Arcanists and their spells

[dubstephalflife]

also, the books are magic, the ink is magic, and you "write" the formula in magic ink in your magic book to channel your magic powers.

Unfortunately, I can't find the exact script for it, but I believe the level 20 Alchemy quest says this, as you're the one who has to bind the book and create the magic ink (and write in it too). After you complete the quest, the arcanist explains to you why you need to create the tome in a very specific way so that an arcanist can cast his spells.

[gornotck]

It would be nice if we could play back the dialogues related to the quests, but...
In general, yes. You're binding the book, and making the ink as an alchemist. The arcanist is the one who fills it, as that's not your bag, baby. Why would the alchemist know an arcanist's arcanima better than the arcanist?
The ink, being made of precious metal, facilitates the flow of aether. This is also seen with goldsmithing in the making of thaumaturge scepters and staves, as well as weaving in the making of certain clothes.
The books, themselves, are made of wood, leather, and precious metals. All of these things also facilitate the flow of aether.

[Kerberon]

Here's a picture of some chemicals from our world. Looks pretty similar

[Urthdigger]

Actually, it's mentioned in the blm and whm quests and lore that they are unique for using the aether of the land (hence the destruction wrought by the war of the magi.) So, by exclusion, we can see arcanists use their own aether.

[Bombast]

Actually, it's mentioned in the blm and whm quests and lore that they are unique for using the aether of the land (hence the destruction wrought by the war of the magi.) So, by exclusion, we can see arcanists use their own aether.

Except that Summoner's also pull from the surrounding Aether to create Egi's.

Which isn't to say Arcanist do. But it displays something people frequently forget - Just because someone in the game says something, doesn't make it true. They can be mistaken, or simply full of it, as well.

[Nahara]

The books are indeed magical, as are the ink. Two texts from the Relic Reborn quest for the Omnilex and the Veil of Wiyu stand out:

Turns out the patterns on the cover are meant to improve the flow of aether from the wielder's hands. An' I'd thought 'em merely decorations. Ye learn summat new every day, eh?

I thought that the studs what adorn it were only good for holdin' the bloody thing together. But it turns out they're meant to channel the wielder's aether as well. Ye learn summat new every day, eh?

So we know that, at least in the case of the Omnilex and the Veil that the bindings of the books are designed in a way to better channel aether. Now, onto some text about the ink:

Ink fortified with X sand to improve aetherial conductivity.

The X is merely a placeholder for the various types of sand usable in the ink's creation, be it copper, silver, gold, rose gold, or whatever the Superior Enchanted Ink is made of that makes it better than the rest. You can think of it like the conductive circuits on a motherboard (all those copper lines); these lines can be drawn with a pen, so it's stands to reason the enchanted ink used to make arcanima grimories is similar in function, but works with aether instead of electricity.

[EDIT]
So if you really wanted to think it all through: The arcanist opens his grimorie to the page containing all the information necessary about the spell he wishes to cast, which takes the form of arcane geometries. The arcanist feeds aether into the geometries, which shape the aether into the desired form, which is then released onto your target as the finished spell. More advanced and/or personalized grimories can contain additional aetherial conductors as "decoration" on the binding to improve performance.

And thinking on it a bit more as I write this, the grimories are essentially computers for magic. Aether is to electricity, as the conductive ink is to the motherboard, as the additional conductors on the binding are to more RAM or an additional CPU.

[Wadoka]

If you consider again from the aspect of science and mathematics, if you start with good old Ruin and up through Bio, Miasma, and so forth... you could say they are all examples of accelerating the Universal characteristic of Entropy.

A true archetype of an Arcanist would be able to accelerate the corruption, corrosion, decay of practically anything subject to Entropy. This could include massive structures, like the walls of Ul'dah.

A powerful Arcanist would be a siege weapon without parallel.

Now, a good, heroic Arcanist would have also studied how best to *arrest* Entropy... and legendary heroic Arcanists would have myths told of them, of being able to reverse it - healing awful wounds, restoring life to the dead, creating unbreakable, invincible items...

[Kerberon]

A true archetype of an Arcanist would be able to accelerate the corruption, corrosion, decay of practically anything subject to Entropy. This could include massive structures, like the walls of Ul'dah.

A powerful Arcanist would be a siege weapon without parallel.

Most magic wielders would be like gods to any but a magic user if it was taken into a realistic situation. Look at your city walls example. A Thaumaturge could freeze the walls then flash thaw them creating thermal stress that would make them so brittle that a 90lbs weakling could tap on them and shatter them.

[TinyRedLeaf]

It is interesting to note, however, that no where does it say in the ACN storyline (and do correct me if I am wrong) that personal aether wells are necessary to take advantage of arcanima. In fact, all an arcanist is doing when they cast their spells is taking ambient aether and routing it a specific way in order to obtain results.

Actually, that isn't fully correct. Murie, the Mealvaan Gate receptionist, explains that the aether does, in fact, come from within the arcanist.

Arcanima is the science of employing "arcane geometries" — intricate patterns that map the unlocked mysteries of existence — to draw forth and manipulate the body's aetheric energies.

So, that would explain why the arcanist's MP is consumed when he casts spells.

In that sense, you're partially right: Of the three magic-using classes in today's Eorzea, the arcanist is technically the one who is the most proficient in managing personal wells of aether. The thaumaturge, as seen in the class storyline, would have to rely heavily on alchemical means like ether potions to supplement his MP (in gameplay terms, though, a thaumaturge who properly manages his astral and umbral cycles wouldn't run out of aether so easily). As for the conjurer, she'd literally kill herself if she draws from her own aether instead of the elementals'.

There's also the arcanist's aetherdam trait which, I imagine, comes from the use of arcanima to trap and store up a reserve of aether within the body. This then allows the arcanist to unleash the pent up aether in a sudden burst, for potentially devastating effects.

I further imagine that it's this aether-managment ability that allows you, the player-character, to become a summoner. During the job quests to acquire the various egi, Y'mhitra specifically instructs you to focus on your personal aether, while you form the image of the primal in your mind's eye.

Given the vast amounts of aether to summon a primal's true form, it wouldn't take a stretch to believe that a summoner would also have to channel a tremendous amount of personal energy, just to call upon a fraction of the primal's power.

[Darske]

About geometric patterns bringing forth life, there's actually a documented real-life example of something like this. Check out how mathematical fractals are actually everywhere in the biological world, it's pretty crazy.

I see the Arcanist and, by extension, its Jobs as having magicks that utilize aether and a similar fractal principle. By inducing fractals or modifying them, the spells they weave create very specific kinds of life or phenomenon. These can either be harmful, like short-lived bacteria that eat away at the limbs of an enemy, or helpful like the Scholar's spells. Of particular interest here is that when casting a Scholar spell, the patterns around your grimoire actually look very fractal in design.

The fact that both stem from the same class, Arcanist, implies that the two applications of horrifying consumption and soothing healing arts derive from a single equation. Perhaps then this is why we see the same pattern recurrant in the pages of the grimoires- the base, if you will, for the more complex equations it branches off into in the jobs