This is just a quick and dirty unprofessional system reference guide thrown together per request and is not a chapter.

  Level/Tier chart

  Skill Mastery

  Aspects and concept chart

  Stats

  LEVEL/TIER

  Including already known requirements, titles, and crystal color and value.

  SKILL MASTERY

  Increasing in skill level increases harmony. Harmony is used to fuel rituals to attain perks. A larger amount of harmony is generated at new Mastery levels (i.e. going from Adept to Master Mastery), and the higher levels between Mastery levels (i.e. less is generated going from 8 to 9 than 81 to 82).

  Harmony is generated in and stored around the thalamus part of the brain for humans. There is a natural capacity of harmony that can be stored, and this capacity grows with ascendency up the tiers as well as skill gain. The higher the Mastery and number of skills at higher Mastery will increase harmony capacity.

  The NCS cannot measure harmony on its own. The user has to check. The NCS can make estimates by measuring brain activity and can guess at amount of harmony gained, but it’s hard to measure accurately.

  For instance, as an easy to visualize example (hopefully), someone has been doing Swedish massages as a fulltime profession for thirty years. The NCS measures this at Master level Mastery, 78. This masseuse knows nothing about Thai, shiatsu, deep tissue, hot stone, aromatherapy, or sports massages.

  This person could probably learn another type of massage much faster than someone with no massage training and experience at all. Let’s say they learn deep tissue massage. There’s some overlapping knowledge, so the second skill the NCS tracks as [Deep Tissue Massage] quickly goes from Neophyte up to level 30, the cusp of Apprentice to Journeyman Mastery.

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  But since there was overlapping knowledge with another skill, less harmony was generated getting [Deep Tissue Massage] from 1 to 30 than when the masseuse first raised [Swedish Massage] from 1 to 30. And less will be generated when [Deep Tissue Massage] rolls over from Apprentice to Journeyman.

  If this masseuse then picks up [Sports Massage] too, getting that up to Journeyman would generate even less harmony because there would be even more overlapping knowledge.

  The biggest skill and harmony gains come from new knowledge and new skills hitting new mastery levels and combining or merging skills (i.e. John’s [Mixed Navigation] skill saw such a large increase after he left the NetherRealm due to having to navigate through a strange new reality working off of different rules and requiring new knowledge, but his knowledge of navigation would help him gain this knowledge faster, and since [Mixed Navigation] was already a mixed skill, no new skill was made).

  ASPECTS

  Aspects have an affinity rating and three tiers of minor, average, or major.

  This chart is just a quick guideline of what concepts fit the most into what aspect. Both eastern and western views of elements were attempted to be included. Most listed concepts are more esoteric than useful as I just use this as a reference myself.

  STATS

  Copied/pasted and slightly modified from B1 Ch 6

  [Strength], which measures the potency of and capacity to apply and resist physical force.

  [Swiftness] is an average measurement of general SRAQ (Speed, Reaction, Agility, Quickness), including rate of movement, reaction time, acceleration, deceleration, rapid changing of directions, and rapid changing of body position.

  [Conditioning] measures stamina, endurance, fitness, constitution, general health, and a body’s ability to resist, fight off, or adapt to ailments, sickness, and foreign elements in the body.

  [Minimum Power] increases the effectiveness of manifestations in all ways. Though not a matter, magical energy takes on aspects of the four states after refinement. Once a person can convert magical energy to magical essence, the magical essence starts off naturally more gaseous in early Mortal tiers. Condensing magical essence into a thicker, more liquid form usually increases potency until early second Tree.

  The quality of magical essence is dependent on numerous factors, including, but not limited to, refining techniques, tier increases, affinities, aspects, and sources. Since the dantian can be filled with different qualities of magical energy, and different qualities of refined magical essence, the number listed is only the minimum possible power, and not the current or maximum possible power of magical energy or magical essence in a dantian.

  [Capacity] measures the ability of a lower dantian to store magical energy and magical essence, and increases naturally by compression of the dantian, also called ranking up, or leveling up, as well as during tier advancement, and required advancement events, e.g., opening dantians.

  [Runes], which measures the number of runes for manifestations a soul can safely hold. A rune is a specially designed pattern used to force magical essence to manifest in specific ways. Runes are not necessary to create manifestations, but they certainly are the most reliable, fastest, and, most definitely the safest way to ensure magical energy and magical essence manifest with the desired result. Runes can be grouped together to change or enhance the effects of manifestations, the most advanced of these rune groupings are called glyphs.

  [Physical Fortification], [Elemental Fortification], and [Mental Fortification] represent how fortified a body is against and its capacity to lessen, resist, or nullify the effects of what are generally categorized as physical, elemental, and mental damage or attacks.