[MaxWilson]

In a general sense, 3 and 4 ARE "high magic." Pretenders can go way above that but that just gives you an idea of how incredible they are (when you spend the points for them). If your nation can get Fire-3 or Astral-4 recruitable mages it is considered to be quite strong in Fire or Astral, respectively. Of course it also matters how much they cost, whether they're recruitable anywhere, etc. Generally speaking, if you've searched a province with a Level 3 mage you've probable found everything there is to find in that path. Even a level 1 or 2 will find a high percentage of what's there, so you may or may not want to spend the gems to search it with a spell.

-Max