Mist resides in everything; every breath, every sword, every tree, animal and species of the planet. What differs between them are amounts, kinds and colours.

Mist represents power - energy - life. There is one fundamental part of mist that must be understood; it can never be created or destroyed - only transferred, morphed and changed.

Light Teal indicates mist from any living thing on the planet itself; the land, the animals, and the species. This Mist gathers whenever spells are cast, and are sent back into the soil afterwards. This is why Mages must be chosen with the utmost of care - they carry the balance of mist on the planet, from the Shakai'ana Ikasera to every day casting of spells.

Light gold indicates Mist of the Planet, the Ben-Navi and Scielans - the purest of all mist. This Mist is seen a lot less often, and is significantly more powerful than the basic mist. If light gold Mist is around, it would also indicate that a fairly large crystal is in the area.

These four spiritual entities are guardians of their own respective 'orb' of mist, created by the core, golden energy of the planet. True to their name and position of 'prophets' of the planet, they have incredible powers over even the little things in daily life. The Ben-Navi can take a semi-corporeal appearance on a rare occasion, and is incredibly selective on who will be granted audience - even the mere sight of them. Some say they take a humanoid shape, and some say that they appear as their natural form, as animals, in daily life.

Suzaku
The Vermillion Bird

Suzaku governs over the fire element, the direction of south, the season of summer and all winged creatures. Having been seen in a spiritual or physical form very rarely, this graceful creature's beauty comes in the form of large wings spanning hundreds of feet, and its whole body is made of hues of red, orange and yellow.

Suzaku's beauty can also be seen in the sunsets it brings in the southern sky - also known as the Sky of Suzaku. Elegant and noble, the Suzaku keeps the southern skies clear for travellers lost in the snow.

Seiryuu
The Azure Dragon

Seiryuu represents the wind element, the direction of east, the season of spring, and scaled creatures. Scattering the sky with clouds each day and guiding their way, some say that they have spotted Seiryuu, especially at night. Many captains of airships offer a prayer to Seiryuu for a safe journey, even for short-range cargo missions.

Byakko
The White Tiger

Byakko oversees the earth element, the direction of west, the season of autumn, and all furred creatures. Seen as the King of Beasts, all animals fall under his protection, and those who do purposeful or needless harm to animals must present offerings and repent to Byakko. It is said that Byakko will come to the rulers of the world once absolute peace has been attained, which is probably the reason the world has been overseeing a central government this past era.

Genbu
The Black Tortoise

Genbu controls the element of water, the direction of north, the season of winter, and all shelled creatures. Known to have a great serpent guardian around his realm deep within the northern waters, to see a water snake in a river or lake is seen as good luck. The least seen of all the Ben-Navi, the least is known about him.

Scielan - Although it sounds like 'silent' (although it could be taken that way - silently guarding the world blah blah): it's a mix of Elan and Scion. Elan is a part of the term Elan Vital, which is French for impulse of life or a vital force, and Scion which means child or descendant.

'Scielan' is what we call a Guardian Spirit; a being of great power called to assist a Conjurer or Summoner in battles, ceremonies, or anything else. 'Scielan' is term created by the first Summoners, the first ones to hear the voices of these great beings, and to call them to their side.

It is speculated that Scielans were once Hume, Viera or Elvaan, and their bodies reached Sanction. However, instead of dying or other grim results if they had lived through it, the Planet instead of allowing the person to die, infused that person with it's own Mist (which is coloured a light gold) instead of gathered Mist around and of the person at the time (which is coloured light teal). The pure mist of the Planet would be infused into their souls, and would elevate them to the purest state of anything living; a Scielan.

Their domain is on the largest of the Planet's three Moons, Mir-ja; the Moon's own mist keeps them anchored there, forever circling the planet - protecting it. Long ago it has been speculated, the Planet actually performed the first Summoning of the Moons to it's own Planetary gravity. Scielans, in a way, even forever protect the planet, in a summoning that is always active. This is why the Planet grants its mist to certain people - those special people protect the Planet for as long as they exist - for eternity.

