As Mira was a High Human and she was using High Mind to heal herself, she had a quick recovery; it took her 3 hours for her to be perfectly fine. But her energy was drained and her mind was tired so she slept.

Mira woke up and saw Bella sitting across her bed; the nurse had called Bella into the room and when Bella saw Mira was fine she ran and hugged her. Mira was surprised by her empathy but still hugged back.

They let go of each other and Mira said “I didn’t expect you to be so concerned”. Bella looked away in shyness and said “So you expect me to be happy if you’re dead?” Mira smiled and said “Thank you for caring”.

Bella herself was surprised at her own reaction. She had followed Medara on her first day of training and she knew aura training was hell, Medara cried and begged for them to let her take the weight armor off after about 3 hours of her being beaten to a pulp by the undead but they had refused and she was feeling the girls pain and sorrow as if she was the one doing the training. She then decided it was time for her to search for people with psychic energy talent.

She had spent the whole day trying to forget how Medara felt. About a day later she had heard about Mira’s return and her condition. She knew what Mira had decided to do for her training, she knew it was on a different level from anything Medara was doing, and she also knew that Mira had no one supervising her. The feelings of pain and sorrow that Medara felt came back amplified as her brain began to think up a condition far worse than what Mira’s condition actually was, she started running to where Mira was; abandoning her mission to find people with psychic talents.

She was very relieved when she saw Mira completely fine after 3 hours, she felt she had overreacted, but if she saw Mira’s initial condition she would have broken down in tears.

She thought ‘Who knew I had so much empathy’. Mira said “I wonder why you don’t have any aura? You did go through the same experience as your friends”

Bella answered “It’s probably because aura is not my thing. It’s not that I don’t have drive, I don’t show it with aura; I show it with psychic energy”. Mira thought about it for a while and said “Then does that mean I can never have psychic energy?”

Bella ignored her question and asked “Did you get aura?” Mira shook her head and said “No, when my punches started making the undead explode they stopped attacking me”. Bella said “That’s weird, aura doesn’t do that” Mira nodded and said “I’ll check it out latter, it’s probably a new skill. I now know one thing; my weapons and armor were holding me back. They allowed me to kill easily and get more en-code which is good but they also prevented me from getting skills like what I just acquired since they were so advanced. In other words the way forward is to only use my weapons when I need to fight in a life threatening situation”.

Bella nodded said “As for your question about why I don’t have aura. I don’t know. But if anyone knows it’s your master, since he fully understands both energy biases considering he has made advance technologies with both”.

Mira said “Bella, you’re quite smart you know” Bella sensing her sincere praise blushed and said “Of course I am, you’re just a fool for not noticing”.

Mira asked “What has been happening in the sanctuary?” Bella answered “The impossible. People are asking for campaigns and raids since there are more Rank 5s and 6s now and so they can save up on en-code with their safety guaranteed”.

Mira laughed and said “These are the people that were so skeptical about the first campaign. How the times have changed, back then being a Rank 5 guaranteed you an apex spot in the sanctuary now it isn’t enough anymore. I think the mind set of safely acquiring en-code is not a good one. From what I’ve experienced, twice now, putting your life in danger will allow you to get more skills even if the danger is one that you prepared yourself. The sanctuary is blessed to have a good leader but it is also a curse since the people who develop skills will be less. Given the technological advancements have helped us ignore our shortcomings but I believe a more balanced ratio or danger and safety is good, at least for those who want skills and don’t just want to wait for the latest technology”

Bella replied “I don’t know about that, the more people put themselves into danger, the more likely they are to die, which will make all the skills they acquired to be lost. I agree with what you’re saying but the monsters rarely leave their territory and they never attack together so it’s still smart if people take advantage of the monsters’ stupidity and get as much en-code as possible”.

Mira got up and said “I guess you’re right. I’ll be joining whatever is being planned, I have to get used to my new skill. What do you plan to do?” Bella smiled said “I’ll do the same; it’ll be terrible if everyone becomes Rank 5 while I’m searching for talent”.

The rest of week passed with Mira joining the raids and the one campaign that happened. Medara got her aura activated, she had blue aura, after 6 days of training. 3 out of 12 Rank 4s successfully learnt High Mind after the week ended.

Mira’s skill allowed her to seep her energy into an opponent’s body without much resistance. The energy acted as if it was in a highly pressurized state so when she released her control of the energy it would explode and cause the area that had been inflicted with the energy to explode.

She tested it against many kinds of opponents and armor and learnt that her energy could not seep into armor that had been enhanced by Samad’s spell. Samad’s spell changed the properties of materials and made them highly resistant to energy flow and also added a black tint to their color.

Mira’s new skill could not bypass his enhancement. Apart from Samad’s enhancement, if the opponent had a sufficiently strong body or was using energy to enhance their body, it made it harder for her spell to work but didn’t make it impossible.

She could only use the spell when her fists made contact with the target. Mira chose to hold back on teaching her skill until she was good enough at using it.

The week after the announcement, the Ranker School was opened.

{Excerpt from the article ‘Martial Arts’ by Chao Feng, the prince of stars, published by Avartari}

{Honestly, it feels very weird to me when people talk about Martial Arts as if it is an ability. Martial Arts for Humans, High Humans, Primordial Humans, Met Humans, High Elves, etc is one and the same; it is the utilization of one’s own body, it is not a special ability.

