The Martial Path

The Martial Path allows mortals to harness the Energy of the Heavens (or Heavenly Energy) to nourish the body, making one stronger, faster, smarter, and healthier. Peak experts further learn to manipulate Heavenly Energy to perform acts such as stepping through the skies and controlling the elements.

State of Enlightenment
Serves as a state of mind, ideal for combat. While in the state, you can think more clearly, and act and react more quickly, letting you deal with high stress situations easier.undefined Demonstrating the Forms can help guide beginners to the state.undefined

State of Balance
"'Be aware of nothing, but awareness itself.' undefined"The first step in cultivating the Energy of the Heavens. By drawing in Heavenly Energy and making it your own, you change it. After absorbing it to the bodies limits, you brand it with your own essence, and it becomes Internal Energy, or Chi, and is stored in your core.undefinedundefined The quantity of Chi that can be stored in your core grows over time.undefined Apart from enhancing your body, absorbing heavenly energy also prolongs your lifespan. While normal humans usually live for around 80 years, Martial Warriors can live up to around 120 years, only showing signs of aging when nearing the end of their life.undefined Demi-humans have a higher limit on how much their bodies can absorb, but a lower limit on how much Heavenly Energy they can convert to Internal energy.undefined

Balance has nothing to do with morals. You can be imbalanced and good, or balanced and evil.undefined Animals naturally seek Balance, but humans must reach for it, struggle to hold it, and there has yet to be a single person who has truly mastered it. Morality is a human construct, Balance a natural one. All things in moderation.undefined

Insight
Insight is when a Martial Warrior suddenly gains an awareness of an ability or technique that they hadn't previously. It could be one that they have been trying to accomplish, but failed at before. Or it could be a spontaneous one that just came together in the moment.

Inspiration
When a blacksmith is working on a weapon, they could suddenly get an idea of how to either improve a previous creation or a brand new one that they hadn't before. This is similar to Insight, but is exclusive purely to the creation of weaponry.

Chi Skills
Chi skills are active abilities that Martial Warriors can use to improve their combat capabilities. Visualization is key to using Chi.
 * Honing: Creates an cutting edge on weapons.
 * Lightening: Decreases weight. Can be reversed to increase weight instead.
 * Reinforcement: Strengthens muscles.
 * Stability: Adjusts center of balance.
 * Amplification: Multiplies force.
 * Guiding: Corrects trajectory to thrown weapons.
 * Reverberation: Gives out shockwaves in attacks.
 * Deflection: Deflects attacks. It can also be reversed, causing attacks to be drawn to a target.
 * Healing: Accelerates the bodies natural healing processes at the expense of greater depletion of nutrients and fat stores. Regrowing limbs is also possible, but new nerves are extremely sensitive until they recover.
 * Sending: Every person has their own unique signature, a designation of sorts, and with familiarity or proximity, you can home in on someone’s specific signature and use it to Send them a message. undefined It takes more effort to speak and Send at the same time, as is Sending to multiple people at once.undefined
 * Cloud-Stepping: Allows the user to walk on the air creating footholds made of Chi.
 * Concealment: Utilizes Chi to hide one's presence. Concealment that only stops sound is called a Sound Barrier.
 * Scrying/Watching: Allows for the remote viewing or a target.
 * Listening: Allows for the eavesdropping on a target.
 * Oration: The usage speech to influence the emotions of those listening.

Aura
Aura is tied directly to emotion, it requires a build up and release of it through the surrounding Chi.undefined The basic Aura can only embolden allies and demoralize enemies. More advanced usage of Aura allows for the user to have targets feel the specific emotion that the user wants them to feel.

Natal Palace
The Natal Palace is an inner world and is normally required to become known as an Expert.

Domain
A Domain is an extension of the Natal Palace that affects the physical world. It is required to become known as a Peak Expert. There is a more advanced application of Domain called Domain Plating. This allows the user to coat an object with their Domain, giving it properties such as strengthening it, making it sharper, or redistributing its weight.undefined It is later explained that Domain Plating is actually the use of Strengthening on a Domain.undefined Rain later realizes that Domain Plating is used when Cloud-Steppingundefined

Blessings
Blessings are powers relating to the elements. When a Martial Warrior gains a Blessing, it is called an Awakening. They can be divided between three sub-classes: Primal, Auxiliary, and Esoteric.


 * Primal: This consists of the four elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.
 * Auxiliary: This consists of combinations of two Primal Blessings. Known Blessings are: Metal, Wood, Sand, Ice, Lightning, Cloud, and Smoke.undefined
 * Esoteric: This consists of any Blessings that do not belong to the first two categories. Known Blessings are: Space, Sound, and Sun.

Approximately one in ten-thousand Martial Warriors receive a Blessing.undefined Those who are Blessed with the one of the Primal Elements are also said to be particularly skilled with two specific Chi Skills, depending on what their Blessing is.undefined


 * Water: Deflection and Reverberation.
 * Air: Lightening and Guiding.
 * Fire: Honing and Amplification.
 * Earth: Reinforcement and Stability.

Spiritual Weapons
Spiritual Weapons play a vital role in ones Martial Path as it dictates their fighting style. As part of the ceremony to bind the weapon, the core becomes inherently linked whilst providing guidance on how to wield it. As a consequence, breaking a branded spiritual damages the core and their has only been one living Martial Warrior to have fully recovered.

Impartation
Impartation of Heavenly Energy is the theoretical ability for one Martial Warrior to share their knowledge and experience directly with another. It can be seen as one Martial Warrior directly giving another an Insight. So far, only Rain has ever demonstrated this ability.undefined

Trivia

 * Martial Warriors require two to five times more food than a normal commoner.
 * ruffwriter sometimes writes Resonate instead of Reverberate. He has later said that it should be Reverberate, not Resonate.
 * Cloud-Stepping is the Chi skill Martial Warriors look forward to learning most.undefined
 * Lightning is one of the most common Auxiliary Blessings, followed by Sand and Metal. In contrast, Light is one of the rarest, with one coming about every few millennia.undefined