Conjurers first learn how to open the gateway between the two realms, sustain for a brief period of time, then send the Scielan back. When a summoner, they learn how to open the gateway, sustain it for an indefinite amount of time, keep the Scielan's Mist levels normal, and send it back without harm to either the Summoner or Scielan.

These Scielan are, in order of those learned first (Mist Dragon) and last (Zodiark):

Mist Dragon - Non-elemental
Ifrit - Fire elemental
Ramuh - Thunder Elemental
Shiva - Ice Elemental
Fenrir - Earth Elemental
Trioch - Fire/Ice/Thunder Elemental
Unicorn - Healing Elemental
Madeen - Holy Elemental
Garuda - Wind Elemental
Hades - Dark/Status Elemental
Leviathan - Water Elemental
Phoenix - Life and Fire Elemental
Diablos - Gravity Elemental
Alexander - Holy Elemental
Anima - Pain/Shadow Elemental
Bahamut - Non-Elemental
Zodiark - All-Elemental

It can take any number of years to learn how to summon all Scielan in existence. Some have mastered the class at 30, and others at 50. It all depends on their development, mist capabilities, and physical endurance.

'Esper' is the term used for a Scielan who is trapped in the physical - or mundane - world. There is only one way in which this could happen, and that's if a Summoner died before he or she could send the Scielan back to their world - the energy is never transferred back.

So, the Scielan - now an Esper - will take on a hume shape, except it will keep some of their characteristics such as; fangs, eye shape and colour, skin colour, hair colour, horns, elbow spikes, etc. This is the reason they're mostly mistaken for Demons. The more time they spend in the mundane, physical world, the more those characteristics are diminished - and if enough time has passed, they will turn to more of a normal hume shape, and eventually fade away into nothing.

This is why a Summoner must be diligent in keeping their energy open and receptive to the golden mist. They would need to regularly manipulate the mist in their new bodies, for it is unnatural for a Scielan to be in this form. So an Esper would continually call out to any summoner near, and stay with the summoner until it is time for them to return to their natural state - before it's too late.

There are at least 20 Espers suspected to be in the mundane world at this time; since the mass banishment of mist around 100 years ago, only half of the estimated Espers have been sent back.

Some of the missing Scielan believed still to be Espers are: Valefor, Carbuncle, Syldra, Atomos, Asura, Ixion, Ultima, Sylph, and Kirin.

The ancient race of this world, having disappeared before the Common Era. Rumoured to have been in hume shape and size, no one can be sure, since not one has been seen in recent memory. The only 'sure sign' of what one might look like are in rare paintings and word of mouth, which both seem to contradict one another. The one thing that is basically accepted is that they reside on the largest, and highest, floating land.

Depending on the context, a Sanction can literally mean a punishment or a permission - a contronym. However here, it can be used in either, or both ways.

In the context of the world however, it's when Mist has overloaded the body, and the person's power is triple, even quadruple-fold. However, there is always a price with a Sanction. It can have many results, the most common of these is death, transformation, even complete incineration of the body. However, it has also been known to put people into comatose states, paralysis, or even complete loss of ability to wield Mist for the rest of their lives.

What is also effected by the Sanction is the area around the person in which it is happening. To a certain radius around the person, all life could either be eliminated or created, even destroying the land altogether, and all that stands on it.

Those of the common classes are not immune to this - every person on the planet is capable of Sanction. What is common in all cases is that either one could kill themselves, kill the enemy, even both.

Please refer to the Scielan section of this article to see the views on how they are created via Sanction.

These are all of the accessible spells within the White, Black, Blue, Red, Time, Arcane, and Green Mages. Keep in mind they go from first spells learned until the last, for the White and Black mages - they are usually older according to how long they've been studying magic and how many spells they know. For Blue Mages, they're organized alphabetically, and are randomly learned.

