So Siobahn’s capacity is now at 618 thaums, which is exceptional for a girl her age and luckily this gives us a new baseline to predicts her furture growth.
Previously she was at about 412 thaums in chap 149. Doing some quick math, there has been about 115 days between the two dates (the recent testing was little later than the date given at the beginning of the new chap since the testing is done on monday, but we can assume it was just the first monday after the chapter started). We can subtract about 6 or so days for reduced casting due to will strain.
Given all of this, she currently gains about 13 thaums in a given week on average. If we take this to be normative for the future (and lets be honest, this is actually conservative as the average blends her time pre no sleep and post no sleep necessary), she is currently on track to get to near Master tier capacity will capacity at the end of the year, and certainly by the end of her 3rd and 4th terms she will be there
Siobhan walked to the table and saw that the paper was covered in spell designs and notes. It was complex and obviously powerful, and once again she rethought her opinion of this woman. 'The next time she tries to charge more for the possibility of Will-strain, I’m not likely to believe her. ’ She read the scribbled note that estimated this artifact would take over seven thousand thaums to charge with the warding spell. A Master might graduate from their seventh term at the University with a Will that could handle one to two thousand thaums, depending on their dedication, while most Apprentices, after three University terms, couldn’t do much better than three hundred. “What is it anchored to?” she asked, frowning as she read the glyph for "blood " as a multi-use Sacrifice.
She won’t have the same knowledge base the average master has in some respects, but given unlimited access to the library (which was promised to her), and her own dedication, resourcefulness, curiousity and so on… she might not be so far behind.
She is getting faster as her capacity grows, and her practice time is increasing. But a capacity of several thousand thaums isn’t what makes a master, and a large capacity also won’t necessarily make her safer. Sometimes less magic, but applied well, is going to be the better course. She won’t be contesting wills directly for awhile I don’t think.
You are of course right that capacity alone won’t make her truly master tier, but her Will is already good enough that Liza, a Grandmaster Tier Sorcerer is inferior in aspects of nimbleness, and clarity and forcefulness.
Siobahn knows thousands of Glyphs thanks to her practice with Myrddin’s book and that’s gonna help her a huge amount from now on because where others might be satisfied with a good enough glyph, she can use the perfect glyph for the job. She knows far more about blood magic than the average sorceress. She continually researches and practices obscure and useful magics. She is about to get a Full Pass to the entire School Library. She has experience fighting for her life.
Contesting Wills is I think gonna be the easy part for her, for the most part. Most masters just won’t graduate with the Will that a free-caster has. Rather, its the (potentially) larger base of knowledge they have with greater time actually studying and progressing that is the issue (even considering the greater time Siobahn will have thanks to no longer needing sleep).
I would say it’s not really possible to know where she will be. Do we even know what effects capacity?
Other factors to take into account. Not sure on the timeline but she now has:
More time now. Not trying to scrape by paying back her loan.
Also has the sleep spell so more waking hours. Sleep also seems to be a factor in will strain so she should be able to cast more often.
The light refining sell. Do we know what exactly this does?
The ability to dual cast and split her will. Didn’t she specifically mention that she is thinking about splitting her will and casting an easy spell through out the entire day?
Also the rumor of the raven queen. Speculation but in recent chapters we learned public perceptions effects magic. Seems to me as the raven queen the rumors might cause changes in her abilities. Maybe also capacity?
everyone’s super excited for her reputation to begin affecting her magic, but the ‘magic is cultural consciousness’ thing seems a lot long term and I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.
we know that: gaining capacity is easier the more powerful you get, and also there are diminishing returns to doing the same stuff (variety needed to grow).
I’d be surprised if S’ base of knowledge was lesser than the average or even an above-average Master (which seems to basically be the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree in this world) after her 3 or 4th term. S has a shit ton of side projects and ‘extracurriculars’, while the normal University content seems to be strenuous enough for the regular student.
Taylor,
I too “Did the Math” because although 618 initially seemed big i wanted to check it. I also came up with 13 thaums per week initially…Then I realized chapter 195 is an extra long one in terms of story time. It lasts several weeks and the Henkic-Thompson test isnt given until the day before the end of the chapter… so 8/12 not 7/15.
Here are my data points
First test in chapter 19 on 11/2 for 203 Thaums… but she was holding back so others wouldnt notice her…
On 11/28 chapter 33 she shattered her conduit rated at 250 thaums… so she was greater than 250 at that point.
Second test chapter 71 on 1/9 for 315 Thaums
Third test chapter 149 on 3/26 for 412 Thaums
Forth test in Chapter 195 but at end of chapter one day before chapter 196 so date is 8/12 for 618 Thaums.
This puts Thaums per weeks at 11.5, 8.8 and 10.3 respectively for the three periods… it appears she is decreasing rather than increasing like we all know she should be doing…
In the first period she was underperforming so she wouldnt stand out and in the last period she was casting more per day and was using the light refinement spell. So the best data on her steady gain was the middle two tests which yielded 8.8 thaumns per week.
Now she is casting 10 hours a day rather than 6… that is 66% more… so her thaum gain should be 66% higher. This leads me to believe her last test numbers may be a typo instead of six eighteen maybe six eighty…
If we use the lowest thaums per week 8.8 times 166% we get 14.6 Thaums /week… and if we used the highest at 13 thaums/weeks times 166% we get 19 thaums per week… I think we are somewhere in the middle… but again i think she is closer to 700 than six hundred due to all the extra casting and all… BUT the only one who really can straighten this out is Azalea
You have an issue with your math. Chap 196 says the time it starts is Thursday 7/15. The test is done the Monday after it, which is 7/19. Thus the 13 gained per week is correct.
