Curriculum
Use Resonate to gather Aether, then spend it on technique upgrades. Each technique has its own cost.
Academy employment
Take one job at a time. Refreshing the board ends your current job and gives you eight new offers.
Library
Select Read to study a book until you stop or switch. A book becomes less effective the longer you read it, and switching away won’t reset that loss. Some books also train learned spells, and unusual secondhand finds can be especially useful. Mastery gains slow at higher ranks.
You can manually read one book a day. Come back tomorrow to read another title.
Academy shop
Equipment upgrades are permanent.
Miro’s Curiosities
Academy training facilities
Instructor Tennant oversees academy training. Advanced training programs: coming soon.
Consultation
Academy classes
Complete lectures and practicals in order. You’ll need a higher academic title for each new group of five. Excursions have separate requirements.
Campus
Choose one student for passive friendship gains. Use Small Talk to keep up with other friends, or give gifts to progress faster.
Academy Challenges
There are thirteen disciplines, each with thirty levels. You’ll see the examiner’s difficulty after you roll. Rewards carry over to your next examination, and some friends can improve your chances.
Arena
Choose Earthen Combat or The Engineer’s Gambit. Combat uses Earthen Barrier, Earthen Armor, and Earthshot; the Gambit uses Soil Science. Each trial has thirty stages. Replay cleared stages for Kohn; Lucky Charms are permitted.
The Engineer's Gambit · 30-level Soil Science Arena
The second Arena trial. Use learned Soil Science spells and your real Spell Power. Each paid attempt earns Kohn and Exam Preparedness on victory; finish all 30 stages for a Platinum Certificate worth +7 Prestige. The next stage unlocks only after you win.
Storyline
Campus Events
Unexpected encounters from your time at the Synod.
Journal
Spellcasting
Sort by Requirement to find spells you can learn sooner, or by Purpose to browse spell branches. Learning costs Knowledge; practice builds mastery.
Prestige & Titles
Synod examinations
Practical examinations will test your spell ranks and elemental Attunement.
Patch Notes — v0.6.1
A whole new Arena minigame, a new Soil Science spell, and more secrets to uncover.
The Engineer’s Gambit — A whole new Arena minigame!
I've added an entire minigame to the Arena! The Engineer's Gambit has 30 levels of tunnels, structural puzzles, and opportunities to bring somebody else's roof down. Study the diagrams, pick the right Soil Science spells to investigate, and figure out which supports you can afford to remove. If you spend all your Aether on the wrong thing, that's your problem. (And yes, you can collapse your own tunnel.)
New Epic Soil Science spell — Pedogenic Simulation
You'll want to learn our new Soil Science spell to play it! Well, you don't have to, at least for the early levels. Any learned Soil Science spell can get you started. But a powerful Pedogenic Simulation gives you a much larger Aether budget to investigate clues and clear the harder levels. It won't solve the puzzles for you, though.
A new book, and some things I'd rather not spoil
Alongside the new spell, there's a new support book to help with your Soil Science studies. Try to find out how to get it! I've also added several events related to Soil Science and the new Arena. I'm not telling you where they are or how to trigger them. The fun's in finding out!
The Engineer's Gambit has its own 30-stage progression, Knowledge entry fees, and rewards, including a Platinum Certificate worth 7 Prestige if you clear the whole thing. Good luck!
Earlier v0.5.3 Patch Notes
Balance & Mechanics Consistency Pass
- Yelena raises the minimum Reading and Job effectiveness floor by 1 percentage point per Friendship Level, from 30% unbefriended to 50% at Level 20. Her existing decay reduction remains.
- Book spell mastery uses the actual book reading duration rather than a one-second fallback. This corrects greatly inflated mastery XP from continuous reading.
- Independent Spell Practice now trains the selected learned spell every five seconds when enabled and affordable, including while the game is away. Casting costs and mastery rewards use the normal spellcasting formulas.
- Veliane, Rhel, and Larna’s reading Knowledge bonuses now affect both manual and independent reading, as well as displayed production rates.
- Practical Attunement now grants its Attunement reward every 60 seconds of continuous job work. Existing class and mentor rewards are preserved.
- Harvest Resonance adds +2% Knowledge per spell rank to cultivation contracts. Gift Parcels grant exactly +75 Friendship Progress regardless of the recipient’s threshold or Tommaso’s multiplier.
- Contract Dividends now pays +0.075 Kohn/sec per rank. Cuman’s original Spell Power bonus and Earthshot’s deliberately weaker offensive potency are preserved.
Storyline Chapter 5
Bellafonte’s Practical is now available after Chapter 4. Complete Lecture 7 and Practical 7 before taking the Soil Cohesion assessment, and meet Anabeth von Silberthal afterward.
Unstudied spell mastery
Until you finish a relevant book, an unstudied spell gains 50% less mastery from reading. Its existing +100% Aether cost for Practice and Rank Up still applies.
Storyline — Chapters 3 & 4
Two new chapters are available in Storyline. Spend some time with Liene in the greenhouses, then meet another Earth student. Both chapters feature new conversations and spellcasting challenges; one also checks your lecture progress.
Academy Interruptions
New events can interrupt Spellcasting, Campus, Library, Jobs, and Mentor activities. Look for a glowing tab when something happens. You can leave an encounter waiting until you're ready to respond.
New encounters and discoveries
More students have things to say, favours to ask, and surprises in store. Your choices can lead to Friendship bonuses, useful rewards, or consequences you didn't expect. There are also a few unusual finds waiting in the Library.
Mentor Questions
Mentors may test what you've learned about the academy. Answer correctly to earn a reward — but don't expect them to overlook cheating.
