Malina turned her back toward the desk and scanned it over. Nothing to use there. "Uh, yeah," she began, half distracted as she went around the desk and reached into the drawers, eventually finding a small trashcan under the desk with an old discarded can and placing it on the desk. "I'll be using this to demonstrate a part further along." She said as she patted the top of the can.
"In the meantime, I'll start from the beginning. This process is very heavily based in meditation and focusing attention inward, both toward your own self and your aura. As far as I'm aware the process originated from southern Anima many, many years ago. In Mistral's history, there was at least one self-proclaimed "God-emperor" near the founding of the kingdom that is speculated to have been an aura master. Tales from different settlements dotting the southern region point to the actual process existing well before the founding of any kingdom though." Her eyes scanned the room, most were paying attention, a few were even taking notes. This felt... Nice? Nice.
"To get into the actual process, it all starts with meditation. Now, any type of mediation will do fine as long as you turn your attention inward with minimal outward distraction, I personally use a shower to clear my thoughts. Once you're in whatever meditative state you want to be in, you have to turn your complete and entire focus inward, on yourself." Malina paused for a moment and ran her finger along the rim of the can. "There won't be any immediate gratification. There won't be any gratification for weeks, maybe even months. This is anything but a quick process. You'll feel stupid for akng time, feel like you're not accomplishing anything. Banish those thoughts." Malina echoed her professor. "They're only there to dissuade you. After a while you might begin to notice something. A small, indescribable, shapeless mage in your mind's eye, something unique to everyone, just like our semblances. You can't do anything with it yet but you must turn all attention on it, observe it, watch it grow. Eventually, you'll be able to see parts of it that, for all intents and purposes, parts of you. Memories, emotions, little habits. They all gather together to form this shapeless form."
"That shapeless, indescribable thing is our soul, or at the very least it's the closest we can get to it. After observing it for a suffiencent amount of time, we can begin to break it, to be blunt. You have to focus in on it and, as hard as you can, imagine a part of it being destroyed, a part of your life being gone forever. It doesn't matter what part you imagine, no one has any control over what gets taken. Comfort, forgiveness, happiness," Malina hesitated for a split second, "pride. Whatever gets taken is always something we enjoy. You can love yourself and it'll take your ability to love or you can love to hate and it'll take your ability to hate. That part of you gets broken down, shredded, and cast away and in the empty space it leaves in your shapeless image? Aura. Just like building muscle, this doesn't completely remove whatever part of you gets damaged, the aura that takes its place, the temporary aura, lasts about eight hours before it fades away. Once it fades away, or gets broken away, that part of you returns."
"Truth be told, you won't really notice any negative effects for a long time. Like I said, it's a long and painful process. You start small, you'll only be able to focus long enough to take away little chips here and there and replace them with meager aura but eventually, after years of practice and study, you'll be able to temporarily remove an entire part of you and double your defensive aura. I can currently give myself some here between a twenty-five and thirty percent boost in aura on a given day, the numbers get fuzzier as they get higher." Malina paused once more and took her finger off the can. "Like I said, I started between my third and fourth year at Beacon, four years ago. Most people who go through the process and take it seriously should be able to double their aura by now but I'm only meditating for five minutes a day due to... Ehh.. Work. That coupled with certain warnings I'll give at the end, it'll be a while before I can double my aura." Malina paused again, this time letting room for any questions.