning and Using Mentus

Mentus is the most widely used and taught adimus skill. Technically a child can begin learning mentus as early as age 7 or 8 when the adimus first starts developing, but in most cases, people do not start learning until age twelve which is when a person’s adimus energy becomes more stable. Though, in general, almost everyone can use mentus, adimus classification, skill, and general tenacity all play a part in what kind of mentus a person can use and how proficient they can become. The adimus becomes less flexible around the age of thirty, which means its typically not possible to grow your mentus proficiency any further without some sort of adimus boost.

Standard Mentus

Standard mentus includes mentus that, in general, everyone can use. This only means that it does not require a specific adimus rank to perform, not that the skill is easy to learn or execute. Standard mentus is taught in mentus school, which a majority of children attend between the ages of twelve and fifteen, with more complicated or harder to learn skills being further developed in advanced mentus school which only a small subsection of the population attends. There are many mentus skills that fall in the standard set but the most widely used skills include:
Energy Manipulation: This is the most basic and widely used mentus skill. It is the ability to use raw mentus energy to activate or trigger embedded mentus commands in other objects created through mentus craftmanship and mentus engineering. Although the channeling skill is required to embed mentus into quartz, anyone can trigger the effects by simply using their own mentus energy to manipulate and activate the embedded mentus.
Telekinesis: This is the ability to lift, move, manipulate, or control objects using only mentus energy. In most cases, you can only move an object up to half your own weight, though higher adimus ranks can exceed this limitation easily. The size of the target and your proficiency with mentus determines how and for how long you can move or manipulate an object with telekinesis. It’s more difficult to control something with its own will, like an animal or person, if they are actively resisting.
Mentus Fire: This is the ability to create energy-based flame. In general, mentus fire operates like normal fire except it is fueled directly by mentus energy. Mentus fire can also be manipulated to operate in many different ways. A person can adjust the size, temperature, what it does and doesn’t burn, and many other properties based on how skilled they are with it and how much adimus energy they have available.
Body Strengthening: This involves using mentus energy on your own body to do things such as jump higher, run faster, enhance senses and reflexes, and strengthen physical attacks. Unlike a person’s adimus immune system, which strengthens a person from within and is a long-term enhancement to a person’s physical body, the strengthening and enhancement provided by mentus is an external force on the body that is temporary, usually lasting between a few seconds and a few minutes. Body strengthening is only used in short bursts to perform an action beyond what someone is normally capable of for just that moment.
Energy Barriers: Mentus can be used to create an energy barrier that deflects physical attack. Unlike the mandamus safe shield, which uses latent energy in the environment, a mentus energy barrier can only draw from the person’s adimus energy pool and is therefore far less stable and resilient. However, mentus energy barriers can still be strong, especially when they are deployed strategically to stop a specific attack.
Telepathy: While receiving telepathic messages is done automatically by the adimus, sending telepathic messages is far more difficult. It can be accomplished without mentus, however in most cases, people need to use mentus in order to have their message travel through the mentant realm and reach their designated target or targets. This is because mentus energy can be used to encapsulate and carry the message. Without mentus, a person needs extreme focus to ensure their thoughts do not dissipate once they are projected from the adimus.

Specialized Mentus

Specialized mentus can only be used by certain adimus classifications. This is because these mentus skills require a specific type of mentus energy that can only be produced from adimus energy with certain properties. Adimus energy, and in turn mentus energy, operates at a specific frequency. However, the energy frequency of mentant-non adimus classifications are slightly different from mentants. This does not affect standard mentus or most common adimus functions at all. However, certain adimus energy frequencies allow for certain mentus skills to be performed. There are only a few documented types of specialized mentus.
Channeler Mentus: Channeling is the ability to embed mentus into quartz for various effects. It is the most diverse of the specialized mentus and the most prevalent. It is used to give special properties to weapons, armor, clothing, and a myriad of other crafts; store mentus energy for use in fire rocks, melivian, and other quartz instruments; and create complex devices like orcruses, quickener staffs, summoner instruments, and city cores.
Not only does the channeler adimus class specifically have access to channeler mentus, it is also available to all other mentant-nons to various degrees, as well as mandants, mind mages and guardians. However, channelers have the most skill in channeling and are the only class that can hone their skills to the level of becoming mentus craftsmen, quartsmiths, and mentus engineers.
Quickener Mentus: Quickener mentus is used to manipulate spacetime. It is a powerful and extremely dangerous specialized mentus as it requires a keen understanding of the scientific laws that govern it to harness it properly. The most common form of quickener mentus is the skill of quickening that allows quickeners to teleport. However, quickener mentus requires a specially crafted conduit for maximum efficiency. The conduit that quickeners use is known as a quickener staff and it is created using both quickener and channeler mentus. Quickener mentus is the most studied branch of specialized mentus as it is believed to hold a myriad of other uses that have yet to be discovered.
Summoner Mentus: Summoner mentus is used to communicate with and assert dominion over animal kind. In addition to this, though animals do not have adimuses in the same way mankind does, many have a similar part of the brain that control certain special abilities unique to their species. Summoner mentus can be used to form unique bonds with members of these specific animal species so that they can share their senses and special abilities with that person. Because of the complexity of summoner mentus, much of it can only be done using music as a medium to better convey the mentus. Summoners use specially made instruments to do this.
Environ Mentus: Environ mentus is used to read and manipulate latent environmental energies. This includes things like temperature, air pressure, moisture, precipitation, and other atmospheric and geothermic conditions. With extensive training, environ mentus can be used to manipulate the weather and other environmental phenomenon. However, similar to summoner and quickener mentus, environ mentus requires a conduit to have any long term or significant effects. The only currently known environ mentus conduit is the weather rod which is controlled by the Fantasmal Government.
In addition to the specialized mentus mentioned above, scientists theorize that there are other types of mentus-non classifications that have yet to be discovered, and therefore more specialized mentus skills waiting to be uncovered. All specialized mentus is highly difficult to learn and in the modern era, most people perfect their skills in masters school, though there are some exceptions like summoners who can only learn the finer intricacies of their craft from the Order of Nature.

Mind Mage Mentus

Mind mage mentus is unique because it bends the laws of physics allowing the mind mage to create physical substance out of pure energy in many different ways, most notably their mind mage crystal. Mind mages also have the ability to artificially inflate their mentus energy pool by storing energy in their mind mage crystals, either their own, or latent energy.
Once a mentant reaches mind mage level, they typically apprentice with an existing mind mage, usually at their masters school, for two to three years so that they can explore the limits of their mentus abilities. Though mind mages have some standard mentus skills, each mind mage can utilize their skills differently. They are limited mostly by their imagination and the amount of mentus energy they can store and harness at one time.

Mentant Monks

Mentant monks are considered the highest level of mentus users apart from epouranals. They study mentus their entire lives to reach a level of skill and enlightenment that is considered unprecedented. In almost all cases, mentant monks are mind mages because using high level mentus requires an expanded mentus energy pool, however this is not always the case. Mentant monks are typically associated with the fabled monasteries that are rumored to be hidden around the world. In these monasteries, ancient powerful mentus techniques are passed down through the generations and are usually not taught beyond the monk’s sect.

Page Contents

Understanding The Adimus

Terminology & Abilities

Adimus Classifications (Main Article)