Arena loadouts
The Arena now uses up to two distinct defensive spells and one offensive spell. Each slot may be set to None. The second defensive spell contributes 65% of its power. Stage 30 is balanced to be extremely difficult with a fully mastered Earthen Armor, Earthen Barrier and Earthshot before Cuman and Lucky Charms; those bonuses make a meaningful difference. Offensive spells have 5% lower power across Challenges and Arena. Earthen Barrier has a wider, slightly stronger average power range than other Rare defensive spells.
Rewards and timing
Some event rewards scale with your current reading or job production. Pending events persist through saving and reloading.
Previous Patch Notes — v0.5.2
Excursions, spell research, and a better use for Knowledge.
Excursions are worth exploring now
I've replaced the old once-per-day excursion limit with a repeatable companion system. Each trip asks for a random friend at Friendship Level 1–5. Bring the right companion and an excursion costs 10 Aether; otherwise you can pay 50 Kohn to refresh the request.
I've expanded the discoveries to include Field Notes, consumables, hard-to-find books, and some rather unusual artifacts. The base chance of finding nothing is now 35%, while Soil Texture Sense and other discovery bonuses improve your odds. The (i) next to Excursions shows the actual discovery categories and adjusted chances.
There's also new story content tucked away in the discoveries. I won't spoil it. Go exploring and see what you find.
Knowledge has a job again
Academy Challenges and Arena attempts now cost Knowledge instead of Aether. Entry prices increase with challenge level, so continuing to read matters even after you've learned most spells. Casting spells still uses Aether as normal.
Field Notes and spell research
Field Notes are now consumed when you unlock a spell that requires them. I've added repeatable Field Note purchases to the Shop, with prices that rise a little each time. Earth Attunement is still only a requirement for learning spells; it isn't spent.
You can buy books before meeting their reading requirements, but you can't read them early. Once owned, a locked book shows a pink Cannot Read button. I've also made the book and spell research requirements more consistent.
Book mastery is easier to see
When you're reading a book that improves a spell, its Cast button glows green—even if you aren't casting. Hover to see how much Book Mastery per second you're getting. Reading itself doesn't spend Aether; only casting does. I've also tidied up spell-card alignment and renamed Dust Settling to Surface Smoothing to keep Dust separate from Earth thaumaturgy.
Shop and interface cleanup
I've raised book, equipment, and tuition prices modestly to keep pace with continuous job income. The old timed Study Assistance choices are gone, since reading is continuous now. Discovered excursion artifacts now appear as owned in the Shop.
The floating Aether display is compact again; capacity explanations have moved to the main Reservoir details. I've also cleaned up the Excursion information tooltip and added artifact displays alongside the academy's character introductions.
Thanks for the reports and suggestions. I've got more content planned—especially for the things whose purpose isn't clear just yet.
Previous Patch Notes — v0.5.1
Spellcasting and book fixes
Fixed spells that could spend Aether while mastery stopped progressing, including book-related stalls. Book reading could generate invalid mastery values; reading, casting, and event mastery now use consistent rank-up requirements. Excess mastery is carried over. Unmet Earth Attunement requirements are highlighted in pink and tell you the required amount, instead of silently wasting Aether.
Resonance Sequencing nerf
Yes, this was too OP. Spell Mastery gain per rank: +15% → +9%. I also fixed an unintended double application of that bonus to automatic casting.
Friendship matters more
Friendship rewards now grow more substantially as you level up: most percentage bonuses gain an additional 40% of their starting value per friendship level, up from 10%. Friends are much more worthwhile to pursue!
- Halma: +5% Spell Mastery at Friendship Level 1, scaling with higher friendship. Befriend Halma if you want to rank up spells faster.
- Tommaso: +10% friendship progress at Level 1, scaling with friendship. A great early friend to unlock if you want to befriend everyone else.
- Severa: +12% Earth Attunement gains at Level 1, with stronger level scaling; also reduces the Aether cost of spellcasting.
- Cuman: +1% Spell Power at Level 1, scaling with friendship. Spell Power and storyline rolls now display to two decimal places.
- Miro: improved Knowledge, Aether, and Attunement rewards from mentor consultations.
- Larna: a large +150 maximum Aether Capacity at Level 1, then smaller gains at later levels.
- Celline: +10% excursion item discovery and +5% Challenge/Arena Kohn rewards at Level 1, replacing an ineffective field Knowledge bonus.
- Rhel: improved Reading Knowledge rewards.
Other friendship bonuses and their displayed effects have been adjusted. Existing saves receive the updated benefits from their current friendship levels.
Earth Attunement improvements
Academic title penalties are lighter: each promotion retains 95% instead of 93% of your Attunement gain rate. Soil Resonance Calibrator now grants +5% Earth Attunement from all normal gain sources per rank, rather than boosting removed facility mechanics. Severa's Attunement reward was also buffed.
Events, interface and quality-of-life
- I've added new encounters and character scenes. Play the game and find out what I've hidden! Players who already meet the requirements can discover them on their next visit.
- Fixed Small Talk start/stop controls and immediate technique bonus displays.
- Added visible permanent event discounts on Shop equipment cards and a working Aetherflow Regulator upgrade for passive Aether gains.
- Limited mentor consultations to 150 sessions for now; additional sessions will arrive with future content.
- Improved the explanation for blocked spellcasting and kept the orange Aether shortage warning separate from pink Attunement requirements.
Thank you for reporting the glitches and balance problems. More story content, books and mentor consultations are planned.
About the story
Thaumaturgy Idle is based on Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent.
Want to explore the world behind the game? Read the novel on Royal Road.