A lot of people on the forums have shown a desire and interest in new story elements for the game. I enjoy good stories as well. Also, many relic and Mythic holders (I'm working my way towards Mandau, but still got a little bit to go) have shown a desire to make various relics and Mythics a bit more useful for their jobs or just in general. So I got to thinking that perhaps creating special trials (not like the tedious Magian Trials) from the various NPCs in Vana'diel might make things interesting. To make things easy and because it's the one I know off the top of my head, let's use Mjollnir.

Mjollnir is wielded by Ferreous Coffin in the past. We can travel back to the past and even have a conversation with him. Now perhaps if you were wielding Mjollnir yourself when you talked to him, he looks at it and says "it seems to be incomplete" and proceeds to explain that Mjollnir (and this could be true for others) can be molded to support the abilities or enhance the weaknesses of the person who wields it. Then depending on how you wish to proceed, he gives you a task to complete. Some examples of these could be:


1) Cure Potency: He may have you go into a training area (Ghoyu's Reverie in the past perhaps?) and follow him and a group of soldiers. For the purposes of the exercise, you would have to show that you could keep them alive while aiding in the fight (you are wielding a melee weapon after all). Keeping them all alive (Curagas would affect them for this) for 5 minutes would result in granting Cure Potency to your Mjollnir.

2) Devine Benison: F.C. takes you into a training area where Goblin mages are hitting him with various ailments. Your job is to get them off as quickly as possible (maybe a limited time to act before you fail). Completing this would boost this trait in some way.

3) Tranquil Heart: Show that you can keep F.C. alive without pulling hate. If you pull hate, you fail.

That's just 3 quick ideas. I could do more, but you get the picture. There could even be some to boost the accuracy, attack, additional effect or even the aftermath of Randgrith. Basically, through this training, Ferreous Coffin also can tell you a story about his travels and how he came to possess his Mjollnir. Also, this could be a merit like system where each training exercise counts for so many points and you can either focus on one, or work on several up to a specific cap. Working on a new one once you reach the cap will require you choosing to remove another with enough points to allow you to do the new one. Heck, perhaps for even more fun, these trials could lead towards F.C. eventually teaching you his Reviviscence ability.

Now obviously the other NPCs for the other relics that aren't currently in the past would have to be added. Or perhaps additional NPCs could be utilized. The BLM/SMN in the past wielding Claustrum, for example, could teach one set of special skills, but perhaps Shantoto's evil mind could come up with other ways to push your training further for those jobs. As for Mythic weapons, Balrahn may train you or perhaps various NPCs for those specific jobs (like the Artifact quest NPCs) might be capable of training us for those. I haven't thought it all out 100%, but I have my own, full-time job. This is just something I do in my spare time for fun and I think THIS is the kind of training that would be more fun.