Body 「体, karada」 or corpus 「肉体, nikutai」 refers to the various vessels meant to house the soul.
Astral body[]
The astral body 「星幽体, asutoraru bodī, lit. "star ethereal body"」 or spirit body 「霊体, reitai」[1] is the innermost body, the protective container for the soul. It also acts as a sort of computational device that translates the intention of the soul and relays it to the spiritual body.[1] This layer requires a medium to preserve it, with it otherwise slowly dissolving back into the surrounding space and releasing the soul into the cycle of reincarnation.
Spiritual body[]
The spiritual body 「精神体, supirichuaru bodī, lit. "mental body"」 is what keeps the astral body and soul protected from the environment. It acts as a foundation to accumulate power and a vessel to store energy.[2][3]
For material life-forms and demi-material life-forms, it acts as a temporary virtual memory storage, while for demi-spiritual life-forms it acts as a thinking device and permanent memory storage similar to the brain. Most residents of spiritual worlds lack a material body entirely.
Material body[]
The material body 「物質体, materiaru bodī, lit. "substance body"」 is the anchor that keeps the spiritual body attached to the physical plane and allows for the interaction with material objects.
Material life-forms and demi-material life-forms need a material body to stay alive, while demi-spiritual life-forms and spiritual life-forms need one to remain anchored to the material world. Without a material body, beings of a spiritual nature are doomed to eventually either die or be rejected by the material world and ejected back into their spiritual world of origin.[4]
Core[]
The core 「核, koa, lit. "nucleus"」 is an important part of the material body of monsters and similar beings. It serves as a vital function similar to that of the heart[5] (and indeed in some cases actually doubles as the physical heart). In demi-material life-forms, the destruction or removal of their core will normally result in instant death, even if they possess regenerative abilities.[6][7][8]
There are various different types of cores depending on the nature of the being in question, including but not limited to: magic cores 「魔核, koa」, Chaos cores 「聖魔核, seima kaku」, hearts 「心臓, koa」, daemon cores 「悪魔核, akuma kaku」, and elemental cores 「精霊核, seirei kaku」.
Magic body[]
A magic body 「魔体, matai, Yen Press: "magical corpus"」 is a temporary material body made of solidified magicules, similar to Body Double. It is typically used by demi-spiritual life-forms and spiritual life-forms who do not have a proper material body to anchor them to the physical plane. It allows them to interact with the world and due to being made of essentially pure energy, can easily reform from any physical damage. It can also be used to "project" one's spiritual body to another location if their material body is immobile, such as in the case of dryads.
For beings of a spiritual nature that use a magic body as a medium for incarnation, it will be unstable and result in a constant loss of energy until it can no longer be maintained. Unless they are in an area with an extremely high level of magicule concentration — such as the Dungeon[9] or the area near an open Hell gate — or are being constantly supplied with energy from someone or something else, a magic body will typically only last for several days.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 5, Chapter 3
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 4, Epilogue
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 13.5 (pg. 149)
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 4, Chapter 7
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 6, Chapter 3
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 6, Chapter 4
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 6, Epilogue
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 20, Chapter 1
- ↑ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime light novel — Volume 12, Chapter 3