Using "Acashic Record" to Find Gem Sites?

[Ygorl]

Here's what it did for me, based on the spell being active for several years; this was under 3.0, upgraded to 3.01, with no difference apparent between versions.

It only searched provinces I owned, in which I had positive dominion. It only searched paths known by the caster. The maximum level of search reached was 3, anywhere, even with level 12 astral and level 9 air magic on the caster. Search level could get up to 3 even if the caster did not have level 3 in a path. Having a higher level in a path did make the search level more likely to go up. I don't know if higher dominion correlated with a higher chance of the search level going up.

This spell seems nastier as a way to kill enemy mages, actually. About the only way to make decent use of it for site-searching is with a high-astral pretender who casts it and then wishes for magic power. This is not something that will be practical in most games, probably. It's not a particularly efficient way to kill enemy mages, either, but it can at least be obnoxious.