Cure - Portion of health is restored.
Poisona - Cures Poison.
Esuna - Cure all status ailments (except zombie and berserk)
Protect - Raise one ally's physical defense.
Raise - Revive ally with minimal HP.
Stona - Heals Stone/Petrification status.
Dia - Damages all undead enemies.
Dispel - Erases all beneficial magical effects from target
Shell - Raise one ally's magic defense.
Libra - Sees enemy health and magic status, sometimes also weaknesses and other info
Float - Causes target to Float, immunity from Earth attacks and weakens against Wind attacks.
Wall - Raises physical and magical defense.
Confuse - Cause one foe to confuse friend with foe.
Silence - Stops target from casting spells.
Haste - Haste speeds up an action of a character, allowing it to take more actions.
Reflect - Prevents spells from reaching the target, and bounces it back to the enemy party. If a mage from the same team casts a spell onto an ally with reflect, it will bounce onto the enemy, regardless if there's a reflect spell cast or not.
Regen - Regen allows characters to recover HP periodically until it wears off.
Arise - Revive ally with full HP
Holy - Strong Holy-elemental attack.

Fire - Fire-elemental attack. In rare cases cause Burn status effect.
Toad - Turn target to or from a Frog.
Blizzard - Ice-elemental attack. In rare cases cause Frozen status.
Poison - Damage one foe over time.
Thunder - Lightning-elemental attack. In rare cases can also paralyse for a brief time.
Break - Causes Petrify or Stone status.
Sleep - Puts target to sleep. Physical attacks nullify this, however magic does not.
Blind - Causes Blind status and lowers chances of physical damage.
Water - Water-elemental attack.
Drain - Transfer health from one foe to the caster.
Aero - Air-elemental attack. Stronger forms is called a Tornado.
Quake - Strong earth-elemental attack on all enemies. Can also petrify enemies.
Death - Reduce one foe's HP to 0.
Gravity - Target loses 1/4 to 1/3rd of HP. Can also nullify Float status.
Comet - Medium non-elemental attack.
Flare - Ultimate non-elemental attack.
Bind - Secures target in one position, restraining them from taking any kind of action. High level mages only use this one in extreme situations because it takes away the target's free will (if used on humes and hume-like races).
Meltdown - Causes a small amount of non-elemental damage and reduces Vitality for a limited time, making the target extremely vulnerable to physical attacks.
Doomsday - Meteors and asteroids collect together in space, and are brought down on the area, causing an extreme amount of heat, fire and dark elemental damage. Since this is a spell an Elementalist can learn, they can control it specifically to draw it towards the enemy and not the entire enemy (also hitting the mage's allies).

With this unique form of magic, instead of one spell at a time, down the list, these abilities are learned at random and at any rate. The Blue Mage's only requirement is to have seen it cast on an ally and/or having the spell used on them.

1000 Needles - A set amount of damage regardless of enemy defences.
Aqua Rake - Water-elemental attack on all enemies.
Bad Breath - Adds many status ailments to entire enemy party.
Condemned - Counter appears above target's head; when counter is at 0, target dies.
Fire Breath - Fire attack on one enemy.
Frog Song - Turns target into a sleeping Frog.
Goblin Punch - Physical attack which costs no MP.
Level ? Flare - All enemies are hit with a low-strength Flare spell.
Level ? Death - All enemies are hit with a death spell - however it depends on level of caster to what the result is.
Magic Hammer - Spell lowers target's magic.
Mighty Guard - Casts Protect, Shell, and sometimes Haste on the entire party.
Missile - Non-elemental damage.
Roulette - Randomly kills one fighter from either side (when cast in-game, will be decided by a roll of a dice).
Sacrifice - Completely removes caster from battle and completely heals one ally.
White Wind - Heals entire party of health based on caster's current or maximum health.
Nova - All enemy, highly rare skill; said to be a combination of light and dark elements.

