Do you think after Endwalker there will be time travel?

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Why? Who would know? As far as I am aware no-one we've spoken to about it is even sure that the 8th calamity world still exists.



He's stating what he chooses to believe has happened. Just as G'raha doesn't really know the fate of that world, they're not really sure of the fate of G'raha.

A separate reflection solves the paradox because G'raha becomes an outside actor, he is no longer interfering in his own past because his own past happened on a different world to the two he is messing with.

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The ascians, whose whole thing is travleing between shards and arranging calamities, would prooooobably have noticed if there was a new 14th shard suddenly split off. Espeiccally because Gra'ha didn't travel back in time to just now, he was on the First for a long time after he went back in time and changed things.

It's a pretty simple 'went back in time, future was changed' story. Nothing about that would suggest a new physical world within the same timeline now exists because of it. Heck we don't even know for sure if the bad future timeline even still exists or not.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

It's a pretty simple 'went back in time, future was changed' story. Nothing about that would suggest a new physical world within the same timeline now exists because of it. Heck we don't even know for sure if the bad future timeline even still exists or not.

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It does. Short story about it here:

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../#sidestory_08

It still exists, we don't really know how. Most people go with a whole new separate timeline, that is how most time-travel stories would do it after all, but seeing as that doesn't really fit with the prior example of time-travel that we have in this story (which also happens to be what the Ironworks based their own time-travel on) I don't think it's that. Not in the sense that most people seem to mean anyway with a whole new source and shards and Emet and Elidibus still skulking about, etc. etc.

That much Aether erupting from the end of days? We are getting invaded by the VoidSent. White Mage quest make it pretty clear any eruption of Aether lures out the big bad boys and there are several more hints. I 100% expect we are going to the 13th somehow.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

That much Aether erupting from the end of days? We are getting invaded by the VoidSent. White Mage quest make it pretty clear any eruption of Aether lures out the big bad boys and there are several more hints. I 100% expect we are going to the 13th somehow.

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I wouldn't be surprised at all to have voidsent showing up. Buuuut I don't think we'll be going to the 13th unless it's like, a quick visit in a dungeon or something.

We're already hitting Thavinair, Garlemald and the MOON. I think it'd be kind of silly to also have us going to the 13th in any significant capacity this expansion as well.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

[FFXI] did have one expansion that involved time travel. It had you go back in time to the Crystal war which was set 20 years before the events of FFXI to help protect the events that lead to your timeline from villains trying to alter the future.

In FFXI the Crystal war is something we only hear about in the main game and is referenced a lot in how the world was shaped and the events that happen in the base story. So being able to go back and see those events unfold in person was interesting. But in FFXIV the only comparable thing is the seventh umbral calamity, which was 1.x. So unless they wanted to remake 1.x (which I wouldn’t be entirely against) there isn’t much else that’s worth going back and seeing for ourselves in FFXIV when we could be going somewhere new.

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This is inaccurate. I've played the entire story of Wings of the Goddess. It's an alternate universe in which the Crystal War never ended, so the events play out differently. There are different characters who never mattered in the main timeline, and none of the events you take part in change anything that happen in present day Vana'diel.

FFXIV can't actually give us any meaningful travel to the past, either. What would we be able to do? Nothing that could change the shape of how the game plays out for everyone playing through 2.0+

Which means nothing at all worth noting.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

The world would be split from the Source as/after he left. I'm not saying it started as a different dimension.

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Shards don't just form spontaneously. There is no precedent for it. There was only one Sundering, through circumstances that have not been repeated, and everyone who has any knowledge of the shards talks about them as a consistent number.

On top of that, it would achieve nothing for this new shard to have developed "after he left". The damage was already done at that point - the calamity and the destruction of society as we know it - and yet we have now prevented that from happening. History does not match the future-Source.

Whether it seems to perfectly work with Alexander's version of time travel or not, everything points to it as creating a split timeline by travelling to the past and altering it.

And while my initial response to it was feeling like it didn't match Alexander's "stable time loop" approach to time travel, I think it can be made to work. Even back then, time isn't guaranteed to remain stable, but the loop is at least partly created and kept on track by Alexander's deliberate interference with events.

