[Sword of Legend]

Mana Control – Vision



“You have to see, without seeing” -- Cristován Valenciaga



It's an important concept to understand as you move through life in general. When you close your eyes to the physical space of this realm and of people, you look past the front that others try to present to you. With true sight, you can see the world as it really is, a series of connections that influence each other simultaneously.

Freedom in itself is not something that is straight forward in the slightest, each of our fates are bound and entangled together by threads. Each thread leading to a path that can change with each interaction that we move through in life, the path itself is destined, but which destiny you face changes. Control over that destiny is fixed and simultaneously fluid.

It’s fixed as you are blind to the truth, to the threads, and it changes as your eyes see the real realm...



Reaching that truth is more than just proper manipulation of mana or flowing mana into your eyes. It takes a level of understanding the nature of your reality, or what you believe your reality to be. To see through the veil of darkness and of light. Both Darkness and Light blinds us to what can be made in this world, and with Vision, you can see everything. From the intent of a person in front of you, or the future itself...



True vision allows you to see the work of the gods themselves...

[Sword of Legend]

Type Integration – Primary Set



Each magi specializes in many different magics, how that magic is integrated into their fighting style in regards to this form will very. In general, creativity is going to be key, just like in all aspects of combat. When it comes to Primary Set Integration, what is going to be important is focusing on magic that either increase the actual edge of the blade itself.

The Primary, in Primary Set is the form strike pattern. As an example of primary set integration would be using fire magic to leave trails of fire with each strike, augmenting the striking power for more direct and secondary damage. Certain elements excel more in Primary Set integration but with creativity, any element would be capable of amplifying your strike patterns.

This topic is very straight forward, more ethereal energies have a better time and following your blade tracing without slowing down the speed of your attacks, but in the next section, we will actually discuss on how you can use supplementary applications to assist you in battle. Converting your mana into an element does take away from mental focus, so try and acclimate yourself to the process before you rush into combat, you need to ensure that each attack lands and ONLY use Type Intergration if you have to pass through heavy defenses.

[Sword of Legend]

Type Integration – Secondary Set Play



Here is where creativity gets its chance to shine in this form. Set Play is waltz between the two combatants, creating tempo and battling over who can control the speed of the battle. Here is where using your magic to manage the battlefield to give you an advantage. The most important is to create space limiters, area of effect magics that will restrict the movement of your target to allow your movement to be free and finding vital points to be nearly guaranteed.



Forcing your opponent to respond using secondary set play will force a *predictable* response. Elemental magic has a better time at creating scenarios and traps that allow a person to be pinned and have their options limited. You don’t want to have them so pinned that something desperate is forced from them, a direct strike from a desperation attack can be hard to react to if your mind is focused on striking once you have them pinned.



It isn’t limited to restrictive movement, but one thing that has to be known is that your magic CANNOT FORCE YOU TO STOP MOVING. Using your magic to initiate set play CANNOT take you out of your flow state. Preferably, the magic you use is able to be done at high speeds without a large amount of mental concentration to be applied to that magic.

[Sword of Legend]

Type Integration – Tertiary Set



With Type Integration, using your magic to amplify your own body to increase your striking power allows for a bit tighter control. Since your own body is the one thing you have the most control over, it is the most important form of type integration. Using Time magic to increase your movement speed, nature to increase your physical strength and wind for the speed of your strikes, these are all examples of amplifying your own body.



The most important thing to take note of is that this will telegraph that you are going in for a vital blow, this will cause your opponent to either increase their defense or find a way to take advantage of a weakness that you have. The most important time to begin this form of Type integration is when you are absolutely sure that they cannot respond to it.



You can use it as a mind game as well, trying to bait a response of your opponent if they are wise to your tactics and you are in a position where you are trying to reestablish the tempo of the battle. While each explanation is lengthy, remember one important thing.... battles happen EXTREMELY quickly. Very seldomly do you have more than two opportunities to power up and strike, so make sure that when you do... you make it count.

[Sword of Legend]

Type Integration – Match Up Knowledge



There are going to be elements and fighting styles that you will run into that move counter to you form for whatever reason. Maybe they are able to restrict your movement, maybe they have more offensive capablity than you do, it is all going to depend on what you deal with on a personal leve.

This has less to do with the form itself but having normal combat sense in general, when on the defense the most important thing is being at a safe space. You opponent’s range is going to be VERY critical, in most cases you’ll be against mid to long range opponents.

Using your magic to buy yourself enough to time to turn the tables is important, learning about which magics you have trouble against and learning how to use your speed and stamina to outwit and outpace them is key to success.

Some elements have better defensive options than others, so you will have to be creative when it comes to creating a safe space for you to reestablish tempo in the long run. Also keep your enemies off their comfortable position, don’t allow your defensive position to keep you from victory if you can help it.

[Sword of Legend]

Type Integration – Variability



Using your magics to alternate between your weapon striking and casting can help change the tempo of your attacks. Incorporating each lesson of Type Integration can mix up your opponent in your tactics that you are using, this will allow for more opportunity to find weak points to strike quickly. Another form of conditioning can be formed by using a pattern between your weapon arts and your magical arts, a combination of the two, then switching the order mid fight.



It works wonders against more intelligent opponents who are actively looking for patterns to exploit, it takes a good amount of battle testing to know who is a target that takes things into detail, but usually this kind of battle is most likely life or death. Keep that in mind at all times, this isn’t a form that should be used for casual combat. It takes a lot out of you, and varying your form between casting and striking can help pace your mana usage during the battle.



