Materia is a stone your can put on your armor/weapon to make it more powerfull,
if you put a flaming materia on your sword, your hit vill contain fire.

a slash with no materia
Your slash **DEVISTATES** a huge Titan

a slash with a flaming materia
Your slash **DEVISTATES** a huge Titan
Excalibur flames toasts a huge Titan

if your sword is Excalibur


a armor with a flaming materia makes you unaffected by the weaponflag
with samename.

a weapon/armor with 8 available materia slots look like this:
O=O O=O O=O O=O	= 8
O=O O=O O=O O	= 7
O=O O=O O=O	= 6
O=O O=O O	= 5
O=O O=O 	= 4
O=O O		= 3
O=O		= 2
O		= 1

at the arena

Materia        Battle pts
-------------------------
flaming		   -  200
frost		   -  200
vorpal		   -  200
lightning          -  200
poisoned	   -  200
putrescent	   -  200
shocking	   -  300
elemental	   -  500
vampiric	   -  500
sharp		   -  500
two-handed	   -  700
shieldbreaking	   -  700
spiritual	   -  700
sanced		   - 1000
refreshing	   - 1000
doomed		   - 1200
quickstriking	   - 1200
defending	   - 1500
silenced	   - 2000
draining	   - 2000
absorbing	   - 2500
lethal		   - 2500
hellfire	   - 2700
godforged	   - 3000
-------------------------