Aptitudes
Growing the fluxionist: seven aptitudes on the seal, what each rank gives, where Insights come from, how to develop and rewrite them.
Aptitudes grow the fluxionist themself. Seven aptitudes stand on a seal like currents on the Wheel, and each pulls on its own craft of Fluxion: not "the strongest", but "a little easier where you have invested". Steps are bought with Insights — the fruits of the path you have walked. The aptitude sheet is the Aptitudes tab in the Codex, under the Wheel ribbon.
The seven aptitudes
Each aptitude has five ranks.
| Aptitude | Current | A rank gives | At the fifth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intellect |  Lattice | notes from first Loupe readings +10 % | +50 % |
| Might |  Strata | Fluxion's tools and weapons in the main hand: damage +5 %, digging +10 % | +25 % and +50 % |
| Acuity |  Gale | the Loupe reads a block further and 3 ticks faster | 10 blocks, 0.75 s |
| Finesse |  Ember | the Flux Workbench takes 6 % less flux; the Flux Trowel builds from a ghost one block a second faster | −30 %; 9 blocks a second |
| Patience |  Tide | at the Crucible a clash carries away 5 points less of the Spring thrown in, murk from your things −10 % | clash takes 25 % instead of half; murk −50 % |
| Will |  Fray | Conduit casts 6 % cheaper; Dissonance visions rarer | −30 %; at pressure 30 a third instead of half |
| Poise |  Balance | a Confluence you start: calm +2, "quieter eddies" +3 % | calm +10, quieter by 15 % |
- Intellect grows first readings only: repeats, Desk techniques and other note sources stay as they are. The fraction builds up by chapter and arrives as a whole note later — nothing is lost to rounding.
- Might works on the mod's things: fluxsteel, Spring Tools, wootz, freshet and still gear, all of Fluxion's weapons. A weapon ability's strike grows by the same share.
- Finesse and Will are thrift under a shared limit: crafting and casting never get cheaper than half price, however many aptitudes and gear pieces add up.
- Patience reduces losses rather than multiplying output: extra currents from nothing would turn the "dissolve — brew" loop into profit.
- Will does not lift Dissonance — that is the price of knowledge; it only lets a vision through less often at a check. The Metronome already hears this chance.
- Poise is the starter's gift to a Confluence, the same as gear's, and under the same limit: with a full set of gear gifts it adds almost nothing. It is a choice of "wear or grow".
Where Insights come from
Insights are neither saved nor stored: your knowledge counts them, so they cannot be ground out, lost or earned twice.
- The path walked: the first Insight comes with your 8th studied entry, then one every 20.
- The first victory over each master and lair guardian — an Insight for everyone who fought.
- Entries written in from someone else's Fair Copy give no Insights: the Fair Copy passes on knowledge, not the path walked.
The aptitude sheet counts what the whole path gives: right now the whole Codex is 19 Insights and victories up to 10 more, against 35 ranks across all aptitudes. Whoever has not walked it all chooses where to invest; "everything at once" never happens, not even at the end.
When an Insight arrives — a mod line above the hotbar, a soft chime and sparks over your head; the Aptitudes ribbon in the Codex glows and carries "+N".
Developing
Open the Aptitudes tab. The seal is seven medallions: Intellect on top, Will at the bottom, the Springs on the sides in the Wheel's order, Poise in the middle. The ring around a medallion is its five rank segments. A medallion you can develop breathes amber, and a brass "+" button surfaces by it. Press it, or pick the aptitude and press Develop on its page — a rank costs one Insight. An aptitude's page tells what it gives now, what the next rank will give and where it works.
Rewriting
What you have invested can be taken back at a 
Reckoning Desk: the Codex opened from the Desk window shows a Rewrite
button on the sheet's overview. All ranks become free Insights again for experience levels — a level per invested Insight, but
no fewer than five. Intellect's fraction stays: it is already earned.
A rank at the table
Some dishes and effects raise an aptitude for a while — for example, the Kitchen of Currents dishes with Farmer's Delight. Boosts do not add up: the biggest one counts, and nothing goes above the fifth rank. They do not touch the aptitude sheet or Insights.
The game is beatable without aptitudes
No entry, board, structure or fight requires an aptitude rank. The economy of notes, the prices and the limits hold without them: aptitudes make easier what you like to do, they do not unlock what is closed. Every player's aptitudes are their own and survive death and relogging; the Fair Copy does not copy them.
What next
- Gear and Gear Charge — Might and the mod's things.
- Dissonance and Visions — what Will softens.
- The Codex of Currents — the entries that bring Insights.