Aura Levels

Gen then looked in the direction of the voice and, seeing who it was, thought, 'If I'm not mistaken, this is the body demon. Wasn't he asleep? What is he doing here? And why is he talking to me?'

The Body Demon then said, "Hey, I'm talking to you."

And Gen said, "I'm sorry, but why are you talking to me?"

"Hey, relax. I just came to talk. I know my colleagues gave you a bad impression, but not all of us demons are fight freaks."

"Got it, but what do you want? I'm kind of busy at the moment."

"It's about that. What were you doing? You looked like you were trying to imitate the golden orb. What were you doing that for?"

"And why should I tell you?"

"It looks like we're not going anywhere like this, but that's okay. It's to be expected after meeting those two idiots."

Gen then remained silent, and the body demon said, "Why don't we start over? I am the body demon, but you can call me Bram. What's your name?"

Gen then looked at him for a while and then thought, 'I can't feel any hostility from him ... all right. Let's see what he wants.', and then he said, "My name is Gen. Pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine, Gen.", and then he stretched out his hand to Gen, who stretched out his hand back and shook his hand.

Bram then asked, "Gen, do you mind if I give you a test?"

And Gen said, "A test? What kind of test?"

"I can't tell you, or it'll be no fun."

"Hm, will I get hurt, or will this test do me any harm?"

"Maybe, but I can assure you that if you do get hurt, I can fix it."

Gen then thought for a while, looked into Bram's eyes, and after a while said, "Okay. You can do it then."

And Bram said, "Hahaha, great. I knew you'd take it.", and then he used his hand, which was still holding Gen's, to make a motion.

This motion caused Gen's hand to dislocate, which startled him, but he felt no pain, and this made him think, 'What did he do? Have I been wrong about him?'

Bram then made another motion with his hand, and Gen's arm began to move, and then his elbow also dislocated, and Gen then thought, 'Damn. I don't know what his intention is with this, but I can't let him keep doing this.'

Bram then made another move with his hand, and Gen felt the movement coming toward his arm, and then a black mist began to come off of him and cover his arm. Bram, seeing this, said, "Don't do that, Gen. Don't use your essence. Use your aura."

Gen was confused to hear that but then thought, 'He doesn't seem to mean me any harm, but he's already dislocated almost my whole arm ... ah, all right. Let's see how far he gets with that. Ultimately, I still have Light to save me.'

Gen then pulled back his essence, and his shoulder was then dislocated. He then looked at Bram, and he said, "Use it.", and Gen then began to use his aura on the dislocated arm.

A silver aura quickly consumed his arm and began to spread a bit, and upon seeing this, Bram said, "Are you still in the formless stage?"

And Gen said, "Formless stage? What is that?"

"You don't know what it is? Didn't your teacher ever teach you about aura? Or you didn't have a teacher?"

"I had a teacher, but I was never good at using aura."

"I see. I was just surprised to see such a dense aura that was still in the formless stage."

"Again, with that. What do you mean by formless?"

"Well ... I guess it's okay to explain it to you, but first, pull back your aura and let me fix your arm."

"Okay."

Gen then pulled back his aura, and seeing that, Bram made a motion with his hand that generated a chain reaction in Gen's arm, putting his shoulder, elbow, and hand in place.

Bram then said, "Okay. Let's get started."

And Gen said, "Okay."

"But first of all, if I'm going to explain aura to you, there's one condition."

"What condition?"

"You have to explain to me what you were trying to do by imitating the golden orb's movements."

Gen then thought, 'Hm, I guess that's okay. It's not easy to understand what the right way is. I still don't understand it myself so far.', and then said, "Okay. We have a deal."

Bram then said, "Great. Let's start. Do you know what aura is?"

"Yeah. It's something that people with a lot of experience in weapons end up developing with practice and time with their weapons."

"Yeah, aura really is that, but I was talking about the definition."

"The definition? I don't know what it is."

"It's nothing too complicated. Aura is like the soul of your weapon."

"The soul of my weapon?"

"Yes. Each weapon has a different aura, which grows and gets stronger as its owner uses it."

"Each weapon? You mean that, for example, two different spears have different auras?"

"Exactly."

"But I've already used the aura of one of my spears on another spear."

"That's not good. Doing that would definitely cause damage to the spear."

Gen then remembered the spear that had broken after he had used it on the dome to fight the group of Guna.

Bram then continued, "The aura has five levels in total. The first of these is creation or generation. This is the level where the aura is being generated. This happens through use, training, and living with the weapon. This is the level that the vast majority of people who use some kind of weapon are at, even if the vast majority don't know it, because at this level it is still not possible to use the aura offensively or even to feel it."

Bram then continued, "The second level is the level you are on now. The level without form, or without purpose, as some call it. At this level, the person begins to feel the aura of his weapon inside his body and then begins to be able to use it offensively. Still, the person has no control whatsoever over how he uses his aura and can only release it to strengthen his blows."

"The time people spend in this stage varies a lot. That's because not only does it take time, but you also have to understand the purpose of your weapon to get to the next stage, which requires comprehension."

Gen then said, "I thought it didn't require comprehension to advance in the aura."

And Bram said, "It doesn't until you reach the formless level, but after that, there is no way to advance without having the essence of the weapon that you have the aura for. After all, as I said, you have to understand the purpose of the weapon, and when you understand the essence of the weapon, we can say that the purpose of the weapon in question has been understood."

Gen then said, "Got it. That makes sense."

And Bram said, "When you understand the purpose, you enter the third level, which is the level of form, or control. At this level, it is possible to control the shape of your aura, and this allows it to be used much more efficiently, making it deplete more slowly and greatly increasing the quality of everything it can do. An aura to attack would be more lethal, and an aura to defend would be more resilient."

Bram then continued, "Next, we have the fourth level, the level of integration or incorporation. The prerequisite to being on this level is to be able to imbue anything with your aura, like objects, your body, and even your essence. By doing this, the aura can pass its characteristics to the object that is being imbued. It can make a stick more lethal than a sword and its own hands more resilient than a shield."

"After this, we have the fifth and supposed last level. The level of meaning or reason. To reach this level, it is necessary to understand what the purpose of your weapon is in the world. In this case, it is the purpose for which you wield it. Once you understand that reason, the aura does whatever it can to fulfill it."

Gen then said, "Wow. I didn't know aura was that complex. It's almost like essences."

And Bram said, "Well, I guess you can look at it that way, but let me ask you a question, Gen."

"What is it?"

"For what reason do you wield your weapons?"