Aura Manipulation is an extremely powerful, complex, and versatile ability that allows its users to read, copy and enhance aura.
Description
Aura Manipulation grants the user the ability to manipulate their own aura by using channels to copy one's ability as well as combine multiple abilities to unlock new variations and attacks.
Usage
- Ability Replication: By sampling the aura of another active ability user, users of Aura Manipulation are capable of mirroring another ability and use all techniques associated with said ability. The more complex the ability, the more difficult it will be to imitate.[1]
- Multi-Power Usage: Whenever users of Aura Manipulation copy multiple abilities, they are capable of using them simultaneously. However, there appears to be a limit to this, as shown when John was unable to use Barrier during his final battle against the Wellston Royals.
- Ability Combining: Users of Aura Manipulation can combine attributes of multiple abilities to create powerful attacks.
- Aura Reading: Thanks to his ability's passive effect, John can naturally sense auras from activated abilities. Not only can John use this passive without activating his ability, but he can also detect the intensity of auras and properties of auras. This was first shown when he sensed and detected the invisible assailant following him and Seraphina.[2] The second time was when he sensed Elaine's aura getting weaker than usual.[3]
- Ability Amping: By altering the aura flow within his body, John can increase the intensity of a copied ability, amping the main stat. This allows John to have access a boosted version of the copied ability and grants him more destructive power overall.
Strengths and Limitations
Unlike most abilities with set strengths and weaknesses, the strengths and weaknesses of Aura Manipulation vary extensively. Whenever an Aura Manipulation user copies an ability, they gain all the advantages and disadvantages of the copied ability. With intensive practice, Aura Manipulation users can also manipulate their natural aura flow and increase the intensity of a copied ability that surpasses the power of its original users, as shown with John’s Demon Claw and Whirlwind,[4] his Healing,[5] and his Energy Beam, an ability which Blyke has yet to completely master during that time.[6] High-tier users possesses a passive in the form of Aura Reading which is similar to how Lightning users can detect electrical currents.
Aura Reading allows the Aura Manipulation user to sense whenever abilities are being used near them, even through walls.[7] This makes it impossible for anyone who relies on their ability for stealth to sneak up on them, at least within the range limit. Aura reading can also sense abilities' stats and properties which is useful to strategize attacks.[8] Besides copying and boosting abilities, Aura Manipulation can copy and combine multiple abilities at once. Copying multiple abilities allows Aura Manipulation users to use multiple abilities simultaneously and perform numerous combination attacks that are impossible with one ability. Thanks to its versatility, Aura Manipulation can easily compensate for the weakness of one ability with the strengths of another.
Aura Manipulation users who are of a high enough level have shown an unexpected resistance to the effects of the Ability Disabler, a feat not possible even for higher level users of other abilities. They are able to exercise very minor bursts of enhanced strength. What's more, the effects of the Recovery Machine appear to be longer lasting, if not permanent, when used on Aura Manipulation users. These attributes led to the discovery of a permanent cure made from John's blood.
Aura Manipulation has recently exhibited a basic strength enhancement without the need to sample the aura of other ability users, allowing users to have a little more room for self-reliance and offsetting the ability's biggest weakness.
Weaknesses
Despite the versatility and nearly unlimited potential that Aura Manipulation possesses, the dependency on access to other abilities has remained a consistent downside. Much of the initial mastery process is academic, putting users who don't do research on abilities at a disadvantage.[9] Aura Manipulation users cannot copy abilities via passives alone.[10] Any abilities used outside of Aura Manipulation's sensory range cannot be sensed nor copied.[11]
Even at levels as high as 7.5, users of Aura Manipulation are essentially powerless cripples until an active ability to copy is available. It is also shown that users attain the downsides of copied abilities, as shown when Seraphina's kidnappers rammed a van into John's Barrier, causing him to reel in pain.[12] In addition to copying abilities, Aura Manipulation copies the stats of the ability's original user as well, making John's stats almost entirely dependent on who he copies his abilities from. All benefits copied abilities are also temporary, becoming lost as soon as Aura Manipulation is deactivated. This is best shown when comparing John's stats during his first battle against Arlo and his stats during his first attack as ʎɐpsǝn┴.
It takes twice the amount of aura to maintain an amped ability compared to the original source. If Aura Manipulation users do not put focus on improving their aura supply during ability training, they run a greater risk of wearing themselves out in battle. Even with vast aura supply, one must have precise control over their channels in order to juggle multiple abilities effectively in battle.[13]
It was speculated by Isen that abilities without a physical plane might be impossible to copy, at least for John at his most powerful. Those abilities are purely mental in nature, lacking in visual feedback, such as Flash Forward[1][14], however it is far more likely that abilities that are just much more complex in nature are more difficult to copy, as stated by Claire when describing John's limitations. There also appears to be a limit on how many abilities that a user can copy. In Chapter 155, despite Arlo activating his ability, John never used Barrier throughout the duration against the Wellston Royals on the battle, implying that he was only able copy four abilities at the time or couldn't copy as many high-leveled abilities. Furthermore, it is also implied that John cannot simply discard an ability in order to copy a new one to replace it. To remove any copied abilities, John must deactivate his own ability, discarding all copied abilities.[15]
It has also been shown that if a copied ability is at a far higher level than the user, than they may not be able to fully replicate it or utilize all of its applications. This is shown during John's battle with Liam when the former was at half-strength, where John stated he couldn't use his water-form or make his ice as dense as the original.[16]
Additionally, the oft-mentioned reliance on someone to copy can prove detrimental when faced with a large number of elite opponents without a single particularly strong ability. Such teamwork can give John trouble even when he already copied a powerful selection of abilities, and it doesn't give him any option to tip the scale.[17]
Not even the emergence of a constant strength boost allows a user to completely disregard the need to copy effective abilities when faced with the above circumstances.
Notes & Trivia
- Aura Manipulation is the first instance of an ability with multiple auras of different colours. The aura of the ability itself matches the colour of the John's glowing eyes, while the replicated abilities and constructs associated with the ability matches the colour of the John's hair.
- Aura Manipulation is unofficially classified as a "Meta-Ability" by the Wikia editors.
- A WEBTOON-sponsored YouTube video about John's ability utilized that same classification.
- Given John's lineage, an Aura Manipulation user with high potential able to master his ability is likely capable of becoming a user of Channel Master.
- During UnORDINARYs conception, John was going to remain powerless throughout the story, but after Chapter 2, Uru-chan began to plan for John's powers.
Ability Mimicry, as it appeared on Line Webtoon's Fast Pass ad.
- Before John's ability was revealed to be Aura Manipulation, Ability Mimicry was used as a placeholder name for John's unnamed ability. Before revealing the ability's true name in Chapter 148, the name Ability Mimicry was used in a Fast Pass ad.
- This ability's canon name would not be revealed until Chapter 148, 93 chapters after it's initial debut.
- Despite what John's perspective appears to indicate, aura isn't actually visible to high-tier users of this ability. Rather, the Aura Reading passive utilized one of the other senses.[18]
- It was later retconned that none of the five basic senses play a role in the passive.[18]