Magic

From KanzakaDex

Magic in the Slayers world is somewhat different from the magic systems of other fantasy worlds. Although similarly to other realities, spell effects are achieved by manipulating an energy known as mana, in this world, spellcasters with no innate magic ability cannot access and control mana directly. Instead, casting a spell requires calling upon another entity with the ability to use such energies and "asking" it to lend some of its might. This does not need to be a specific creature, in many cases, a spiritual or natural force is a sufficient medium. Because of the unusual way of spellcasting, spell incantations are more like invocations rather than unintelligible phrases, making simpler magic accessible to almost everyone who can memorize a few lines of text and learn some simple mental exercises.

A spell in the Slayers world has two components:

• Chaos Words: Uttering these sentences takes up the most time while casting. The Chaos Words are different for each spell, (and the more powerful the spell, the longer the incantation) and usually contain the name(s) of the force(s) the caster calls upon and the basic declaration of the sorcerer's intent. The caster may skip this phase and only utter the Chaos Words mentally, but saying them aloud makes the casting easier.
• Power Words: Basically the name of the spell, which needs to be declared after chanting the Chaos Words. Once again, saying it aloud is not necessary, but doing so does not take as much time and makes controlling the spell easier. Some special spells, such as Boost, lack this component altogether.

Magic in the Slayers world can be put into four categories:

• Shamanistic magic: Spells that call upon the forces of nature and simple astral energies.
• Black magic: Offensive spells that utilize the power of mazoku.
• White magic: Spells that heal, protect and keep evil spirits away. Its power source is unknown, perhaps it is connected to astral shamanistic magic in some way.
• Holy magic: Spells that use the power of shinzoku.

An important aspect of spells is that most of them, with the exception of elemental (air, fire, earth and water) shamanistic magic, are mostly astral phenomena, and as such always deal damage in the astral side first, before manifesting its remaining destructive power in the physical world. (Meaning that the amount of destruction they cause on the astral side is inversely proportional to the amount of damage they can then deal in the physical world.) Because of this, creatures whose astral body is sealed off or missing are immune to most spells. However, objects which naturally lack astral bodies are affected by magic normally, as the spell's full destructive power manifests in the physical world in this case.