Basic system: affinities and attunements. 

the tiers of affinities are tiny, small, basic, moderate, large, strong, greater, mighty, bright, severe, extreme, critical, and blind. there is more after that, but at that point they are basically magic-born, those have a completely different ranking. no, i do not have ironed out that yet, i will come up with names later, if I feel like it. These stories are about side characters, not the heroes. Heroes are the ones with such power.

most mages only have a moderate or rarely large affinity or attunement, anything above large is extremely rare.

attunement's how much mana you have, affinity's how easily a certain type of magic comes to you. There is an enormous variety of affinities out there, the classic six, (earth, air, fire, water, light, dark) as well as some less common ones (sound, wood, metal, blood, mind, positive, negative) and just about any other kind you can think of. even an amazing affinity does not mean a talent for magic, however, as below strong affinity all your mana comes from your attunement. Starting at strong, however, you will generate tiny amounts of mana that are specific to your affinity, because at strong affinity is where mana becomes more inherent to your being. At extreme you have trouble without mana, and after blind mana is necessary for you to live, also known as magic-born. 

Most skills and abilities can be rated on the same system, and most professionals have moderate to large affinities to them. A professional smith in a small to medium-sized city will have at least a moderate affinity, and usally medium and larger cities will have large affinities for their professionals. large cities and capitals will usually have at least one person with a strong affinity in most professions, or other locations where guild leaders primarily stay. Magic, however, is the most easily measured, and so most people only pay attention to the magical affinities. 

when talking about affinities, whether magic or otherwise, you would say the strength of affinity, along with what the affinity is, so a tiny water affinity, a severe metal affinity, a moderate weaponsmithing affinity, a large strength affinity. Affinity scale can also be applied to physical and mental characteristics, so things like strength, precision, reaction, durability, speed, mental resilience, speed of thought. 

categories and types of affinities are extremely varied, and can have overlap. For instance, one mage could have lava affinity and another could have fire affinity, while not the same (lava deals with liquid earth or metal) they have overlap, as would a lava affinity and an earth affinity, or possibly a metal affinity. Lava also shares some things with water affinity, as they are both liquids, where earth is solid and fire is energy or plasma or something. Individuals can use a little of affinities that they overlap with, as long as they do not have inborn affinity antithesis.

affinity antithesis is when an individual is more than exceptionally poor in regards to a specific affinity, which could be simply tiny, or even non-affinity. An antithesis means that you have bad reactions or negative capabilities with specific things, which is exceedingly uncommon, more so than mighty affinities. An example of a rare antithesis would be a spcialist fire mage with an earth antithesis- if they tried to use earth, even using overlap, it would go even worse than just the partial/overlapped affinity would produce. In number terms, if they have fire 100%, and the overlap is normally 80%, for say, lava, then the earth antithesis would also apply, so if it applied here and the antithesis is a 50% antithesis, they would only have a 30% affinity, instead of an 80%. yes, this math is additive rather than multiplicative. 

you do not need to have an affinity for something to do it, having an affinity just means it is that much easier for you to grow in the use of. basically, it is rate of growth. The aforementioned fire mage with a 100% affinty for fire would grow their abilities related to fire 100% faster, or twice as fast. obiously, an antithesis thus means that it takes that much more effort, so the same mage would take half again as long to improve and use their earth magic. Note that is both in growth and use, so they would have to use half again the normal mana as a non-affinity person. 

Affinity can be artificially changed, either by imbuing an affinity on an item or person, strong ambient affinity bleeding in to an individual or thing, and even in rare cases, magic backlash or overdraw. This is usually how you get affinity-born, both beast and being. bests and beings are categorized seperately. Sapience/Sentience changes how magic reacts within a creature, and so they must be categorised differently. it is much easier to be altered magically as a beast than as a being, although magical alteration is often what brings a creature from beast to being. Personal effort can also effect affinty, although usually on a very small scale over large amounts of time, such as spending eight hours a day for ten years in a fiery environment, studying fire magic, and focusing mental efforts on fire and the like. this might raise an affinity some, although most often not enough to get a rating change, if done enough and with other effects, could culminate in increased affinity rating.

NOTE: I do not plan on using numbers for the affinity ratings, those examples were just that-examples for ease of thought. Not everything is so precise as all that, and there is variance in everything, as well as exceptions to them. just like with life and people. 

Attunement is slightly different from the other affinities, thus why it has it's own designation. while attunement is one's affinity for mana in general, it is also how much mana they have. This is usually differentiated by the term 'native attunement,' which refers to one's actual affinity to mana, and 'accumulated attunement,' or the growth the being as undergone by mana. this accumulated attunement is sometimes used for general mana use, but most often it is what is used to increase the characteristics of the individual. two people that both have the same base skill will have different results depending on their characteristics, among other things. as a very baseline example, a crafter with characteristics of things like precision, a smith with higher strength and endurance, a jeweler with increased visual acuity, a courier with speed and reaction, a spy with perception and pattern-recognition, among other examples. generally speaking, the better the gear, the better the result, and one's characteristics are the gear used to use abilities. So the youth in the spearman's portion of the story, has a significant amount of their accumulated attunement reinforcing their strength characteristic, among other things, which is compounded by a high strength affinity, so every bit of accumulated attunement goes further for them than it would with a tiny affinity or no affinity. 

