Fragment taken from the Magical Encyclopedia - A prologue about Magic.

Magic is a spiritual power that alters mana into a form that has an effect in reality.

The mana is altered by passing through the gate of an user in order to transform it for its intended use.

Mana is the spiritual energy that permeates the world. It exists naturally in the atmosphere and it’s constantly being renewed by means of mana spaces in specific places from which it is periodically released. It is not clear how these spaces came to be and how they possses such high quantities of mana, but the release period is something that has already been very well investigated and often used to its advantage. It is theorized that mana spaces are actually just reserves to where the excess mana produced by the world goes to, thus possibly explaining the reason they have a filling and then release period.

To utilize magic the user concentrates in gathering mana, being from an internal reserve or from nature, and passes it through one of their gates in order to produce an effect. To gather mana it is necessary a high level of concentration and mental ability, as well as to alter it into its desired form.

Magic casters need a strong life force to do this process. People with a weak life force who try to use magic, especially that of high mana consumption, are in danger of death. Less than one percent of humanity is believed to have no magic ability at all, due to lacking the gates and magic veins necessary to process mana into magic.

Magic does not require incantations, though their effects are more powerful if it’s combined with words. A vivid imagination as well as knowledge of the intended magic’s nature is all that is necessary to conjure it.

Humans possess nine gates from which mana can pass through. For every gate that the mana passes through, the magic becomes more refined and powerful, though it takes more time and it’s more difficult to keep the concentration for it.

Magic is divided in five big types or categories: elemental magic, life magic, illusion magic, summoning magic and enchants.

Elemental magic is divided in four elements: fire, earth, wind and water. These four types of magic can also be manipulated and transformed. Such as earth being able to control unrefined metal at its lowest and pure metal at its highest, wind transforming in lightning, water in ice, and fire in blue or purple flames, able to consume everything.

Life magic includes two important and very distinct types of magic: light and dark. Light magic is used for healing, calming and growing plants. Dark magic is used for manipulation and energy drawing.

Illusion magic creates visual and auditory illusions. The illusions, however, possess no mass and are unable to be touched. More advanced illusion magic can cast illusions deep into a person’s mind, inducing them in a dream-like state where their five senses are controlled, and from which they can only wake up if the user releases the magic or the person under it can get out of it on its own. Especially powerful mages with illusion affinity, or the naga, who are known to be very good at it, can break the mind of their target easily enough.

Summoning magic relies in the use of magical contracted beasts to do their bidding. It’s especially taxing as the beast consumes mana directly from the caster as long as it's active, so only people with big mana reserves can use it.

Enchants are all types of magic that do not enter into a specific category, such as enhancements, charms, scry and all byproducts of alchemy.

Magic users are divided in two categories: internal mana users and spirit users. Mana users draw mana directly from their internal reserves, while spirit users utilize the mana in the atmosphere with the aid of contracted spirits to process magic directly.

It’s important not to confuse spirit users with those who use summoning magic, as beasts and spirits are two distinct creatures, and the nature of their contracts is different. It’s also worth mentioning that internal mana users can draw mana from the atmosphere in their own if they’re in need of more mana for their spells, though it’s more taxing on them and their gates than for spirit users, who utilize spirits as their gates. Therefore, it is advised that weak magic users or those who are beginning to learn magic refrain of drawing mana from other places than their own internal reserves.

Lastly, while not everyone is able make contracts with spirits, meaning not all internal mana users are spirit users, all spirit users are also internal mana users. Then, mages can also be divided according to which of the five types of magic they have more affinity for, but this does not mean in any way they can't be proficient in other types of magic, although for normal people it is limited to two at most, with elemental magic being the most common for humans to have, followed by life, enchant, illusion, and finally summoning. Only some descendants of the Magi, the original tribe of humans that first used magic, are able to control most, if not all, types of magic.