Aura: the swordsman’s path

The Cord is the mage’s path. Aura is the swordsman’s: mana drawn into your body and out along your blade. Learn a breathing method, gather aura from real blows and a steady breath, and climb five stages, from a haze on your weapon to a presence that claims the ground you stand on. Anyone can walk it, with or without a Cord, and it mixes freely with spells.

Hollow Breath at Edge: a crystal blade of aura along the sword.

1. At a glance
2. Breathing methods
   1. What it is
   2. Where to find manuals
3. Gathering aura
4. The stages
   1. Glow
   2. Flow
   3. Edge
   4. Form
   5. Sovereign
5. Sword strings
6. The Master’s Arts
7. Momentum and openings
   1. Momentum
   2. Stance and finishers
8. Awakening
   1. What it is
   2. How to use it
   3. Tips and counterplay
9. The spellblade
10. Blade and spell together
    1. Aura marks
    2. Resonant Strikes
11. Breakthroughs
    1. How to get one
    2. Tips: if your rank seems stuck
12. The Aura page
13. Duels with a duelist
14. Aura-forged gear
15. Aura and other players
16. Looks, sound and settings
17. Where to train next

At a glance

Start	Read a Breathing Manual. Your first method brings the first stage, Glow
Aura weapons	Swords, axes, spears, the trident and the mace
Gather aura	Land full swings on real foes, or hold the breathing stance (sneak and stand still, blade in hand)
The Aura key (Z)	Sneak + press: guard (Flow). Tap: slash (Edge). Double-tap: step (Form). Hold: Dominion (Sovereign). Tap then hold: awaken (Edge)
Master’s Arts	U Spellcut (Edge), Y Rising Break (Form), J Driving Cut (Form)
Sword strings	Short runs of ordinary swings that set off your method’s arts. See Sword Arts
Grow	Fight. At each stage’s limit a breakthrough waits for a trial
See it	The aura bar over your spell panel, and the Aura page (the Aura badge in the Cord screen, K)

Related pages: Ways (chosen at Edge), Techniques of your own, The bonded blade, Sword Masters and their Master Forms.

Breathing methods

What it is

A method gives your aura its colour, its element and a small gift that grows with every stage. Your coated blows, slash and arts carry that element: they meet a creature’s weakness or resistance, and set off reactions (a frozen foe shatters under an Ember blade). There are 16 methods; add-ons can bring more. Every method’s arts, finisher and look are listed on Breathing Methods.

Method	Element	Gift
Ember	Fire	Coated blows may set foes alight (always from Edge)
Rime	Frost	Coated blows slow foes
Thunder	Storm	Coated blows may spark to the nearest other foe
Gale	Wind	A little more speed in a fight
Stone	Earth	Blows push you back less
Verdant	Life	Coated blows mend you a little
Hollow	Void	Foes near the one you strike are drawn toward it (never a boss)
Starlit	Arcane	Aura gathers faster
Hourglass	Time	A little more attack speed
Crimson	Blood	Coated blows drink a little, for a little more aura
Tide	Brine	Coated blows push foes back and soak them (fire out, a moment slowed)
Iron	Metal	Coated blows crack a foe’s armour for 3 seconds
Dune	Sand	Coated blows may throw grit in a foe’s eyes and blind it for a moment
Echo	Wind	Coated blows may ring again a moment later; from Edge the foe reels
Dawn	Arcane	Coated blows light foes up and burn the undead; from Flow they mend you a little
Venom	Life	Coated blows may leave a toxin that stacks; from Edge every blow does, and weakens

Where to find manuals

Breathing Manuals turn up where fighting is old:

• The Archive library and vault; every expedition’s vault (its own element); trial chambers (the vaults); stronghold libraries and ancient cities.
• Master weaponsmiths and master clerics sell one for emeralds and a book.
• Wandering duelists teach theirs to anyone who beats them (see below).
• Fallen knights drop Manual Pages: four pages of one method and a book make its manual.

Four pages of one method and a book: that method's manual.

Changing method: read another manual, then read it again to confirm. You keep your stage, but lose the aura you hold and your progress toward the next breakthrough.

Gathering aura

Aura is a pool that never fades. It holds 20 at Glow, 40 at Flow, 70 at Edge, 110 at Form and 160 at Sovereign.

