Ch 41: Aura Manipulation (1)
Pyrrha and Ray had been right to be concerned about Jaune's reaction to their help. During their regular sparring class on their second day of classes, Jaune fought a match against Sky Lark, Cardin's mullet-haired teammates. It was a complete and utter defeat for Jaune. That night, Pyrrha approached Jaune and offered to help him train, but Jaune's wounded pride wouldn't let him, and he rejected her offer.
The next day Jaune was able to avoid humiliating himself further in the sparring class by avoiding being picked to spar and training on his own in a corner. However, his pathetic performance the day before had resulted in Cardin and the rest of his team identifying Jaune as an easy target, and they had begun bullying him.
The day after that, their fifth day at Beacon, the fourth day of classes. Ray's first Aura Manipulation class replaced their sparring class. All of the first-years gathered in the sparring arena for their first lesson in Aura Manipulation, along with all the faculty members that were currently free. Team CFVY and a few other second-year teams who had heard about a first-year teaching a class, and we're curious about it, either as a joke or genuine interest, were also in attendance.
Ray decided to start his class off with an explanation of what they would be learning in this class, along with a few practical demonstrations.
"Aura Manipulation is, as the name suggests, a system for learning how to manipulate one's Aura to a greater degree than what most of you are used to or believe is possible.
The most basic level, where most Huntsmen are, is what I call the Aura Control level. At this level, you have unlocked your Aura and have some rudimentary control over it. Mainly, shifting the concentration of your Aura around your body to increase your defense or offensive power around a certain area or heal yourselves. Are there any questions so far?" No one had any. This was something they were all familiar with. Even Jaune, despite his refusals to accept tutoring from Pyrrha, had picked up at least this much by watching and listening to his classmates.
"Good. The next level is called Aura Shaping. At this level, your control over your Aura has increased to the point that you can literally mold your Aura into basic shapes. More importantly, for a Huntsman, you can extend your Aura to cover not only yourself but your weapons as well. Making them sharper and tougher. Miss Nikos, would you please demonstrate."
"Certainly." Pyrrha replied as she left her seat to walk down to the arena.
Pyrrha walked up to stand next to Ray in front of the class. Turning around to face the other students, she held out her hand, palm up, in front of her and concentrated her Aura into the shape of a pyramid on top of it. The students weren't very impressed since this seemed like little more than a cheap party trick. There was no way that that little bit of Aura could be used as a weapon, its edges weren't sharp enough, and it wasn't dense enough.
Pyrrha couldn't help but smile at their naivety as most seemed to have forgotten what Ray had said about empowering their strikes. Without paying the whispered criticism anymore mind, she walked over to a training dummy in the center of the arena.
"This is my normal strike." She explained as she slashed at the dummy with Milo. These dummies' durability was roughly equivalent to that of the average Grimm's bone armor plating, and Pyrrha's swing only produced a slight scar on it. Murmurs from the audience indicated how impressed they were with Pyrrha's arm strength as even achieving that much was rare with such a simple swing.
"This is the same strike with my blade coated in Aura." Pyrrha swung again. It looked like the exact same strike. The same force, the same body movements, the same wind-up, and the same follow-through. Only where she was hitting the dummy, and the presence of a slight shimmer of red Aura around her blade appeared different. The results though we're entirely different. Pyrrha's sword dug deep into the training dummy, cutting halfway through it before coming to a stop in its center. Without a doubt, a fatal wound for any living creature.
The students were stunned into silence. That was the armor plating of a Grimm! A casual cut using Aura to enhance their weapon would be able to deal a fatal blow to a Grimm through their armor plating!? This was a huge difference that would make it far easier to take down stronger Grimm and larger packs.
"Thank you, Miss Nikos." Ray thanked her and sent her back to her seat. "Miss Nikos achieved this level of proficiency in Aura Manipulation on her own after being introduced to it only five days ago. Now, of course, I don't expect all of you to achieve the same level of results, but I do hope all of you will have at least reached a basic proficiency in Aura Shaping by this time next week for our second class. I will discuss further on what you can do to train during the second part of class.
For now, let me introduce to you the next level of Aura Manipulation. This is where things start getting really interesting. Aura Sight, now a few of you may be thinking that this means the ability to sense the Auras around you, which is a well-known, if high level, technique among professional Huntsmen." Ray nodded at Fox Alistair from Team CFVY, who had developed his ability to sense Auras to compensate for his blindness. "However, that is only the beginning. In fact, it has barely even scratched the surface of what someone who has reached the Aura Sight level of Aura Manipulation is capable of. Aura Sight means to not only be able to sense the Aura around you, but control it.
At this level, in addition to being able to form your Aura into denser and more defined shapes, you can detach your Aura from yourself and remain in control of it. You can use this detached Aura to enhance your projectiles, as a projectile itself, or as an improvised bomb. Your Aura still won't be strong enough to be considered a practical weapon on its own, but it can still be useful as a distraction, crowd control, or to get yourself out of a pinch."
"So it would act similar to my Hype Semblance?" Coco raised her hand to ask. Coco's Semblance, Hype, is a simple, if very effective, Semblance. It allows her to greatly enhance the power and effect of the Dust she uses.
"Yes, though not quite as effective at this level as what you can achieve with your Semblance, Miss Adel. It would allow you to greatly increase your bullets' power at the expense of depleting your Aura faster if used in conjunction with your Semblance, but that is not the most valuable ability at this level. The most valuable technique is the ability to increase your Aura reserves. Permanently."
That got their attention. There were expensive drugs that could temporarily increase one's Aura, but they all came with harsh side effects. The only known safe way to enhance one's Aura was to let it grow naturally as a person matured, but this was limited and depended entirely on inborn talent. No one had ever heard of a method to improve one's Aura through training.
"The technique is simple if you think about it." Ray shrugged, "We can sense the Auras of anything with a soul because they are constantly emitting a small amount of Aura. Once you have learned how to control the Aura around you, even when it is not connected to you, then it is a simple matter to absorb some of that ambient Aura into yourself and increase your own reserves."
"Then what about absorbing the Auras from inside plants and animals directly? Not just what they passively emit." The second year's question caused an outbreak of concerned murmurs among the students and faculty. While that did seem like a reasonable method to increase one's Aura quickly, it also felt wrong on a fundamental level. Aura was produced from one's soul. To absorb Aura something had let go of was one thing. To steal Aura directly from another… wasn't that the same as trying to steal their soul.
"No!" Ray said firmly, "While the theory behind such an act is sound. In practice, it is not. The Aura that one releases passively as a part of living is, for lack of a better term, clean. It is no longer dyed with the colors of the soul that generated it. If you try to absorb Aura directly from something, you will be dying your own soul with another's colors. It is impossible to get out of such an experience unscathed as even plants have a strong understanding of self and their purpose. If you are weak-willed, then it is entirely possible that 'you' will cease to be, and you will instead become whatever you tried to absorb Aura from. At least on a spiritual level. It puts new meaning to the term 'being a vegetable'."
Several people broke out into a cold sweat as they imagined the consequences of what they had been thinking about doing. What Ray hadn't told them was that plants and animals had a surprisingly strong sense of self and purpose due to their simplicity, granting them highly resilient souls, precisely because they weren't capable of higher thoughts to ask the questions like 'what am I?' or 'why am I here?'. However, the souls of humans were much less stable, and though you still had to take the time to digest the stolen Aura, it was possible to safely steal Aura from living people as long as your will was strong enough. Of course, your victim would inevitably die from it. Thankfully human ego would prevent most people from realizing this fact. Who would ever believe that the plants and animals they ate every day had tougher souls than them?