Variety is the spice of life in the end of it all, with this you the foundation of the form should be understood. With the end of this chapter, we will delve into the lifestyle of understanding the threads of fate and how you are able to waltz between them.

[Sword of Legend]

Fate – Threads



The nature of fate, of destiny, many people have this misconception that fate is a binding nest of entanglement that fixes our future to a certain point that cannot be avoided. That is far from the truth, as we dive deeper into the concept of fate, we must understand that fate itself is never fixed, while our ability to alter our pathways are left only to divine magic, everyday fate itself can be observed and new path can be found. These “thread” are not physical threads obviously, lifelines of energy that unify our destinies with interactions... or lack thereof, with others.



To see these threads, blinding yourself to the physical realm, looking past what this initial plane presents to you and looking deeper into the heart of everything around you. These threads, YOUR threads, can be manipulated, calculated, but not transform. Your Lifeforce entangles with another as you speak to them, as you fill the air with your very existence with more than just your physical form, but with threads of energy and thought and emotion.



To see these threads, are to see intention, to predict a destination, but to also allow one to choose a different path based on interaction. Following these threads allow you to have an insight that exceeds just clairvoyance, to see into the infinite expanse of what could be, what can be, and what will ever be.

[Sword of Legend]

Fate – Through the Veil



This will be a sort of expansion to the Vision Section of the Mana Control Chapter. The world around us flows with life, to feel the energy around us we must blind ourselves to what the physical aspects of life want use to see and look further.

While overall meditation can be redundant, it does help one focus, allows you to see the mana around you, to feel the strands of life in all living things. This is critical, in battle, those strands move, seeing intent, allowing you to act accordingly and protect yourself. That being said, it’s more than just using foresight to have the advantage of battle. To connect with others, to feel their emotion and their will allows for deeper connections with others. Everyone in this world believe in something, what they do to protect that desire is important. Motivation is the most important factor to find through the veil, it is more than just the will to be strong, to be better, to live even.



To understand, that is the real path that we take on this journey. The more we understand, the more we can teach others, the more we can continue to learn. To reach this point, you have to be as fluid as the strands of fate that exist in this world, to be fluid is to understand that your drive may be counter to another's. To understand and shift your foundation when it is shaken by points of another, or experience or even an epiphany. Observe life around you as you close your eyes to the physical realm. It sounds very contradictory, as many things do in this Treatise, but you will understand as you being to take action towards this goal that life itself is a combination of rigid beliefs and counter points.

[SoL - Lore]

Fate – Entanglement



As said, each interaction that we take effects the lives of others, these threads that cling to our lifelines can become entangled the more we invest into another lifeform. That feeling when you are near a friend that you trust with your life, that warm feeling that brings you comfort is the nature of entanglement. It works in the opposite spectrum, a rival of a mortal enemy that you have sworn to slay, binds your destiny together in a way that is unique between you two alone.



That feeling when something happens to that friend, sharing that joy and anguish, pain and elation. Entanglement is a topic that can stretch for years, what it means to be entangled, if fate itself is even real or a construct of our whimsical understanding of the nature of reality. In my experience, this is VERY real, a phenomenon that transcends time and space. That feeling of remembering an event that has happened already, but hasn’t, visions of things that you have never seen, but seem familiar. Strands of fate are not bound by the laws of time that we attribute to seconds, minutes, hours, days... none of it hold any bounds to destiny itself.



How can you have control over it? That is a question that isn’t easily answered by mortals. One thing that you do have control over, is how you observe and respond. That is the nature of these strands of fate and the phenomenon of entanglement. You power spikes as you feel your morale boost towards entangled parties, your feeling resonates with words said that align with your feelings and motivations. Entanglement can help you understand not only your friends, but your enemies, but to be entangled is to nearly lock your paths with another and in combat, that can be dangerous but also give you a certain kind of activation that can only be felt through the communication of battle.

[Sword of Legend]

Fate – Causality



Causality is universal. Nowhere in the world can there be any phenomena that do not give rise to certain consequences and have not been caused by other phenomena. Ours is a world of cause and effect or, figuratively speaking, of progenitors and their progeny. Whenever we seek to retrace the steps of cause and effect and find the first cause, it disappears into the infinite distances of universal interaction. But the concept of cause is not confined to interaction. Causality is only a part of universal connection. The universality of causality is often denied on the grounds of the limited nature of human experience, which prevents us from judging the character of connections beyond what is known to science and practice. And yet we know that no scientist restricts his reasoning to what he can immediately perceive. The whole history of humanity, of all magical experiment knows no exception to the principle of determinism.



The connection between cause and effect takes place in time. This temporary relation may be defined in various ways. Some people believe that cause always precedes effect, that there is a certain interval between the time when the cause begins to act (for example, the interaction of two systems) and the time the effect appears. For a certain time, cause and effect coexist, then the cause dies out and the consequence ultimately becomes the cause of something else. And so on to infinity.



An important feature of causality is the continuity of the cause-effect connection. The chain of causal and spiritual connections has neither beginning nor end. It is never broken; it extends eternally from one link to another. And no one can say where this chain began or where it ends. It is as infinite as the universe itself. There can be neither any first (that is to say, causeless) cause nor any final inconsequential effect. If we were to admit the existence of a first cause we should break the law of the conservation of matter and motion. And any attempt to find an "absolutely first" or "absolutely final" cause is a futile occupation, which psychologically assumes a belief in miracles outside of the divine nature of gods.

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