Mana Artist Ranks

The following excerpt was taken from Kalden Trengsen’s personal notebook.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since we left Arkala, but no one’s given me a full list of all the Mana Arts ranks. Guess I’ll have to make one myself.

Foundation

Foundation is the first stage of a Mana Artist’s advancement. This can also be broken into three sub-ranks (Bronze, Silver, and Gold.) People are born at different sub-ranks, and your birth rank is determined by your parents’ birth mana counts. For example, Akari’s parents were born Bronze and Silver, which put her in the middle of the Bronze realm at 20-something mana. My parents were both Gold, so I was also born a Gold.

Bronze

Mana Required: 0

This is the default stage where 75% of people are born. (At least, that was the case back home. I'm not sure if the rest of the world bothers to keep track.) Bronze can make Missile techniques, but only once their mana reaches the twenties.

Silver

Mana Required: 50

Artists at this stage can see mana by relaxing their vision. This technique is called Silver Sight. Silver is also the minimum rank required to make a Construct technique.

Gold

Mana Required: 200

Artists at this stage can sense and control ambient mana, absorbing that mana through their channels to refill their souls. This ambient sense also gives them greater control over their techniques.

(Note I learned about these Gold-specific benefits from Relia. As far as I can tell, no one back home was aware of them. Then again, Golds accounted for less than two percent of the population there. Maybe some did knew, but they didn’t share the knowledge?)

Apprentice

Mana Required: 800

Apprentices account for more than half the adult population in Espiria. The advancement itself is difficult—Relia says you need to break down your cells and branch out with smaller channels, filling your whole body with mana. This offers countless health benefits (still waiting on a full list.)

The average person doesn’t advance until his/her late twenties, but dedicated Artists like Relia advance in their late teens. This early advancement is a requirement for programs in elite universities.

In addition to the health benefits, Apprentice bodies are far tougher. I’ve literally seen bullets bounce off Relia’s skin. Apprentices can also do something called a Cloak technique, flooding their bodies with even more mana. The specific results here vary depending on your aspect.

Artisan

Mana Required: 3200

Honestly, I still don’t know much about Artisans. Relia says this advancement comes with another physical boost like Apprentice. They remake their bodies in mana, becoming even stronger and more resilient. Even Elend struggled to kill one of these in Costa Liberta. Although, in hindsight, he was probably holding back.

Master

Mana Required: 12,800

Things get even more mysterious at this point. I’m not even 100% sure about the mana range. I’m just guessing based on the pattern so far (along with Elend’s mana count.)

However, Relia and Elend have both confirmed the Master ranks involve mental enhancements related to intention. Basically, you can start doing Mana Arts with your mind instead of just your body.

Grandmaster

Mana Required: 51,200

This is Elend’s rank, and it seems like a stronger version of Master from what I can tell. That mana cost is insane, though. To reach this rank at fifty years old, you’d need to gain over 1500 mana for every year of your adult life. How? I’ve barely gained 50 points in the last year.

Clearly, there’s some exponential growth involved here. The more mana you have, the bigger your techniques are. The bigger your techniques, the more mana you spend. I’m guessing this also requires a lot of money to keep your mana full.