• Full swings fill it. Land a full-strength swing on a real foe (a monster or an enemy player). Half-charged spam gives nothing, farming one spot gives less and less, and a Training Dummy gives only a quarter.
• The breathing stance fills it. Sneak and stand still with your blade in hand. A ring closes on the aura bar with each breath: release sneak and press it again as the ring closes for a bonus burst. Moving or being hurt breaks it. With a Cord you meditate for mana at the same time.
• A waterfall bank or exposed mountain summit makes the stance recover faster, and each full breath there teaches a little (inside the practice limit, see Breakthroughs). Stand on dry ground within three blocks of a falling column of water at least six blocks tall, or on open-sky mountain ground well above sea level with the land dropping away. A message tells you when the place counts.
• Running dry brings backlash. A technique you can’t afford spends what you have, then leaves you slowed and weakened for a few seconds. It never hurts you.

The aura bar: your stages, your aura in your method’s colour, and a gold mark at the slash’s price.

The stages

Each stage keeps everything below it. Your weapon and body show your stage for everyone to see: a haze at Glow, rippling light at Flow, a crystal blade from Edge, a mantle at Form and a burning corona at Sovereign.

Glow

• Aura Coat: while you hold aura, every blow of an aura weapon lands 10% harder in your element, for half a point of aura.
• Aura Sense: each breath in the stance outlines hostile creatures within 16 blocks, through walls, for you alone.

Flow

• Flowing Cut: every aura weapon sweeps, wider and further than a normal sword.
• Aura Guard: sneak and press the Aura key. It holds while you keep sneaking (two seconds at most) and halves blows and arrows from in front, paying aura for what it stops. Empty, it breaks with backlash.
• Perfect guard: raise it just as a blow lands. The blow is turned aside whole and the attacker staggers (a boss is only slowed), an arrow flies back, and a spell is parried, the same timing as a Shield parry.

Edge

• Crystal Edge: a block more reach, and a quarter of every coated blow goes through armour.
• Aura Slash: tap the Aura key to loose a crescent that cuts every foe in its path (up to 6, about 14 blocks) for a little more than your weapon’s damage. 12 aura, ready again in 2 seconds.
• Spellcut (U), your first Master’s Art.
• Awakening opens (see Awakening).
• The Edge breakthrough raises the Ways crossroads, and opens your first technique slot and the bonded blade.

Form

• Aura Step: double-tap the Aura key to dash about six blocks the way you’re moving (ahead if still). For its first moments nothing can touch you. It never passes through walls or into lava or fire. 12 aura, ready again in 2 seconds. From here a single tap waits a moment in case it’s a double-tap.
• Aura Armour: while you hold 20 aura or more, a shell takes a quarter of incoming harm (blows, arrows, spells, fire) for half a point of aura per point taken. It never spends you below 20. Falls, drowning and hunger aren’t covered. The visible shell flares during combat and Aura use, then fades at rest. Its protection stays active while you have enough Aura.
• Intent: hostile creatures within 8 blocks that are weaker than you (lower health, or a lower aura stage) are slowed and sometimes falter. Bosses never feel it.
• Aura Sense reaches 24 blocks and pulses on its own in a fight.
• Rising Break (Y) and Driving Cut (J).

Aura Step with Rime Breath: afterimages along the way.

Sovereign

• Dominion: hold the Aura key to claim ground about six blocks across for 8 seconds. Foes inside are slowed and hit 30% weaker, each blow you land inside chains to another foe there for half its damage, and your aura flows back twice as fast. 40 aura, rests a minute and a half.
• The Final Art opens (see Sword strings).

Dominion with Ember Breath.

Sword strings

Your ordinary swings are a language. Play a short string in time (a low swing, a leaping one, a counter after a perfect guard, a cut after a step) and your blade answers with an art. Every method plays the same strings, but each method’s arts do their own thing. The full list of strings, arts and their numbers is on Sword Arts.

Art	Opens at	String	Aura	Rest
First	Glow	swing, swing, low swing	6	3 s
Second	Flow	leaping swing, low swing	8	4 s
Third	Edge	a counter	8	4 s
Fourth	Form	a step cut	10	5 s
Final	Sovereign	full, full, full, low, at the peak of momentum	40	30 s

Each art has a short windup: its price is paid when it starts, and if you take damage before it lands the strike is lost (the price and rest stay spent). How arts look and move is on Combat presentation.

Kindling Draw, Ember Breath’s First Art.

The Master’s Arts

Three committed sword techniques on their own keys, shared by every method. Rebind them under Options > Controls > Key Binds > Wildercord: Master’s Arts.