As it is described in the story:

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The summoning of the colossus, and the events that followed, had potentially disastrous consequence for our reality. Its fabric strained to accommodate an infinite number of potential futures separated by nary a thread.

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Time isn't a loop there because it's guaranteed to loop, but because Alexander made sure that it did.

I think in the case of G'raha's travel, reality would be likewise strained by multiple potential futures, the difference being that he was deliberately trying to take the world into one of them, and succeeded by altering events that he knew to have happened in the timeline he came from. That, I think, should cause the timelines to restabilise - and if not, then the destruction of the time machine (by us in this timeline; by the rejoining in the other). But unlike Alexander's neat loop and single outcome, the fact that part of G'raha's life was spent in that other timeline keeps that other reality "wedged open" so both continue to exist independently. Where he expected that the timeline would be destroyed and that he would cease to be as a consequence, instead his existence requires the other timeline to remain open.

That's my best attempt at resolving it within the information we have, and I think it makes sense without introducing new concepts outside of what we have already seen.

It's certainly not just the planet splitting with the G'raha related time travel. It's the entire universe of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I wouldn't be surprised at all to have voidsent showing up. Buuuut I don't think we'll be going to the 13th unless it's like, a quick visit in a dungeon or something.

We're already hitting Thavinair, Garlemald and the MOON. I think it'd be kind of silly to also have us going to the 13th in any significant capacity this expansion as well.

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Exactly - we won't be going to the Thirteenth for one simple reason, we have already been there once before (it's the World of Darkness), and as it's the Void, there is virtually nothing there other than a few ruined platforms/structures and a whole lot of Voidsent. Even the means we used to travel there is now permenantly sealed

(the portal to the Void collapsed when the Covenant the Cloud of Darkness had with Xande was broken once Xande was killed, which required the Ironworks to brute-force the portal open with magitek so we could travel there to save Nero, Doga and Unei, but they couldn't hold it open indefinetely, and it's now permenantly closed).

Theoretically the Crystal Tower in the First could potentially travel there, but again the

mechanism that turned the tower in the Crystal TARDIS was deactivated for good during the events of the Twinning (to be fair G'raha actually planned to use the tower to travel to the Thirteenth himself on a one-way trip as the coda to his plan to save the WoL and the worlds, by absorbing the corrupted Light aether from the WoL into the Tower, and then taking it and himself on a suicide trip to the Void where he would vent it, resulting in the tower's destruction - of course a certain trigger-happy Ascian threw a big spanner in those plans though.),

so that option is out too.

Really I don't see us doing any further Shard hopping, because it serves no purpose once Zodiark is defeated - there will no longer be any risk of Calamities occuring so no need to travel to the four remaining Shards. We'll have more than enough to deal with back home on the Source.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Really I don't see us doing any further Shard hopping, because it serves no purpose once Zodiark is defeated - there will no longer be any risk of Calamities occuring so no need to travel to the four remaining Shards. We'll have more than enough to deal with back home on the Source.

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I mean.. eventually adventure would be the reason to travel to those shards. To see what's out there, how it differs from the source and other such things.

We'll just continue as is. All Ascians will be gone and we start with one of the new continents. They are barely explored so everything can be on them. And they can make stuff up as they go along anyway. Fantasy and all that.

I just hope we loose most of our powers. I'm tired of being a demigod that walks like a garbage collector. How could a simple monster or bandit pose any serious threat after having slain I dont know how many gods. The narrative power creep needs to be turned down significantly, if you ask me.

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Originally Posted by Floortank

This is inaccurate. I've played the entire story of Wings of the Goddess. It's an alternate universe in which the Crystal War never ended, so the events play out differently. There are different characters who never mattered in the main timeline, and none of the events you take part in change anything that happen in present day Vana'diel.

FFXIV can't actually give us any meaningful travel to the past, either. What would we be able to do? Nothing that could change the shape of how the game plays out for everyone playing through 2.0+

Which means nothing at all worth noting.

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There are quests in wings of the goddess where your actions in the past directly effect things in present day vana’diel (such as the dancer job quest line). Lilith comes from an alternate future where the war never ended and is trying to change OUR timeline, the vana’diel in WoTG is very much our own.

