5 Chapter 5: The awakened Part 2

Eric's understanding when it comes to "The Awakeneds" and "Aura". Awakened individuals are basically people who found and nurtured their aura seed then learned how to properly utilize it to their benefit. However, this world has no general systems on how to transform an individual into an aura user, knight system is the one widely used in Southwest Zevia, particularly in Beltir. Eric isn't sure whether the neighboring kingdoms have something similar since rulers and nobles tend to be secretive when it comes to this matter, hoping to establish an advantage against their adversaries. Nobles in Beltir in particular use the knight system mainly for military and martial purposes, and according to it, a person who can maintain their aura for more than an hour is already considered a professional knight, or just a plain knight. Since for a knight, aura usage is mainly used for combat, a person who can easily increase his aura on a body part, while maintaining the normal aura on the other remaining body parts is considered to be one level higher than an ordinary knight, they are called "Middle Knights". Subsequently, when knights are able to infuse their aura to an object, which for a knight's case would be mainly their swords, other weapons, and or shields, are called, "Knight Masters". Knight masters in Beltir are uncommon, probably less than thirty in the entire kingdom. The average awakened's or aura users in Beltir, becomes professional knights in their mid-twenties and reached the middle knight's level later in their career, with some even stayed at that level the rest of their lives eventually not advancing further to a knight master's level. Moreover, based on Eric's rough assumption, there could be around eight thousand knights in Beltir serving different lords. People beyond knight master are extremely rare, and with almost no records of them whatsoever, probably those that witness their power are no longer amongst the livings, or these masters themselves just don't want to be out in the open. Moreover, also probably because there is no exact method to measure an awakened's aura usage and capacity, that is why they are almost indistinguishable from knight masters. People in Beltir call them "Grand Knights", or grandmaster in the knight profession. Moreover, this world is like the medieval era in Europe, news and information do not travel to the other side of the planet in an instant like on planet Earth. For all we know, the barbarians in the middle of the continent have their own method of ranking the efficiency of aura usage and call it "Awakened Warrior" and so on like in the Beltir knight system. However, there are certain organizations that have their own different method of utilizing aura and has applied it in their profession. An example of this, are those that people call "Healers", they are a group of individuals that use aura to treat certain injuries like closing cuts, relieving bruises, stopping the bleeding, curing poison, and treatment to other disorders and illnesses, some says that they were once a group of highly intelligent and proficient herbalist, alchemist and or physician that banded together. These awakened healers are mostly trained and produced by a small kingdom called Shinte Kisha, most people outside of that kingdom call them that, but in actuality, they are governed by a group that is consists of 30 people, like that of a senate. The kingdom's populace is highly religious worshipping Azurea, one of the three goddesses of creation. While the king and the royal family do not have the legitimate power to rule and are just there for appearance's sake. Just like in Beltir, they probably have their own way and system of producing these individuals, while at the same time also having a system for combat-centered awakened's they call, "Holy Knight's", their formidable and well-disciplined defenders. Which is one of the reasons why they are considered as one of the stronger nations among the twelve kingdoms in southwest Zevia. It might not also surprising to hear that a certain country, kingdom, organization, or even profession somewhere else has their own entirely different way of using aura, or even different name for it. Eric had spent the sixteen years of his life mostly within his father's territory, he was able to travel to a neighboring allied territory when he was younger, but that was it. He is definitely open to other possibilities out there, at least something for him to look forward to. Examples of advanced techniques on using aura for battle are, releasing a projectile that is solely made out of aura, another is focusing aura on a certain body part to enhance its function like when Eric focused his aura on his eyes, it helps increases the distance his vision can normally cover or see clearly, some use it to see through the darkness, most would use it to try to gauge an opponent's ability. Eric's intention when he used enhanced eyes before was to clearly see the tiny markings made out of his aura, which he placed on the cards. But why would he need to spend extra effort to see and locate his own aura, you asked? Because those little markings have their own strong intention or desire imbued in it, which makes it laborious for even Eric himself. Those who are proficient in infusing aura to their eyes would still require a highly dense aura concentrated on their eyes and tremendous focus to maintain it, in order to see Eric's markings, since the intention used on the markings is excessively strong from a normal perspective among aura users. It is said that the most important thing when using aura is the "Will Power '' and "Intention", of the user. Will power is basically the amount of aura an individual can generate and the duration that person can maintain that aura. The intention, however, is the way that an individual uses his aura, how strong his feeling or desire towards accomplishing that intention. There are a lot of creative ways, but for now, let's try to make it simple and understandable. When an awakened facilitates an attack by punching, his willpower would be the amount, concentration, and density of the aura he can infuse on his fist. Then his intention would be to inflict fatal damage to his opponent. The more dense and concentrated the aura he can generate and infused on his fist, plus the stronger his intent to damage or kill his opponent, will accumulate and will end up multiplying the destructiveness of the attack he would like to inflict on his target. "Well just have to see if there are people in this world who are competent and creative enough to show us something worth our time. Ku ku ku ku. . . ." Eric's made his expectation of this world into words. This happened during the last day of his awakening ritual.

Next chapter