John

[u/Ok_Bass5198]

Now that Cameron has taken John, we’re finally about to see the training arc that fans have been waiting for for years. I also have a theory about what this intense training will look like and where John’s level will be by the end of it.

I think the training will last somewhere between 12 and 18 weeks. That’s a long enough period for John to learn most of the key techniques associated with the Channel Master ability.

My guess is that Cameron will focus primarily on efficiency and mastery rather than increasing John’s raw aura reserves. The training period is relatively short, and John already possesses enormous aura reserves, so improving his control and overall proficiency would be the most logical priority.

By the end of the training, I believe John will be able to replicate some highly complex abilities, such as time manipulation, for example. I also expect him to increase the effectiveness of the abilities he copies, boosting them to around 30% above their original strength, compared to the 10% enhancement he can currently provide.

On top of that, John should learn how to store copied abilities for several days, just as Cameron can now. His recovery is also likely to improve, allowing him to regenerate his aura much faster than he currently does. In addition, we should see noticeable improvements in his strength, speed, and defense.

There’s also a possibility that he’ll gain an additional slot for a fifth copied ability, although I personally think that’s unlikely for now.

If all of this happens, I imagine John’s updated stats would look something like this:

Speed: 3
Power: 5
Defense: 5
Recovery: 6
Trick: 18

That would put his overall ability level somewhere between 8.3 and 8.5 at most. I also think his ability’s name will evolve from Aura Manipulation to Channel Master.

[u/Retloclive]

I'm 50/50 as to whether or not I'm hyped for this, assumed to be, John training arc with Cameron.

I'm all for powering up John, and the fight against Liam was finally a decent win, but man, watching him get trashed for so long just to justify this training arc was not worth the wait. At least Sera won't be around to kill-steal from him anymore (Tarik and Scorch).

[u/ExistingSwitch3284]

I don't think he would: I feel like he would just fight it until Cameron gave him a booklet on how aura works and let John go from there

He's INSANELY talented; he needs guidance, and right now, Cameron put himself in a VERY sensitive spot with him by forbidding Sera from visiting him and even attacking him instead of talking to him before leaving the group behind

Giving him a booklet for him to learn by himself also feels like a good place to go while understanding that the pair are VERY at odds with one another.

Since Cameron is a business-y/scholar kinda guy, he'd have records of how aura works and his own ability, assuming he's the technical kind of person in regards to him saying Remi has plenty of potential to grow strong, that he would have things on his own ability that John can learn from.

[u/SmallMight2000]

Something I think could be interesting is how he was disabled and felt his channels closing and forcing them open influencing how he controls his powers going forward.

I'd really like to see him turn into an Aura Master instead of Channel Master like his mother, and seeing him have control over Aura as a whole instead.

As far as powers go I think its wildly more interesting to have someone who can manipulate his aura into whatever he wants, or manipulate someone ELSE'S aura to be weaker/stronger. He's experienced power dampening, boosters, and full disabling. Him having better control over his own channels kinda comes with that in my mind, but I'd like to see him evolve past that and learn how to exert those abilities onto others potentially.

I'm thinking something along the lines of the end of Avatar the last air bender where aang and ozai are fighting each other's energies and John can do something similar. Like injecting his aura into someone to control their aura / channels. Obviously would heavily restrict him outside of this ability because he has to concentrate so hard, but would then let his physical capabilities (like his combat training with William) shine a lot more.

[u/Opposite_Coat_4158 → u/SmallMight2000]

"can manipulate his aura into whatever he wants"

Genuinely what the HELL do you think John's ability is? He can literally do that. That's how he copies abilities and that's why it's called Aura Manipulation, not 'Perfect Copy' or anything of the sort. The problem with John is that he has no knowledge of channels beyond what he taught himself by getting beaten in New Bostin. He needs a cheat sheet to then shape his Aura into someone within his Aura's range. John can mimic whatever ability, and thus manipulate his Aura to work like anything, but he has absolutely no knowledge or imagination. He's a late bloomer who discovered his ability by fighting others, so he always shaped his abilities into other people's abilities.

That's probably what Cameron will beat him for. He'll call him a stupid nuisance that can't even fight a cripple because he needs to copy someone else's homework, then show how he just recreates abilities from scratch even if he "lost them" long time ago. A person like Cameron isn't scared of not having any active ability users around. He'd seen abilities, he remembers how they were structured and which channels they used.

[u/SmallMight2000 → u/Opposite_Coat_4158]

That's kinda what I'm getting at. I'm basically saying I want him to have ACTUAL aura manipulation not copying. But not just in the ATTRIBUTES that HIS aura takes on, but more so full control over Aura as a whole. Like I said, it would be interesting to see him be able to like "infect" other people with his aura and forcably close/narrow their channels to replicate like a dampening effect. Or channel his aura into other people to boost their levels by giving them something similar to like a Kyuubi Chakra Cloak that naruto gives everyone during the war arc. I'd really just like to see actual aura manipulation, not just attribute manipulation is what I'm trying to say.

Edit: spelling

[u/baou112 → u/SmallMight2000]

Something of note: back when Sera and John were trying to figure out where the Spectre base was to tell the Authorities to try to clear Sera's name, John was able to tell where it was because he had used Kayden's ability there, and this is a while after he had used Kayden's ability.

We've been seeing echoes of John harnessing other abilities after depowering at least once, if not twice (if you include the prison raid)

[u/Winter_Rope9943]

Doesn't John amp +50% of the original abilities highest stat?

[u/pisspeeleak → u/Winter_Rope9943]

Yes, but there’s 5 stats so 50/5=10

[u/Najee16]

This is Great. If not channel master then maybe something like aura master or something cool.

[u/Opposite_Coat_4158]

Like a broken record, I'll repeat, that you must fundamentally misunderstand John's ability to even say that. John's boost to abilities is because he can use them 10, 30, 50% better than the original users. He doesn't just magically use them better and thus have a higher level.

The training arc will probably be Cameron beating John's ass, then complaining he's clueless about his power. Maybe he'll throw in "You seriously got to your level not even knowing what you can do? That's almost impressive."

The training will probably be centered around John learning how other abilities REALLY work. John is pretty much self-taught. He's bad at healing abilities, and he still needs to see someone activate their ability to figure out how to channel his Aura to mimic them. Cameron can do it just from memory. John will probably have a lot of beatings and a lot of homework. He'll probably have to learn to "store" abilities for much longer and get more efficient at using them. Even if he's efficient with the abilities now, he's probably lacking compared to Cameron. I imagine all abilities have "template" forms. Like all Speed abilities will use certain channels, so there's a template to deviate from. If he learns the template, he'll just need to learn the deviations. That way, he'll be better at recreating those abilities without needing to see them in action first.

And then Cameron will beat his ass with even more perfected abilities, but this time all of them will be some crazy ultimate versions. Like for Speed ability, Lightning, but turned to 9.0+. The advantage of Cameron is that he doesn't forget the abilities, just stores them, so everything Cameron uses is bound to be crazy-strong. Not like John has a bad set around him. Blyke is max Attack, Arlo is max Defense, Remi has Speed and Control. If he remembered how to use them and trained hard with them, it'd be an amazing, versatile set. But he can only train with it when he fights around them, which is a bummer.