I would prefer that there not be time travel unless there is a very good reason for it. Time travel in fiction, especially involving travel to the past, is very difficult to do well. When done poorly, it can completely break the lore, confuse the players, and can cause problems down the line for many years.

Case study: Warlords of Draenor (WoW expansion) had players travel to Draenor as it existed in the past before it was destroyed, but it was an alternate timeline version of Draenor. It caused all sorts of issues, particularly with characters having main universe and alternate universe versions of themselves.

The story of Warlords of Draenor came across like a bad fan fiction. Even the way they presented it at BlizzCon felt like they were just geeking out with no regard for the consequences to the lore.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Theoretically the Crystal Tower in the First could potentially travel there, but again the

mechanism that turned the tower in the Crystal TARDIS was deactivated for good during the events of the Twinning (to be fair G'raha actually planned to use the tower to travel to the Thirteenth himself on a one-way trip as the coda to his plan to save the WoL and the worlds, by absorbing the corrupted Light aether from the WoL into the Tower, and then taking it and himself on a suicide trip to the Void where he would vent it, resulting in the tower's destruction - of course a certain trigger-happy Ascian threw a big spanner in those plans though.),

so that option is out too.

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From memory, I don't think he was aiming for the Void there but for the rift between the worlds. And I didn't get the impression that he was going to take the tower with him, just throw himself and all that energy into the rift there and then, and the tower would vanish as a result of time unravelling. Though I suppose it might have been pulled along with him remotely.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

I mean.. eventually adventure would be the reason to travel to those shards. To see what's out there, how it differs from the source and other such things.

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From the amount of effort required to get us to the First - literally hundreds of years of effort altogether - jumping shards isn't just something we can do on a whim. We can't do it without someone at the other end to pull us across, and getting someone there is the extremely hard part. G'raha was only able to travel there after merging himself to the tower, and while he was willing to do that to save the world, I don't think he's going to be willing to do it again just so we can have a fun trip to the Eleventh or whatever. Nor should we want him to.

It's not entirely impossible that a sufficiently powerful mage from one of the shards could summon us across for some reason - that being the story the Exarch first gave us for calling us to the First - but they've already used that idea even if they subverted it, and it's not that plausible for it to happen.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

We'll just continue as is. All Ascians will be gone and we start with one of the new continents. They are barely explored so everything can be on them. And they can make stuff up as they go along anyway. Fantasy and all that.

I just hope we loose most of our powers. I'm tired of being a demigod that walks like a garbage collector. How could a simple monster or bandit pose any serious threat after having slain I dont know how many gods. The narrative power creep needs to be turned down significantly, if you ask me.

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What 'powers' exactly are there to lose..? The Blessing of Light will likely be irrelevant after this story arc, with no more Ascians, Zodiark or Hydaelyn. The Echo provides no real powers other than immunity to tempering and visions of the past, hell, the WoL probably has the least impressive Echo ability compared to some of the others. The rest is literally just the WoL's fighting prowess. So... unless you want to turn the WoL into a cripple or want a fresh start with a new character, there doesn't seem to be that much to take away.

I mean, it is ultimately about development costs and whatnot.

Were an expansion to come along that used the current 2.0 zones, but slightly altered, it would be a huge savings in development time.

This is not to say it would be time travel necessarily as it could simply be the “void” shard or some such. I expect as FfXIV winds down, we will see something along these lines.

For reference, FFXI did this with “dynamis” (each city-state was a raid) and used several zones in two different expansions called “wings of the goddess” and “Abyssea”.

All that said, I’m not sure it would happen as a time slip backwards since a huge amount of in game lore explains how the actual physical layout of zones has changed significantly from 1.0 to 2.0.

Im thinking after Endwalker there will be a 2-5 year time jump. I am thinking they are using this ending to spark a new starting point for new players that dont want to have to go through 4 expansions to catch up starting in 7.0, who knows, in 7.0 we could see a engine update which could help ffxiv for another 10 years.

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Originally Posted by Derio

Im thinking after Endwalker there will be a 2-5 year time jump. I am thinking they are using this ending to spark a new starting point for new players that dont want to have to go through 4 expansions to catch up starting in 7.0, who knows, in 7.0 we could see a engine update which could help ffxiv for another 10 years.

