Talk:Dust/@comment-34414347-20181229025428/@comment-4010415-20181229231935

Dust can be activated by both Aura and external stimuli, which is how it can be used for, what basically amounts to, casting and also for bullets and other technology.

It seems that Aura is overall an energy that a person can manipulate, considering they can also coat their weapon with their Aura, hence how Blake and Pyrrha were able to fighting using bread during the food fight. Note that some of the bread they used as weapons actually broke after they threw them. The bread wasn't hard, it was just protected by their Aura. Same goes with Cinder's glass swords. This lines up with Pyrrha telling Jaune that their tools and equipment are conduits for Aura, as well as World of Remnant: Aura depicting Aura coating a man and his sword.

So basically, think of Amber making her Aura go to the red Dust crystal at the end of her staff and manipulating her Aura into causing the Dust to activate in the way that she wanted it to, which was basically forming a flamethrower.