As the combination of White and Black magic castes, the Red mage betrayed one side for another - usually having knowledge of both but excelling in none. This has earned them the colour of Red (instead of Gray initially) because this is a dangerous thing to do, and usually has brutal physical ramifications for the mage. However, this still makes the Red mage a skilled ally, despite their banishment of their original caste.

White
Cure - Portion of health is restored.
Poisona - Cures Poison.
Esuna - Cure all status ailments (except zombie and berserk).
Protect - Raise one ally's physical defense.
Raise - Revive ally with minimal HP.
Stona - Heals Stone/Petrification status.
Dia - Damages all undead enemies.
Dispel - Erases all beneficial magical effects from target
Shell - Raise one ally's magic defense.

Black
Fire - Fire-elemental attack. In rare cases cause Burn status effect.
Toad - Turn target to or from a Frog.
Blizzard - Ice-elemental attack. In rare cases cause Frozen status.
Poison - Damage one foe over time.
Thunder - Lightning-elemental attack. In rare cases can also paralyse for a brief time.
Break - Causes Petrify or Stone status.
Sleep - Puts target to sleep. Physical attacks nullify this, however magic does not.
Blind - Causes Blind status and lowers chances of physical damage.
Water - Water-elemental attack.

These classes are considered branched off from either the White or Black magic systems. Although they may have smaller repertoire to work with, their spells are considerably more powerful and concentrated than the standard White or Black mage. Those entering these off-shoots know of the trade off between quantity and quality, and have dedicated their lives to exploring these magics.

Haste - Haste speeds up an action of a character, allowing it to take more actions.
Slow - Slows down an action of a character, reducing the amount of actions it can do.
Stop - Stop prevents a character from taking action until it wears off.
Invisible - The character's evasion rises.
Disable - Disable prevents a character from taking an action, but they can still move.
Regen - Regen allows characters to recover HP periodically until it wears off.
Warp - Transports a person from one location to the other, in-battle or not. Distance depends on the power of the caster.
Immobilize - Immobilize prevents a character from moving, but can still take other actions.
Gravity - Target loses 1/4 to 1/3rd of HP. Can also nullify Float status.
Reflect - Prevents spells from reaching the target, and bounces it back to the enemy party. If a mage from the same team casts a spell onto an ally with reflect, it will bounce onto the enemy, regardless if there's a reflect spell cast or not.
Float - Causes target to Float, immunity from Earth attacks and weakens against Wind attacks.
X-Zone - Sends all targets temporarily into nothingness.
Meteor - Strong, gravity and non-elemental, multi-target and multi-strike damage (as compared to the Black Mages' Comet, which is only non-elemental).

Dark - Deal moderate dark damage to all foes in range.
Venom - Strong attack, adds Poison status.
Confuse - Cause one foe to confuse friend with foe.
Gravity - Target loses 1/4 to 1/3rd of HP. Can also nullify Float status.
Decoy - Cause one ally to be the target of all foes.
Drain - Transfer health from one foe to the caster.
Syphon - Transfer MP from one foe to the caster.
Vanish - Render one ally invisible.
Death - Reduce one foe's HP to 0.
Bubble - Double max HP of one ally.
Scourge - High level dark elemental attack. Seeps into the enemy and explodes in dark tentacles, also inflicting Sap, which slowly drains HP away.
Berserk - Cause one ally to mindlessly attack with weapon in hand. This spell is rarely attained and hard to remove, along with Bubble.

Protect - Raise one ally's physical defense.
Blind - Causes Blind status and lowers chances of physical damage.
Poison - Damage one foe over time.
Shell - Raise one ally's magic defense.
Silence - Stops target from casting spells.
Might - Increases attack power of one or more allies.
Sleep - Puts target to sleep. Physical attacks nullify this, however magic does not.
Wall - Raises physical and magical defense.
Oil - Increase fire damage dealt to all foes in range.
Toxify - Damage all foes in range over time.
Bravery - Increase one ally's physical attack damage by 50 - 70%.
Faith - Augment one ally's magick by 50 - 70%.