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I don' tknow,the new plot starts in 6.1 and it could feel a little jarring to get to that point and then '2 years later' or whatever.

New plot, sure, but I dont' expect a time skip to come with it.

it's possible I suppose, we have no idea what's going to happen in the story after 6.0 which makes it all the more exciting. That said I don't think they'll do time travel, could be wrong about that, but it's my guess.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

What 'powers' exactly are there to lose..? The Blessing of Light will likely be irrelevant after this story arc, with no more Ascians, Zodiark or Hydaelyn. The Echo provides no real powers other than immunity to tempering and visions of the past, hell, the WoL probably has the least impressive Echo ability compared to some of the others. The rest is literally just the WoL's fighting prowess. So... unless you want to turn the WoL into a cripple or want a fresh start with a new character, there doesn't seem to be that much to take away.

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I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

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You need to separate narrative from gameplay imo. Narrative wise do you really think the WoL would be a master of close to 30 different professions/fighting styles? I never have, I suspend my disbelief and chalk it up to 'gameplay'.

As for the Azem thing, I would be surprised if they ever mention Azem or the WoL now being 8 times rejoined again.. because the relevancy of it would peter out with this arc.. arguably the relevancy of it ended with Shadowbringers. Most likely the status quo will be maintained as far as the WoL's feats go. Because while there are surely others who feel as you do.. who would be delighted to see the WoL 'become at least somewhat normal again'.. there will be just as many who do not want that.

I know I for one sure as hell do not yearn to go back to what the WoL was in ARR, a noname errand runner for half of 2.0.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

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9/14 in fact, due to merging with Ardbert's soul - but the thing is, everyone in the Source is 8/14. Conversely, inhabitants of the First are not noticably weak or insubstantial despite being only 1/14.

We were bestest at everything long before we got the extra soul fragment.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

I really like the Echo as a plot device. I don't like the whole we're 8/14th of an Ascian and the bestest at everything. I mean, I wouldn't like it if we'd continue like that. It's time we become at least somewhat normal again.

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It's a faulty one though. I mean how many times have the baddies had an open opportunity to just stick a sword in our chest while we were having an echo vision and not a single one took advantage. Also, especially in the beginning of the game when we first meet the scions, we fall completely unconscious and the scions are like "he passed out, /shrug, guess I will continue to look at this rock" instead of providing the minimum of aid. Which is also how we know, amongst other things like ppl actually acknowledging they waited while we were having a vision, that time actually passes where we are likely sitting their blank faced, staring into nothingness.

We also only see relevant and specific information that is important to the plot at that moment and with what we can learn from the echo we should have enough of the syndicate to rule Ul'dah ourselves if we wanted and really should have seen things like the end of 2.55 coming well in advance with all the various ppl who were in on the plot. So while it is good for exposition, it really is a bad plot device in and of itself.

That's one of the big things that has always bothered me about this game.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

You need to separate narrative from gameplay imo. Narrative wise do you really think the WoL would be a master of close to 30 different professions/fighting styles? I never have, I suspend my disbelief and chalk it up to 'gameplay'.

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Most of our combat knowledge comes from the soul Crystal, we haven’t actually mastered these styles we’re just borrowing the memories of the people who have. The only skills that are our own are the class skills and anything from machinist since we are the one putting our memories into that soul Crystal.

I think where narrative and gameplay get a bit skewed is in enemy “power levels” like we’re supposed to believe that Zenos is stronger than Bahamut? Or that it takes 24 people to beat Acheron but only 4 to beat Zenos?

And the whole fractured soul thing seems very iffy in the first place from both story and gameplay perspectives. Ranjit is only 1/14 of a soul but he’s stronger than all of the scions combined when we rescue minfillia even though anyone from the first should wipe the floor with anyone from a shard. Not to mention we as a fractured being have beaten unsundered beings like lahabrea and that was when we still had the training wheels on.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

We also only see relevant and specific information that is important to the plot at that moment and with what we can learn from the echo we should have enough of the syndicate to rule Ul'dah ourselves if we wanted and really should have seen things like the end of 2.55 coming well in advance with all the various ppl who were in on the plot. So while it is good for exposition, it really is a bad plot device in and of itself.