Art	Key	Opens at	Aura	Rest	What it does
Spellcut	U	Edge	14	3 s	Severs up to 3 hostile bolts flying at you from in front, and slashes nearby foes
Rising Break	Y	Form	20	5 s	Wears extra stance and lifts ordinary foes
Driving Cut	J	Form	18	4 s	A committed 5-block thrust. If it damages a player holding a spell (absorption counts), it breaks the spell and seals their casting for 1 second. Held spells then can’t be interrupted again for 8 seconds

Spellcut (the U art) is not the same as Spell Cut, the timed sword swing an Ember teacher can teach you after an Ember Master clear. See Spell Cut.

You need an aura weapon in hand. Each has a short windup and a recovery: the aura is paid at the start, and taking damage during the windup cancels the strike. You can’t stack another swing, Aura action or spell on top of it.

Momentum and openings

Momentum

Momentum is the thin line under your aura bar. Clean play fills it: full swings that land, arts that land, perfect guards, stepping through an attack, breaking a stance and landing a finisher. Hits you take knock some off, and it drains a few seconds after the fight goes quiet.

Tier	At	Arts cost	Arts strike	Stance worn
1	25	10% less	5% harder	10% faster
2	50	15% less	10% harder	20% faster
3	75	20% less	15% harder	30% faster
Peak	95	25% less	20% harder	45% faster

At the peak the line turns gold and your Final Art opens. A Final Art waits for the peak, and playing it spends 40 momentum. (If a server switches momentum off, a Final Art waits for a full aura pool instead.) Most methods build fastest on foes in the state their own arts leave them in (Ember on burning foes, Rime on frozen ones, Tide on soaked ones, and so on); Echo, Dawn and Venom have no favoured state and build the same on any foe. It can’t be farmed: foes that can’t fight back give nothing, and a training dummy gives less and stops just short of tier 3 (74). Only the practice room lets dummies carry you to the peak.

Stance and finishers

Every foe has a stance: a thin bar over its head that fills as you wear it down. Blows wear it, arts twice as fast, a perfect guard a third at once, and Stone most of all. It recovers if you back off.

When it breaks, the foe is opened for a few seconds: it staggers, and a cracked gold seal beats over its head. Your next full swing on it is your method’s finisher: the blow plus about a third of what the foe has already lost (at most four times your blade’s damage), aura back, and momentum. Then the foe stands steady for a moment.

• Bosses have far more stance and recover fast. Opened, they are only slowed, take a smaller finisher, and grow steadier each time they break.
• Players have a stance too. No blow wears more than a third of it, an opened player is only slowed and loses their guard for a moment, and finishers on players are capped. Never a one-shot.

Awakening

What it is

From Edge, with a full pool and a good fight going, you can burn everything at once: 12 seconds at Edge, 16 at Form, 20 at Sovereign at your strongest, then a price.

How to use it

Tap the Aura key, then press and hold it until the ring round your crosshair closes. You need:

• your aura pool full (95% is enough),
• momentum at half or more,
• an aura weapon in hand, and the last awakening’s rest over.

A small flame after the stage diamonds glows when you can. While awakened:

• your arts cost nothing, and momentum is held at its peak (so the Final Art is open at Sovereign);
• coated blows land 15% harder, and you move and swing 10% faster;
• each finisher adds a second (four at most);
• at Sovereign, Dominion becomes your method’s own: half again as wide and as long, foes hit 40% weaker, chains to two foes.

When it ends, your aura burns away, momentum empties and you are spent for 30 seconds: slowed and gathering no aura at all. With an empty pool you have no coat, guard, slash, step, armour or arts. The next awakening waits three minutes from the end of the last. Dying ends it.

The moment of awakening, Ember Breath at Form.

The aura bar ready, awakened, spent, and resting.

Tips and counterplay

• Awaken to finish a fight, not to start one. A spent swordsman is easy prey for half a minute.
• Against players an awakening is modest: its extra damage is capped like aura’s other bonuses, and its holds are as short as any art’s.

The spellblade

From Edge, cast a spell while sneaking with your blade in hand and the spell flows into the blade instead of leaving. Your next Aura Slash within 5 seconds carries it: the spell lands on the first few foes the slash cuts, or bursts where the slash breaks. You pay both the spell’s mana and the slash’s aura. If you don’t slash in time, the spell leaves as normal. Self spells, secret spells and overchannelled spells never ride a blade.

Blade and spell together

Aura marks

A coated blow or slash sometimes leaves its element’s reaction mark on a foe for a mage to set off (15% at Glow, 5% more each stage). A method never sets off its own mark.

Resonant Strikes

Land elemental spell damage and a full coated swing, slash or art on one foe within about a second for a Resonant Strike.

