Chapter Text
World of Remnant: Unlocking the Aura
Aura is the way humanity has prevailed time after time against the Grimm, its warm embrace is a loyal and steadfast companion of men from the moment they are born, and through it protects the body, strengthen his weapons, will the power of Dust and can even project itself into an ability unique for every individual.
But what differentiates the mighty protectors of humanity from those they are sworn to defend?
Unlocking the aura is considered the first step of the steep abyss between man and warrior, one step that while simple, maybe one in a thousand can carry to complexion.
There are two schools of thought regarding the training of Aura. The first one, usually known as Forceful, performs the unlocking at the completion of puberty in a single explosive action, releasing the Aura at the exact stage of development when the body and mind are developed enough to withstand the stress, but with a soul flexible and pliable enough that they apprentice can still benefit from a full training that can address and develop his strengths and cover for it weaknesses. However even with a strict selection of the fittest candidates and the appropriate physical and spiritual preparations there is a high probability of failure, which usually manifest into a backlash and temporal or even permanent metaphysical damage to the aspirant, and if poorly performed it might even affect the master who fails to properly perform the unlocking.
It is the preferred method in both Mistral and Atlas kingdoms, for its advantages regarding recruitment of candidates outside the traditional hunter circles. Atlas especially has founded no less than six of academy’s for the preparation and training of ‘squires’ and in Vale Signal Academy is the one tasked for the recruitment of suitable candidates and their posterior education.
The second school, known as Gradual or simply Traditional, says that the Aura should grow at the same pace that the body, so it slowly and carefully unlocks the aura on a period that spans from the early infancy to the start of puberty. This process inhibits the natural growth of Aura in the body and instead the caretakers slowly and methodically adjust the amount of Aura that can be accessed by the child. This is complemented by a full regiment of physical and meditative training, usually disguised as games, that eventually grants the children under it an intuitive understanding of the nuances of his Aura.
Unlocking the Aura as such young age is not without risks either. A child soul is a flexible and delicate thing, and the same factors that can develop it into a formidable weapon can make it brittle. For that reason special care is put in the pacing of the training, limiting the amount of available Aura so that they can’t reach beyond their grasp. These precautions also effectively prevents the early development of a Semblance, although there are known cases through accident, negligence or sheer desperation a child has developed one often with undesirable consequences to both the mind and body.
The main drawback of this method is measured in time; while it takes one year of reasonably supervised training to create a Hunter candidate of passable skill using forceful measures to gradually forge a new candidate requires the full attention of a skilled Aura manipulator for roughly six years of dedicated training to no more than a handful of children making it unpractical outside Hunter’s clans, dedicated facilities and in some cases exceptional families.
But there are few who can argue with the finished product. The gradual method consistently produces a string of Aura warriors and Dust manipulators with far fewer rejections of the full unlocking procedure and known for the fine control of their abilities.