Aer is one of the fundamental parts of Unios. It was once thought of as the two distinct substances of “air” and “mana”, until Professors Ralph Wald and Amelia Weathers of the Imperial Institute of Natural Science discovered that the substances people breathed and used to power their magic were one and the same.
Aer is made up of six components: fire, water, earth, wind, shadow, and light. When broken up into those components, a small bit is leftover: pure aer, known as void.
People draw aer into themselves with a part of their brain called the Aer Cortex, then break it apart into those component pieces. They exhale all of the elements they have no use for, with the ones they retained powering their magic. People born without an Aer Cortex are said to have Aer Cortex Deficiency Disorder (ACDD).
Since ACDD was only recognized as a medical condition in the later 800s RD, until that point, people born incapable of using magic were referred to as "Dim" in the Nyrellan world and other non-animist nations. In animist majority nations, people with ACDD were—and still are, in some cases—referred to as "soulless," said to have been abandoned by the spirits that govern the world and are said to bless people with the gift of magic.
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