Chap 195 is multiple weeks before that. It starts on 6/25. Thats about 3 weeks until chap 196 starts. Which qualifies as multiple weeks before the start time given in Chap 196. You cant add extra weeks to based on something which happened in a previous chapter. Each chapter starts at the date given.
Double check the chapter. She talks to Ilma the Monday after, but the Henrik-Thompson test was several weeks after that. It describes her switching ravens over several weekends between the two, and says the testing occurs, “a month before the end of term exams”. We don’t know precisely when that is, but it is decidedly in month 8.
The two most likely dates seem to be Monday 8/2 or Monday 8/9.
…But also keep in mind that she wasn’t practicing at all between 4/4 and 4/16 due to her will strain, so that is two fewer weeks going into the calculation.
So since her last test that would be 17.2 thaums/week or 15.8 thaums/week respectively, depending upon exactly when it is.
it’s also worth noting that in going from casting 6 hours a day to 10 hours a day she probably isn’t getting the same amount of novelty per spell cast and more repetition.
…And who knows whether or not she is counting light refinement in her practice time or not? That is the same spell over and over again every day with no real variation, at minimal power.
Ok i meant chapter 196 sorry for that… yes it starts on Monday7/15 but if you read closely, like Keid says above, it talks about talking to Prof. Ilma the following Monday then multiple weekends passing and references a month before the end of term Enis escaping… very possibly a month passes in this chapter … 3 weeks minimum
, the test is at the very end of the chapter … so mid month 8… so possibly Friday 8/9 or Monday 8/12 ?.. not sure
The real telling number is the growth between the second and third test… 8.8 thaums per week with little happening between those tests to disturb the data… so i contend that is her normal growth rate 8.8 that would be increased by the 66% extra casting… or 14.6/week… Minimum
I still think she should be at 680ish …
Just my opinion… excellent disscussion !
BTW what was Lacers borrowed Conduit rated for? The Black Saphire?
Lacer’s Conduit is 600/700, which means she needs to get it replaced soon (58). The sapphire is 750ish, but is actual use is around 650 because it isn’t celerium (189).
Good thing she got a bunch of big ones in reserve, and will most likely get her ring back soon.
Btw for the dates check the glossary: Glossary – Azalea Ellis
According to that we should be at the end of the 7th month (or very early into the 8th at most), depending on how close the exams are to the end of the term.
I’m living for this debate about how many thaums she’s gaining per week, and how you all have calculated it. All I can tell you is that it’s a guessing game right now - I don’t think Azalea is going to share her thaumic calculator any time soon.
So glad I’m not the only one with a note in their phone trying to calculate her thaumic growth. Mine was in hours practiced, not days or weeks, and I haven’t updated it recently, though.
Steph,
Good thought about hours casting… i wonder how many hours she cast during the escape… and how casting with Will strain stretches the Will. I have suspected that it may increase growth… if you dont break.
Maybe ? Thoughts?
AdSpartan ,
I didnt know about that index -thanks!
But it appears also to have an issue
… it double dips Month 8…
Look… it says Second term lasts until the End of month 8… but it also says Harvesting break starts at the beginning of Month 8… cant be both … see quoted text below-
"Second Term
This 21 week term starts in the middle of the 4th month and lasts until the end of the 8th month.
Harvest Break
This 8 week break begins at the end of summer, around the beginning of the 8th month, and lasts into the fall, at the end of the 10th month.
If she uses one of the stolen conduits… how will she do it… will she add it to the leather holster with the black sapphire? Will she simply replace the sapphire?.. could she dual cast using both conduits on the same spell for more capacity. No…too much work since she has larger conduits…
But won’t Lacer notice if she is casting above the capacity of his old conduit?.. she isn’t wealthy enough to just happen to have a 6-8 thousand thaum conduit just show up… will she “win” a fake contest to get the wind fall to buy it… will the Raven Queen bequeath him one? She is “Known” to like him.
Cant wait to see how she will fix this !
She doesn’t have to explain how she got it. She is an adult and can buy things (or beg the nice philanthropist Oliver to get one for her). Yes it might be weird, but honestly Lacer wont care.
Maybe she won it thanks to to a bet, or stole it. Neither really matter, and Siobahn doesnt have to explain where she got it.
Or heck, she could sell one of her bigger conduits and get a few smaller conduits of more appropriate size for her (that increase in progression over time)
Technically, she did win it because of a bet. The High Crown bet that he could catch her and keep her, and he was wrong.
Thank you for that note. I couldn’t even remember what Lacer’s was rated at, or if she actually tested it. (How young was he when he won that bet, anyway? 16? 18?)
One of my biggest questions about these conduits is: are they trackable? If they are polished, with a small amount of the dust or a chip, they could be tracked. There might also be some other way to identify them in an open market or auction. Hopefully there isn’t, but we don’t really know enough about celerium to be sure. Maybe she could offload them through her gang connections?
I was just considering making a post about this because I was thinking of the interesting picture we now have of Lacer’s youth.
We now know that by the time he was around 20 he had a capacity of 4000-5000 thaums.
We also know that he thought he would’ve be struggled to hold Sebastien’s sloppy blue flame spell, but thinks he might’ve been capable of it when he first started casting… So he may have somehow basically started out with a ~200 thaum capacity.
At that pace, I’m guessing he was probably only 13 or 14 when he was betting on Conduits with nobles in rural taverns, and having them send assassins.
Basically, baby-Lacer was a fantasy protagonist in his own right.
