Author's Note

There's a few different concepts to this story, for example, there's the concept of mana. Mana is magic, specifically, the particles that enable magic to occur. Every single person is capable of forming mana, however, to properly form and utilize it, they need a name. Another feature of mana is color. Different colors of mana have different attributes:

black would be necromancy/shadow, white would be purity/light, red would be fire, brown would be earth, blue would be water, and teal would be wind.

There are also secondary elements. For example, grey would be spatial magic, and green would be life (plants and stuff). The secondary mana types are all the types that do not fall into the six mentioned colors beforehand. These types are much more powerful than the primary colors, but are far and few between.

Finally, there is colorless mana. colorless mana is peculiar because it can manipulate its color in any way it wishes, temporarily becoming any element the user desires. However, there are two drawbacks. Firstly, unlike other elements, colorless users cannot create physical object out of an element. For example, a water user could make blades out of water to defeat their enemies. colorless users are unable to do this. they can only release bursts of mana, and do not have the control required to form objects. However, unlike other users, the colorless are the only users capable of infusing their attacks with their own mana. This means that theoretically, a colorless martial artist could infuse his fists with brown mana and hit with the strength of a boulder, or red mana, and set his opponent on fire.

The other drawback is that colorless users are limited to only elements they know of and are able to use adeptly. This is a large issue for every colorless user because they cannot become adept with an element if they cannot wield it. This leads to most of the already minimal amount of colorless users to give up on learning magic and focus their talents in other places. There has only ever been one colorless user to figure out how to utilize their colorless mana. This prodigy is the main character of the story, who searches tirelessly for answers on how to unlock his mana once more.

Going back to the naming aspect of mana, when a person is named, they are able to utilize a fraction of the mana that the person who named them is able to utilize. However, this is not a limit on someone's growth. Each person has a cap on how much mana they can utilize, so they can train and possibly come to be more adept at utilizing mana then the person who named them. The exact opposite is possible as well, where a vastly powerful magician names a person who has a small mana cap, and as soon as they are named, they cannot get any better at utilizing mana.

Another thing to note is that only the person who was given the name can throw it away. When a person is named, they are now serving the person who named them, but the person who named them cannot take back the name they gave the named. In a few cases, people have given up their name, and return to being an Unnamed.

TL;DR?

mana comes in colors which are elements. to use mana you need to have a name. Colorless mana is super powerful but it is practically impossible to use.