{These songs are generally learned from top to bottom, unless however they're taught from bard-to-bard, which is a very common practice.}

Alluring Air - Casts Confuse on all enemies
Romeo's Ballad - Casts Stop on enemy
Hero's Rime - Increases party stats
Sinewy Etude - Increases strength
Cantus Firmus - Increases defense.
Requiem - Damages undead enemies
Mana's Paean - Increases magic
Soul Etude - Restore HP and remove debuffs.
Rousing Melody - Increases speed
Magick Ballad - Restores MP.
Disenchant - Increases magic defense.
Seraphsong - Casts Regen on party.
Matador's Song - Increases evasion.
Nameless Song - Cause random buffs - has a chance of casting reraise, regen, protect, shell or haste.

{ These dances are learned one at a time, although in no particular order - it goes faster if another Dancer instructs them}
Jitterbug - Drain HP from enemy and give to self
Mystery Waltz - Drain MP from enemy and give to self
Tempting Tango - Cast Confuse on enemy
Darkness Dance -Cast Blind on enemy for length of dance
Samba of Silence - Cast Silence on enemy for length of dance
MP Mambo - MP cost for party is 0 for length of dance
Magical Masque - Party is invulnerable to magic attacks for length of dance
Sleepy Shuffle - Puts all enemies to sleep for length of dance
Carnival Cancan - Party's max HP is doubled for length of dance
Slow Dance - Cast Slow on all enemies for length of dance
Brakedance - Cast Stop on all enemies for length of dance
Jitterbug - Cast Haste on party for length of dance
Dirty Dancing - All allies' attacks are critical hits for length of dance
Polka - Lower target's attack power
Forbidden Dance - Cause various status ailments
Blade Dance - Attack twice
Sword Dance - Attack enemy for four times normal damage

Much has been speculated on the origin and the nature of 'Ultima', the ultimate magic.

Rumors from ancient times, before the coming of the Common Era, that the Ancients were planning to cast this particular spell, however there is no information if it was successful or cast at all.

Another rumor arose when Ajnnera went into Sanction, the mist around her body was gold, and not teal. Was it possible that the last magic she cast was Ultima before she died? Some black mages in the area swore it was a non-elemental attack, and that it made the mist in their bodes 'wake up'. It wasn't even a year until a new Scielan was found within the usual group which wasn't there before, and was first summoned around the place where Ajnnera died.

This is why it is speculated that Ultima, the High Seraph, was once Ajnnera.

Auracite is a crystal commonly used by the Aegyl race as a means to escape the hardships and effort needed in becoming a traditional summoner. Faced with such a short lifespan they began to harness the power of this crystal to summon creatures of similar nature to the Scielan which they call the Yahri, a transmogrified vision of what they believe the Scielan to look like created from thier own anima.

The Yahri's appearance and realm of influence are both created by the wielders vision of the original Scielan they wish to summon (e.g. If they wished to summon Ifrit, they'd create a creature of similar appearance that wielded fire), but because they aren't calling the original 'one and only' creature, this method paves the way to creating an entire frontline of Ifrits, Shivas and even Bahamuts. The Yahri carry the same mist wielding potential as that of the Scielan, but besides thier, somewhat more grotesque appearance, there is another major difference between the two. Unlike the Scielan, the Yahri have no moon to return to. Created from the soul of the summoner Aegyl, it's power quickly dissolves after its use, soon leaving it alone to wander the earth as an Esper that has nowhere to belong.

There are a lot of common misconceptions as to what kind of stone constitutes a Crystal and a gemstone.

There's a very simple way one can tell. Gemstones are much more common, and they're usually non-transparent. Crystals however are gemstones which have a higher or a certain amount of teal mist - and most of all, it can be clearly seen within and/or around the object at all times. The best type of common crystal is a quartz, where the mist is clearest of all.