Apologies for the super late reply, trying to unlearn years of muscle memory makes for a forgetful mind.

Quote Originally Posted by Grayve View Post
Unless I'm completely misremembering, it is stated the gems and materials used to craft their jewelry is aether attuned, and that is what was used for the summoning.
After a few rereads through the relevant quests I guess I'll have to concede to that, seems like I glazed over that detail in the early morning hours when I was going through that part of the main scenario. And yet I can't shake off the feeling that Anamika's death played the bigger part in the summoning. Perhaps I jumped the gun with assuming that it alone was enough to call forth a primal in this occasion, but it certainly feels like a natural evolution of the concept that was first introduced in 2.1 and later revisited in 3.4/3.5.

But to reiterate the point I was trying to make in my original post, it feels like Stormblood is trying to break away from the rigid, predictable cycle of ”beastmen hoard crystals, beastmen summon primal.” What if you could no longer predict when someone might feel like pulling a primal out of their hat by merely monitoring the trade of crystals? It could very well be that we'll never see a 100% crystal-free soylent primal, but I think the possibility is there.