That's one of the big things that has always bothered me about this game.

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Oh, yeah. I totally agree. I'm not saying it's good writing. It's a Final Fantasy game at the end of the day and FF sure loves their Deus Ex Machina moments. I still think it's a fun 'ability', though. I like that it's being expanded upon like in Bozja.

And as far as gameplay and story working together in tandem are concerned, for me good games do merge both for the sake of not creating too much narrative dissonance.
And we will be running errands as a player who wants to do side quests anyway. But I find it increasingly silly that a demigod does it. Even the characters in-universe joke about it, so the writers are obviously aware. /shrug
And characters also joke about us being able to be every class, too. It's nice they acknowledge it, don't get me wrong.

I just think it would be a good opportunity to tone that all down so you can ramp it up again. But how are you gonna do that if you're already pretty much omnipotent? With dragons from space, maybe. lol I dunno. Just a feeling.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

9/14 in fact, due to merging with Ardbert's soul - but the thing is, everyone in the Source is 8/14. Conversely, inhabitants of the First are not noticably weak or insubstantial despite being only 1/14.

We were bestest at everything long before we got the extra soul fragment.

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To be fair, I already took Ardbert into account. I thought we had 7 calamities + Ardbert. Guess I missed one. /think
The 13th maybe?

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

To be fair, I already took Ardbert into account. I thought we had 7 calamities + Ardbert. Guess I missed one. /think
The 13th maybe?

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The one you missed was the Source.

Source soul + 7x calamity soul + Ardbert soul = 9 soul fragments.

Regarding OP I hope not, Timetravel is a story mechanism that always ruins whatever story it touch.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Most of our combat knowledge comes from the soul Crystal, we haven’t actually mastered these styles we’re just borrowing the memories of the people who have. The only skills that are our own are the class skills and anything from machinist since we are the one putting our memories into that soul Crystal.

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Yes and no. The Soul Crystal does act as a skill repository from past practioners of that Discipline that a user can draw skills quickly from, but you're also creating skills yourself as you go along, which are then recorded in the Soul Crystal, via a process similar to attuning to an aetheryte. And MCH and BLU's Soul Crystals you are literally creating everything from scratch then and there, given both Jobs have been made virtually from out of whole cloth unlike other Jobs that are just Disciplines that had been lost, forgotten, were foreign and unknown in Eorzea or made illegal.

MCH is the WoL testing Stephanivien's new theories of aetheromachinestry derived from Garlean magitek that he melded with a few Limsan musketry techniques (from the strictly controlled/forbidden Discipline of Musketeer), while BLU was actually a fake Job (but based on a real one from the New World) peddled by a con artist that we actually made completely functional, much to his relief, given the Limsan authorities were circling.

So the WoL is not just 'drawing on older techniques', they're actually adding new ones they make up themselves, and other NPC practioners of the Jobs are shown doing the same thing, making use of skills and spells we have no access to (and never will). Most of our combat knowledge and skill just comes from plain old determination and a bountiful reserve of personal aether, something the Soul Crystals only enhance and amplify (that the Echo and the Blessing of Light enhance even further).

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Yes and no. The Soul Crystal does act as a skill repository from past practioners of that Discipline that a user can draw skills quickly from, but you're also creating skills yourself as you go along, which are then recorded in the Soul Crystal, via a process similar to attuning to an aetheryte. And MCH and BLU's Soul Crystals you are literally creating everything from scratch then and there, given both Jobs have been made virtually from out of whole cloth unlike other Jobs that are just Disciplines that had been lost, forgotten, were foreign and unknown in Eorzea or made illegal.

MCH is the WoL testing Stephanivien's new theories of aetheromachinestry derived from Garlean magitek that he melded with a few Limsan musketry techniques (from the strictly controlled/forbidden Discipline of Musketeer), while BLU was actually a fake Job (but based on a real one from the New World) peddled by a con artist that we actually made completely functional, much to his relief, given the Limsan authorities were circling.

