For someone like Finn, with his knowledge from the future, he understood this fact even better.
He knew of soul densities and how it decided a person's magical capability, and that Transcendents were people that simply had soul densities exceeding the peak Arcanist threshold — the highest soul density an Arcanist could achieve — but hadn't quite reached what would eventually be classified as Ossuarist level.
Applying that knowledge to Transcendents, that would mean people like Tavian were Transcendent by technical definition, but operating at the lower end of that spectrum.
Their abstract magic, their conceptual abilities, were real and powerful when applied cleverly. But they lacked the overwhelming, reality-bending authority that stronger concepts from people at the higher end of the Transcendents soul spectrum provided almost effortlessly.
