The soul is an interesting thing. You live, you die, and either it goes on to disintegrate… or you have unfinished business.Either way, it ends up at the hands of Reapers, to continue the cycle of creation, but humans have used its immense powers nonetheless. Though strongest in the living body or having come right out of it, as it’s the densest there, which can also apply to ghosts, it’s practically unusable by humans in this state… unless you want to use your own soul, that is. And it’s not like you can fix a missing piece of soul; It remains a fundamental law that you cannot insert “more” soul into your body to actually control it, just strengthen your own existing soul, making it more dense and powerful. Well, with curses as KIND OF an exception, but they are very rare. Regardless, being soulbroken is unfixable, which is why primordial soul magic is a last resort. Here, I have been studying exactly how to use the power of the soul in a… well, different way. One that’s a bit less gruesome, and one that requires much less death.
Firstly, we all know that benders have a great advantage in our world of magic. They are able to manipulate energy, matter, and even the soul around them, and to see all of these things as well. However, these powers are only as strong as their own soul, though they can be refined and mastered. However, a grand master can only play so much on a toy piano, which is why soul eaters used to be so common before we, uhh, killed them all. A bender, able to control souls, can eat them by forcing a possession, then overriding the spirit’s power and refusing to let them leave until they are devoured. A grim and risky prospect, but the further one goes into it, the more proficiently they can do this. One can even become a bender themselves by similar methods… making one’s soul strong enough can force it to exit the body in tendrils, therefore forcing their soul into that of a bender. This has a high fatality rate, though, its where many of these dark wizards started their journey. Those who think they need magic often have quite radical viewpoints, to be quite frank.
However, there have been some resurgences in dark wizards lately, and it scares me. They are much more powerful than anyone else in this world, besides the cursed. The cursed have had extremely powerful spirits voluntarily or involuntarily “merge” with their body, causing both the person and that spirit to inhabit their body, together, their minds intertwined to an extent and able to draw on the elemental power that they will surely have due to having so much soul power… dark wizards can often possess an elemental link if their soul is strong enough, as well. Though they are really quite similar in the end, one often ends up more sane in the end. Possessions can taint, churn, and damage the soul to the point where one loses themselves.
However, there’s more to magic then fighting with your fancy soul tendrils and throwing objects, energy, and, if you’re strong enough, the element that you have an affinity for (especially so, as you can control it with more ease and proficiency using your soul). Sometimes, people will attempt to manipulate ghosts without really absorbing them, using their, sometimes, strong concentration of soul and abilities to their advantage. Benders have more difficulty making enough of a concentration of soul among their tendrils to make it visible or to inflict much burning, let alone move objects; such can only be done at the highest level of control, and the object in question not slipping through of your grasp at every given moment is absurdly difficult.
However, there is also the control of ambient soul energy, called mana. It has dissipated to the point where it is no longer truly sentient, though it is soul energy nonetheless, and is much easier to control and manipulate than more collected, sentient, and powerful spirits. Additionally, it is nearly everywhere! The drawback is that it lacks much concentration, and thus, dark wizards gain most of their soul power from ghosts, where most soul energy resides; this is because spirits are capable of absorbing this energy and other ghosts as well, and therefore strong spirits, often elemental in their strength, called “constellations” make up most disembodied soul in the world.
With mana, there are no caveats to morality, and it is the groundwork for the magic of the normal wizard. Therefore, people will naturally absorb it into their soul over time, which can sometimes lead to people becoming benders in older age if they have accumulated enough, happening especially in places where more people have died, such as cemeteries, cities, sites of tragedy, and more. Benders can take advantage of it much more, drawing it into themselves, making their soul stronger. Therefore, your average bender can grow their soul power at a higher rate than an average person, especially through sessions of mana gathering.
Though, with this stronger soul, primordial soul magic remains dangerous, except in EXTREMELY RARE controlled situations in which, somehow, parts of the soul can be leeched off without actually damaging its function and structure. This has only happened in tests a few times in history and is not very useful. Speaking of leeching soul, this is a common technique used by Dark Wizards; trying to possess or absorb the soul of a living, at which point it is a war of attrition between the two souls until they disentangle or one is absorbed. This is probably the most forbidden form of any sort of soul magic, and can either lead to one of the participant’s death, or leaving with their soul damaged, “Broken”. This is one of the worst things that an individual could be subjected to, and usually results in bad health, loss of rationality, emotion, and intelligence, and almost universally, death. This can also occur through the damaging of the soul, a common technique to use bending to end fights, though it is considered brutal.
With the consistently strong and dense souls of living humans, this is widely used among very powerful dark wizards to strengthen themselves. This is much, much more difficult to do to a non-bender, as the soul is much more embedded. Additionally, the density of soul required may have to be tangible and would therefore require a path into the body. This could apply to benders withdrawing their tendrils within themselves to protect them and increase their density, a defensive method. This eating of the embodied soul is much more difficult than that of a disembodied one, but can yield more soul as well.