Breakthroughs

How to get one

You grow by landing full swings on real foes, more when you’re in danger and against bosses or stronger foes. At a stage’s limit the next diamond on the aura bar pulses gold and a breakthrough waits. Reach the total experience, then pass one trial:

Next stage	Total experience	Trials (any one)
Flow	450	Stillness: 30 seconds of breathing stance where ley lines cross, or at a qualifying waterfall or summit. Stronger foe: fell a boss, Runebound or a foe with twice your health with blade and aura only, within 60 seconds
Edge	1,800	The same as Flow
Form	5,400	Tempest: 45 seconds of stance at a ley crossing in an open-sky thunderstorm. Guardian: fell a boss with blade and aura only within 3 minutes. Duel: beat a wandering duelist without magic
Sovereign	13,500	Tempest for 60 seconds, the guardian trial, or the duel

Any spell of yours touching a trial foe spoils the trial. See Ley Lines. A formal disciple can also break through by knocking out their own master in a spar, up to one stage below the master (see Sparring and Lineage).

Tips: if your rank seems stuck

• The experience bar waits for the trial. More fighting won’t push past it.
• Training Dummies, the practice arena and waterfall or summit breathing share a 40 experience lifetime practice limit. If you stall around 40, fight real hostile foes. Animals and pets teach nothing.
• Only full swings with your own aura weapon count. The breathing stance restores aura but gives no experience.
• Open the Cord screen (K) and choose Aura: hover the experience line for the rules.

The Aura page

Open the Cord screen (K) and click the Aura badge (it’s there even without a Cord). Tabs:

• Aura: your method, stage, pool, next breakthrough and its trials, and every technique.
• Sword strings: your arts, their strings, prices at your momentum, and your finisher. Click a method’s colour to browse it.
• Way: the Way tree.
• Writing: techniques of your own.
• Blade: your bonded blade.

Duels with a duelist

Wandering duelists teach their method to anyone who beats them. Use one with a blade in hand, then use it again within ten seconds to accept.

• It meets you at your stage and has a tell for every move: a raised guard (from Flow), a blade held high before a slash (from Edge), a low crouch before a dash (from Form).
• Nobody dies. A beaten duelist yields; if you fall you’re knocked out on one heart and restored. Leaving forfeits; after five minutes it’s a draw.
• Winning teaches its method (or gives its manual if you already have one), a little experience and a Grimoire entry. Winning without magic counts as a Form or Sovereign trial.
• Lose, and it waits half a minute before you can try again.

Aura-forged gear

Fallen knights sometimes drop an Aura Shard. At a smithing table it forges a diamond or netherite weapon with a reagent. The weapon keeps its damage, enchantments and durability, and gains a gift:

Forging	From	With	Gift
Lumenedge	Sword	Lumen Antler	More aura from every blow
Skyrend Glaive	Spear	Fulgurite Shard	A stronger, longer, wider Aura Slash
Bulwark Maul	Axe	Geode Grit	A much cheaper Aura Guard

More on these on Weapons.

Lumenedge

Skyrend Glaive

Bulwark Maul

The Breath Sash goes in the Tome of the Fifth Page slot (or your off-hand with that slot empty). It holds a quarter more aura, and your breathing stance settles twice as fast and breathes in half again as much. A swordsman’s choice against a fifth spell.

The Breath Sash.

Aura and other players

• Aura blows are ordinary blows, so armour counts. What aura adds against a player is capped and scaled like a spell’s bonuses, and the slash meets spell defences in full.
• Intent only presses on a player with a lower stage. A player inside a foe’s Dominion is weakened and slowed less than a creature.
• A held guard halves a slash from in front; a perfect guard sends it back.
• Two slashes meeting break together, or lock into a timed clash (see Sparring and Lineage).
• Teams and the server’s PvP rule are respected.

Looks, sound and settings

Your blade leaves trails cut the way you swung, your body shows your stage and flares in a fight, full swings land with a short hit-stop, and techniques name themselves in a banner. Each method has its own colour and sound. In first person, nothing fills the middle of your screen.

All of it can be tuned in Magic visual settings (assign it a key in Minecraft’s Controls): blade trails, body aura, impact, banners, camera motion and reduced flash. See Combat presentation.

Glow to Sovereign in a fight (Ember, Rime, Thunder, Verdant, Hollow).

Where to train next

• Sword Masters: duel the Masters for techniques and Master Forms.
• Marchkeeper battlefields: histories and technique intents.
• Sword Tombs: intent gates and the Buried Keeper.
• The Sleeping Blade: Oathkeeper, from Form.
• Highland Beasts: foes that resist spells and reward a blade.