The Brightest Shadow: Sein

(This is the third in my series of worldbuilding posts for The Brightest Shadow.)

If you ask one warrior about sein, they will give you a confident answer about what exactly it is. Ask one from another culture and you'll get another answer. Sein involves power, but warriors can't even agree on exactly what kind of power. Some focus on their bodies, some on their natural energy, some on arts that even sein-trained warriors consider mystical.

Most agree on the basics: sein is the strength of a warrior's beliefs and experiences. Though it can be used to fuel many abilities, it cannot be exchanged because sein is always unique to the individual. Its character varies from person to person and even year to year within one person. Some plants and animals possess sein, but their alien natures render it unusable to humans or mansthein (though derivatives are potentially useful).

Though sein flows through everyone, perceiving it is neither natural nor easy. For that reason, gaining awareness of sein is a common early form of training in nearly every tradition.

Most people gain an awareness of sein through a single sense: it might taste like mint, sound like the wind, or smell like their home. Once this awareness is consistent, they can use it to control and increase the flow of sein within themselves, granting access to abilities that would otherwise be impossible. This is only the first step along the path, however.

As warriors gain a deeper understanding of themselves, they achieve a richer perception of sein. Though total quantity of sein does increase, in early development it is more important to increase awareness to access sein that already exists. Most cultures on the Chorhan Expanse have a concept of five senses, and this does cover a large portion of sein, but it's not comprehensive. Almost all traditions say that the final stage of sein awareness is incomparable to any normal sense.

Though sein can be inefficiently drawn to increase strength or speed, effective use recognizes differences between different senses. Tasting sein is commonly associated with techniques of speed, for example. So a warrior that can smell and feel sein will be very different from one who can taste and hear it.

A wider understanding of sein is less about increased power than increased flexibility. Masters draw on not a single flow of power, but weave together many disparate elements. Exactly how accurate any given system of categorizing it is a matter of much debate.

Sein is not a single path and cannot be reduced to universal stages, but it is possible to speak in general terms. One culture uses the concept of the "mountains of mastery" that divides development into four broad stages.

Trained fighters know how to use their equipment, have basic discipline, and possess a limited awareness of sein. They may use sein subconsciously to slightly boost their strength, or they might know a trick or two. A trained warrior would usually defeat an untrained warrior in a fight, but they're not a decisive force on a battlefield.

• All sentient life possesses sein regardless of awareness of it, and it does have a lesser impact subconsciously. Depending on culture and traditions, it is possible for warriors who haven't trained in sein itself to equal lower "trained" levels of strength or speed.

Warriors have a solid awareness of their own sein developed into a set of basic techniques. Exactly what these techniques are varies from culture to culture, but the end result is unquestionable superiority to those with untrained sein. Warriors can potentially face many untrained soldiers or several trained fighters at once.

• The standard Towd Catai form grants abilities that are near the peak of the warrior path, thus rendering them invulnerable to most lesser warriors. They don't equal the expert path, though of course any individual Catai could have developed further.
• Characters like Tani and Slaten are near the beginning of the warrior path as of the first book. Veron is near the peak, but held back by uneven training.

Experts understand their sein on a deep level and have polished many techniques. Whereas warriors might lack abilities in certain areas, experts usually have a comprehensive set of skills and significant experience. Ascending the expert path involves coming up against limits of physics instead of sein, so experts must fundamentally transform themselves both physically and spiritually.

• Teralanth divides the scale differently, categorizing warriors into a new tier when they become strong enough to serve as individuals instead of in a military unit. Terms like Bastion and Cyclone are roles instead of ranks, but they'd generally be categorized as higher warriors or lower experts.
• "Master" is a common term of respect in many cultures for those who teach, but most would be categorized as experts on this scale.

Masters have reached the end of all rigid paths. Their development may reshape what previous stages consider to be rules, delving deeper into themselves in complex ways. Though everyone acknowledges sein to be a natural part of life, masters possess strength that even trained warriors might call superhuman.

Sein is deeper and stranger than most are aware. For example...

Voidlinks are a form of technology with unclear origins, impacting sein despite being inanimate objects. Someone who breaks a voidlink can move between two points nearly instantly, as trained Voidwalkers can, but this process cannot be done safely without prepared sein in the individual as well. Many cultures lack a theory of sein that can explain this at all.

Instantaneous travel is one of the core strengths upon which the mansthein empire is built, allowing for the coordination of large armies over multiple continents. They do not have a monopoly on voidlinks, however, and there are other ancient technologies of which they are completely unaware.

This has been a brief introduction to sein. There are cultures that ignore internal awareness to focus on the body, some that forge themselves into material objects, and others with stranger views yet...