Besides this, the living soul can be influenced, as well. Any bender can read somebody’s soul with light enough tendrils to be intangible, in order to “see” the soul. This often happens instinctually between benders and does not usually provoke a fight, much less an attack on the other’s soul. Dreams or an unconscious state make for a more easily influenced soul, but besides this, the bending of the “mind” is incredibly difficult and can be fought off in all its delicate procedure. Oftentimes, it would be easier in a fight, at this point to simply damage the soul of the opponent
However, with a stronger soul, one is a more powerful bender, and can therefore gain mana, even, at a higher rate. However, instead of putting it into their own soul, one can store it into objects, condense it to turn it into more powerful soul energy, or just to store vast amounts of it, then weaponizing it without risk to your body and mind. This can be done with a variety of mediums and a variety of ways, which will be expanded upon in a moment. But before that;
It is notable that people have fears that condensing soul will lead to the immoral creation of a higher conscience, as if they could fuse, and there have been appeals to study this to revive dissolved spirits. But this effort is for naught, as it would be similar to throwing atoms together to try and create a human being, even if the human themselves can consume these resources to bolster themselves. This is why stronger disembodied souls are so rare… once a spirit begins losing itself, at any strength, it becomes difficult for it to keep the motivation that keeps it together intact.
The former fear has only occurred in studies where it was intended, attempting to restore the integrity and structure of the soul, though doing so with the memories would be practically impossible. However, the most any of these attempts have yielded are monsters that have dissipated practically instantly, and the art is deemed extremely immoral and has been outlawed since. This practice, regardless, is called “necromancy” and has been utilized by a few Dark Wizards, mostly for unjust purposes, though it is rarely practical.
Anyways, as soul energy only gains tangibility at much higher concentrations, one could begin to store mana in something if there is enough of it in a small space. It is the easiest to do so in crystalline formations. As far as I’m aware, nobody knows why this is the case, but it seems easier to start collecting it there until it gains enough density to not just float out than with something like a pouch. The consistent structure may also be more durable for storing the energy, and for pulling it out, but nobody is really sure… yet. Regardless, many benders are adorned with amulets, rings, and gemstones to store mana, and other types of energy as well, though other types of accessories can often achieve this latter purpose with more ease and efficiency.
The containment of mana in gemstones has been tried and tested in actual spirits as well. Since they are in such a small area, their density causes them to be unable to phase through the material, thus containing them; though, due to their non-passive nature, unlike mana, the gemstone in question, depending on its nature and durability and that of the spirit, is more subject to being broken. Notably, this also means that, since the spirit cannot expand outside and shed themselves, dissipating, they cannot die, preserving them inside of the gemstone. This can really be done for as long as one wants, and it is considered a deeply dark art, due to its nature of imprisonment. Many dark magicians will store particularly vengeful souls within items to be used for their own purposes, or even in combat. Fortunately, a Reaper, another spirit, or another bender would likely reach the gemstone before a spirit could serve out near eternal life within it lest the artifact containing them be forgotten.
The last chapter in these studies will be about “magic circles”, more often called arcane art. The first type of magic circles is called a “magic web”, which can only be performed by benders. Here, the soul energy is “drawn”, usually by a finger”, into the air, as a long, single tendril, still connected to the body. Here, it can serve several purposes, whether being more efficient at gathering mana for long sessions of power building, or for the more conventional use of arcane art, being to channel mana. However, due to the nature of the exposed and tangled soul, and the concentration to upkeep the structure, it can be dangerous to upkeep and to draw, and requires expertise. It is more of an extension to bending if anything. The second, more common form, just uses mana, almost always using a “stylus” wand to draw the circle. Usually, then, it lasts a short time unless maintained by a Bender or if certain structures are created. The wand, usually with a gem at the end to store mana, is used to draw the circle. Even though this is much easier to do as a bender as you can simply just draw the energy out of the gem in order to draw the circle, certain wands can release it all at once, creating an explosion of raw, burning, condensed mana.
The purpose of arcane art is, well, various magicks. It involves the creation of structures with mana different from the structure, well, of the soul of various living things. This is still unachievable as it is too complex, and can only be done, really, by Order, the Great Flame. Doing so, anyways, would be immoral and would require much more innovation biologically as well. Trying to create something living with mana would be akin to trying As the energy of life, given to all living things, Soul, and by extension, Mana, can be used for the creation of other dynamic purposes beyond how we ourselves do it; it is so metaphorically, nearly, entwined with how life itself functions when it is imbued as soul, that it can receive special and strange functions when arranged differently. This is the most creative aspect, by far, of all of the existence of the soul overall, as, to an extent, it is like playing God. For example, the different ways that a soul receives a different element when strong enough can be attributed back into arcane arts using various methods and studies. However, this remains incredibly difficult to achieve if you are not a Bender, and so arcane art remains mostly unused besides wizards. Spellbooks are common so that one does not have to memorize every drawing they or others make. Usually, a circle exists to either stabilize or gather ambient mana, while there is usually a centerpiece or drawing to form the magic. The circle may also sometimes exist to empower or propel the spell in question.