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The more attunement one has, the greater the force and influence of their aura. one's aura has influences of their affinities, and is affected by their mental and physical characteristics. self control, in any area, improves the tightness and fluidity of the aura. likewise, control over the aura can lead to control of the self, as the aura is simply the magical component of a being, similar to the mind's relation to the body. This is how personality or interaction abilities and affinities work- through affecting other's aura, superficially at least. a charming individual will have an aura that is adept at clinging to another's aura, wheras an intimidating effect could be simply compressing another's aura. one's aura will have an effect on one's magic, as well. If an aura is out of balance, or effected too much by one affinity or another, said imbalance and affinity bleed will show up in one's spells. An example would be a wind affinity being in an area that has a lot of fire or other heat affinity due to the environment or magical effects; such a wind could be very hot, or carry sparks. likewise earth affected by ice would likely be cold, dense, and a little slower, oftentimes covered with a light frost. Imbalanced auras, effected by things like alcohol, drugs, or in some cases another's aura, can have varying effects upon the spells. if one has multiple affinities, magic that is normally just one affinity may come out imperfect, or have another affinity laced in with it in some manner. Joshua, the spearman, had his aura in imbalance when he cast his light spell in chapter 4, and his fire affinity bled into his light magic, which was part of why the light was reddish instead of plain white. The other reason for this was the Combat Specialist youth's fire affinity was also impacting Joshua's, (the youth only has fire for magical affinity) and so also pushed fire affinity into Joshua's magic. 

Specialists

Specialists are individuals with at least a Strong affinity in one thing, and a Large affinity in another. One of these is almost always attunement, and they are voracious in gathering more power, of one kind or another. 

Most commonly identifiable by some outstanding characteristic, accompanied by a drive to continue moving to gain power, Specialists suffer the side affects of large amounts of accumulated attunement, which is usually made worse by the time frame in which they accumulate it, Specialists have an extreme aura with poor control (usually, aura-specific specialists exist, and many do not suffer from this, or blunt the effects), which leads to their auras stretching out around them, often times a part of why some seem to have preternatural senses for danger, as their stretched-out aura will come in contact with the aggression in other's auras. however, since most specialists grow through conflict, and are hungry for more power and growth, their aura stretches out and seeks out conflict as well. this leads to their auras effecting those around them, unbalancing thier auras and thus their mental and physical states, affecting their judgement and personality as though their inhibitions (or lack thereof) are enhanced, so a person who has less inhibition towards self-serving manipulation would be much more inclined towards doing so, while someone who is adherent to rules might find themselves clinging to them, to the point of being pedantic and exacting with themselves and others. However, except in rare cases, because of the unbalancing influence of the specialist's aura, it becomes much harder to recognise these effects. the more association with the unbalancing aura, however, the more it will affect them, as the specialist's aura is usually both more powerful and more familiar with the other. 

Not everyone with higher affinities are specialists, as a specialist usually seeks out conflict in which to grow, and thus will have a large amount of accumulated attunement. However, those with higher affinities and attunement an still have very impactful auras, even if those auras do not seek out growth and conflict as a Specialist's does. This, in fact, is a large part of how some can resist the effects of Specialist auras. their own aura has become accustomed to being impacted by greater auras, while at the same time the incidental nature of this impact means that the aura had time to recover from said impact, similar to bone ossification. too much constant stress will result in a fracture, whereas regulated exposure improves growth and resiliency. This, in particular, is why Joshua is resistant enough to recognise that his thoughts (and aura) are being affected by the Combat Specialist youth. His younger sister, who we will learn more about later, does not have strong attunement. she has extreme native attunement, before any accumulated attunement. she is, however, very reserved and in control of herself, so the incidental impacts were not too often to bear. thus, while Joshua does not have a powerful aura himself to resist with, he has gotten used to it more, so it affects him less. this is not to say it has no effect, simply that he can recognise and work around it. None of Joshua's abilities, magical or otherwise, are above moderate. 

a side affect of the unbalancing from a specialist's aura, however, is long-term. because the specialist is seeking power and growth, so does their aura, and becaus of this it often consumes loose mana, and even the edges of other's aura. the edge, especially, is where experiences are gained, and thus an individual who encounters hungry specialist aura(s) will have their recollection of and general cognition of an experience reduced, or damaged, most often permanantly just barely impacted. because of this impact, unless one's aura becomes similarly effected, the recollection and cognition of said events will be just out of focus, and thus not recognizeable as impacted, except to those whose focus is upon the mind or aura. However, other methods of impact or impairment, often drinking, can bring about similar states of imbalance, and thus bring those impacted bits of aura back in synch with the whole. This is why, during Spearman chapter 3, the old veteran drinks so much while telling-so he can better recall said impacts from the past. and because it is not that influence or impact, it is easier for an individual to actually think about and recall the actual details of the events at that time. 

yes, one can heal said impacted aura over time, but this is, again, the focus of aura or mental specialists, and thus has very low efficacy. it is far, far easier for the vast majority of people to simply get drunk to remember, rather than actually recover said aura.