If you eat a piece of bread do you think it is a special ability? The act of chewing to some creatures (for example Elementals) is very complex and to some of them, it can be considered a special ability requiring extremely precise control and timing, but to the person eating the bread it is as natural as breathing.

Martial Arts are instinctual to all of us; a baby learns to walk then it grows up and learns to eat by itself without spilling its food, later in life it learns to not wet the bed while sleeping, if possible the child might learn a dance or do a sport or learn a craft. These are all Martial Art techniques, this is the proper way to comprehend what Martial Arts are.

There are two general categories that can be used to describe Martial Arts (Take note, I specifically said Martial Arts, Mandalas are not to be considered as Martial Art techniques). The two categories are:

Aura Arts

Mantra Arts

I haven’t seen many creature that are capable of both types of Martial Arts regardless of the creature’s body or mind type you’ll understand why soon.

Aura is an energy bias that is very closely related to instinct. This energy bias exists in molecules and even atoms in extremely minute amounts so even non-organic creatures are capable of using aura. Aura is mostly found accumulated in cells though so it’s rare to see a non-organic race that uses aura.

For a more detailed understanding of Aura read Jade’s article ‘Aura’.

Aura is what high instinct creatures use to judge the danger an opponent possess, it also affected us as humans because many of use who weren’t used to the wild would find ourselves afraid of animals that couldn’t hurt us. This is because most people had a generally lower amount of aura and by extension instinct than the animals around them.

There is a lot of detail about what auras represent and how they can be used see Jake’s article ‘Aura Martial Arts’ for more detail.

Everyone has aura but only aura martial artists can control use their aura as a stable weapon. What determines whether a person unlocks aura is a high instinct relative to the person’s ingenuity. High instinct is often genetic and, most times, can’t be purposely made.

I’m sure everyone already knows the 9 basic colors of aura. Each aura color represents the major ‘Fuel’ for the person’s instinct. The details are shown below:

White: Fueled by devotion

Red: Fueled by passion

Orange: Fueled by ambitions

Yellow: Fueled by relationships/friendship

Green: Fueled by responsibility

Blue: Fueled by competition/enmity

Indigo: Fueled by regrets

Violet: Fueled by reason

Black: Fueled by tranquility

Aura users that use one color of aura (I’m talking about advanced aura users not beginners) are called Monochrome aura masters. While the ones that use all the colors of aura are called Spectrum aura masters, Spectrums always have one color of aura that they are particularly good at compared to the other aura colors that is usually the color they first discovered.

Monochromes are not to be underestimated because they use only one color of aura. Why? The reason is because an sufficiently skilled Monochrome can also use other colors of aura if there is a need for it and although the Aura arts (Not to be confused for aura manipulation) of one color has few uses the arts of a Monochrome are usually more potent. Simply take it that the Monochromes are specialists while the Spectrums are all-rounders.

For Mantra Arts everyone knows that they don’t have a general energy bias. Mantra Arts are as their name indicates; martial arts that are a result of a person’s mantras/principles/profound knowledge (enlightenment).

I prefer using enlightenment as it accurately describes what happens when people get Mantra Arts; they get enlightened.

A human who is in a life threatening situation will get an adrenaline boost; this is a form of Mantra Art. The person’s will to live give a temporary enlightenment that causes the person’s adrenaline gland to secrete adrenaline and improve the person’s strength and agility at the cost of the person’s durability and stamina.

If said person is repeatedly exposed to such situations the person will find it easier to get into the state of high adrenaline. I know this explanation is not as mystical as aura was and even seems scientific but that is the truth of Mantra Arts; they are easily proven with science.

Most people who evolved got more combat related glands and with energy as a versatile resource, previously impossible things became possible. Mantra Arts require a equal ingenuity and instinct ratio since it is a bit of both.

Many people say Mantra Arts are easy to replicate with magic and machines when fully understood but I tell you that it depends on the proficiency of the person using the Mantra Art. For example my own Gravity Body Mantra can be replicated by Jade and Avatari but they use around 15 time more energy to get the same result as me and the output is not as easy to control for them as it is for me.

Mantras like High Mind and Bane Sight can be more efficiently copied by them because those are Mind Mantras and they have high intelligence but if you’ve seen Mira use High Mind or Duni using Bane Sight before you’ll agree that their own versions are just cheap copies.

Although Mantras are replicable at low levels of proficiency, they are easier to learn and cover a wider area of application even at lower levels of proficiency unlike aura that requires you to be a master Spectrum to use many diverse arts.

The major categories of Mantras are:

Mind Mantas: Has effects on the mind examples are …,…,…, High Mind,…

Body Mantras: Has effects on the body …,…, Rubber Bones,…

Resource Mantras: Has effects on the resources like stamina, energy, …,…,…, examples include Qi,…,…,…Attribution,…

Influence Mantras: Influences external or internal elements examples are …,…, Karma is a bitch,…,…, Sugata

Some Mantras fall outside these categories, like Restore, so these categories are not absolute they just make it easier to understand the concept of Mantras.

It is impossible, from my own experience, to learn all the Mantras, you will definitely encounter one that you can’t learn no matter what you do. It is better to focus on one of each of the main categories if possible and ensure each Mantra complements each other, synergize with each other and are easy to learn for you. A Mantra that is easy to learn will be easy to master.

There is more information on Mantra Arts in my article ‘Mantra Arts’]