So the WoL is not just 'drawing on older techniques', they're actually adding new ones they make up themselves, and other NPC practioners of the Jobs are shown doing the same thing, making use of skills and spells we have no access to (and never will). Most of our combat knowledge and skill just comes from plain old determination and a bountiful reserve of personal aether, something the Soul Crystals only enhance and amplify (that the Echo and the Blessing of Light enhance even further).

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Yes we’re adapting the fighting style but we’re building it on a foundation that we don’t actually know. This becomes abundantly clear if you unequip your soul Crystal. You can see that, for example, as a gladiator all we know is our 1-2-3 combo, total eclipse, fight or flight, shield bash, shield lob, iron will, sentinel and circle of scorn. These are the only skills that we properly know, everything else comes from the soul Crystal and without it you simply can’t do them anymore, even skills that realistically there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to as a gladiator, like goring blade.

Again this could be taken as the lines between narrative and gameplay becoming skewed since they simply abandoned classes as an idea so they don’t update the base classes anymore. But it does make sense from a lore perspective since as lanadra says, it’s hard to imagine we mastered all these fighting styles, it makes more sense that we’re using the soul crystals to cheat.

It’s also interesting to think that the soul Crystal is actually hurting our growth, since we’re no longer developing our own skills and instead are becoming dependant on this lump of rock. If we were to ever lose it or have it taken from us we’d have nothing. Kind of like what they did with midgarsormr locking away our blessing of light.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

It’s also interesting to think that the soul Crystal is actually hurting our growth, since we’re no longer developing our own skills and instead are becoming dependant on this lump of rock. If we were to ever lose it or have it taken from us we’d have nothing. Kind of like what they did with midgarsormr locking away our blessing of light.

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If you chalk it up to gameplay and story segregation though, and assume that we're learning the skills for good really, I can see it working more like the skill system from FF9: skills originate from equipment, so you equip a thing and can suddenly use a new ability, take it off and lose it again - but as you use it, you eventually learn it permanently.

In the case of soul stones, you'd then continue using it to engrave all your new techniques into it as well.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Again this could be taken as the lines between narrative and gameplay becoming skewed since they simply abandoned classes as an idea so they don’t update the base classes anymore. But it does make sense from a lore perspective since as lanadra says, it’s hard to imagine we mastered all these fighting styles, it makes more sense that we’re using the soul crystals to cheat.

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My point was more that I treat 'the WoL is a star at literally all forms of combat and crafting/gathering' as gameplay while from a narrative point thinking that the WoL most likely mastered three, maybe four of those things in total. Like.. I dunno, Gladiator/Paladin, Machinist, Dragoon and Samurai. That is typically how I think when looking at my WoL from a narrative perspective, exceptional at a few things that share a general skill similarity (like melee) and machinist as an outlier while treating the rest as 'gameplay', making them exceedingly powerful especially with the workaholic attitude the WoL is often believed to have.. yet still within the realm of reason.

Hearkening back to your point about the Soul Crystals though, I don't believe it's as simple as 'we don't learn anything ourselves, we just cheat by using the knowledge of those who held it before us as a crutch'. It's worth remembering that with a lot of the jobs you only even get the Soul Crystal because it resonates with you, because you're 'special'. Perfect example is White Mage, the Padjali siblings make it exceedingly clear how unusual and actually forbidden it is for anyone not Padjali to wield the forbidden White Magics.. yet A-Towa-Cant himself chooses the WoL to inherit his crystal and become a White Mage.. presumably because the WoL has the affinity and drive to learn the arts and put them to good use. So quite clearly a certain skillset and ability to actually learn the arts is a requisite to being able to actually use a Soul Crystal.

It's often been described to us that yes, the knowledge recorded in the Soul Crystal helps us on our way and is likely why we are able to pick things up surprisingly quickly rather than go through the process most of the NPCs would have to.. namely, a long arduous learning path.. like Jannequinard learning Sharlayan Astrology.. but I don't think that we never learn anything ourselves and just 'cheat' as you put it. I won't deny that it does seem clear that any job does seem to always require the Soul Crystal be with you.. and this does not seem to go for just the WoL either. In the Astrologian quest.. the first one, Mace tosses his crystal towards you before he's taken, and his grand daughter despairs at how he now has literally no means with which to defend himself with.