Chi

Chi, or rather, the uses of Chi are broken up into four principals. These are Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu.

All forms of life have Chi, which they emit at a steady rate. When the body is exerted, they emit greater ammounts of Chi, which causes fatigue. Ten is the ability to focus Chi instead of letting it 'seep' out so quickly, thus keeping more of it in one's own body. People who practice the art of Ten do not tire as easily, and the practice of circulating Chi through one's body is the first step into learning the other arts of Chi. Ten cannot be learned overnight; the pressure points (shouko) in one's body that control the flow of Chi are 'locked', and to learn Ten, a person must learn to control the shouko to regulate the flow of Chi.

Zetsu is the ability to mask one's aura, which is created by the Chi that someone emits. Even if someone is a master of Ten, their Chi flows around their body like a shell around them. Zetsu instead locks Chi entirely within one's body with concentration, making it possible to hide one's aura, or at least make themselves seem less powerful than they really are. Zetsu can also be manipulated into rapid recovery from wounds through deep meditation, locking Chi inside the user's body and focusing it to a particular point to be healed. This takes a great deal of concentration, so someone cannot simply heal themselves in the middle of a battle, and rapid healing absorbs Chi just as if it were 'seeping' away.

Ren is the polar opposite to Zetsu; rather than locking Chi within the body, Ren focuses it outside the body. Ren manipulates the energy stored by Ten, and converts it into actual usable energy outside the body, such as a 'Chi Ball'. The more skilled a practicioner is with Ren, the more energy they can release and control at a time. Someone who is extremely skilled in both Ten and Ren can use them to create an invisible 'bubble' of sorts around the user. While no one else can see or feel this bubble, if anything passes into that bubble, the user will know it. It requires a great ammount of concentration even for masters to use this technique and keep the 'bubble' up. The greater the skill of the user, the larger the bubble can become.

Once Ren is achieved, one can begin Hatsu, which is the actual process of converting one's Chi into an attack. Hatsu is divided into five spheres. Someone has to be naturally born into a sphere, which they must learn before moving on to others, and one can only learn the spheres directly to the side of what they were born in, but cannot learn from the two furthest away. Also, they cannot master any sphere but what they were born into; for instance, a Reinforcement user can learn Emission and Transformation, but to only half the skill that someone born into Emission or Transformation can learn them.



Reinforcement is a skill in which a user channels their Chi to augment their natural defenses and increase their strength.

Emission is a skill in which a user can 'project' their aura in the form of a weapon, such as a fireball or Chi ball.

Manipulation is the ability to control one's Chi outside of their body. For instance, if a character were to fight with a whip-like object, they could control the weapon like an extension of their own body by manipulating it through their Chi.

Materialisation is the ability to create physical objects and weapons with one's own Chi, such as creating an actual sword.

Transformation is the ability to change the properties of one's own aura. Shinobi use this skill to focus their Chi to their hands and feet and give it adhesive properties to aid in scaling walls, or give their Chi an 'elastic' property and attatch it to someone, now having the capability to pull them around by that Chi. Unless their Ren is stronger than that of the user's, they can not break it.

There is said to be a sixth sphere of sorts, Specialisation, in which a user can freely learn techniques from all spheres. You can not learn Specialisation; it is something that you must be born into by your bloodline. Specialists are extremely rare, perhaps even less than 1% of all fighters in Ameshima.