Recent entries

Questioner

How many oreos can you fit in your mouth?

Will Wight

As many as it takes.

Skybreaker82

Harmony (peak true gold) vs Kiro. Who wins?

Will Wight

I mean, if they are both at peak truegold, that's real contention, that's a real fight. But of course Kiro wasn't at peak truegold in Underlord, he was an Underlord. So probably Harmony, I would say, if they are at an equal advancement level, I would say Harmony probably wins. Mainly because he is ruthless and he would do anything to win and Kiro wouldn't necessarily despite how he comes across in the book, he is kind of the most level headed of all the characters introduced in that book.

Superdragonboyangel

What was your favourite line of dialogue to write? (My favourite line at the moment is “I don't have any love for the Jai clan, but as for you, if I saw you on fire I'd hold an umbrella for you so the rain didn't put you out.”

Will Wight

That was actually a really fun line to write, and by fun I mean agonizing. That tends to be the case because when I spend a lot of time on something-

I like those. I liked Northstrider saying "No." In Ghostwater, that was a lot of fun because I really set it up so that you really think the villain of the book is going to survive, because of course he's gonna survive! He's a character that's been built up too much, he can't go away, and yeah, he does. So that was a lot of fun to write. I spend a lot of time on that one, where it's the 'I'd hold an umbrella to put you out' because I knew what sentiment I wanted to express but I was thinking 'What's a creative way I can say that?' and that took a while. A lot of times there's lines of dialogue that I didn't really think too much about and then I come back and read and later and I'm like 'that's pretty good dialogue, pretty good.' There's other times when I come back and I go 'Oh, OK, an ape wrote this, an illiterate monkey. I hate this person, past Will, and I want him to go away for ever.' That doesn't always happen, but it sometimes happens.

Stubtaildestroyer

My question relates to your reading habits. I've read a lot of Japanese light novels, but I haven't really read any Chinese novels or Wuxia, so I was wondering which, if any, Wuxia stories you would recommend?

Will Wight

So its less true Wuxia, that's really more like, if you've seen Hero or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, those are good examples of...so, it more they're cultivation fantasy novels. So, there definitely are some that I recommend, again, with a lot of the caveats I stated earlier. That's the reason I started writing Cradle, because its hard to recommend them some of these to the typical western reader with no caveats. But I do recommend them because I really enjoy them, so Against the Gods, A Will Eternal, Nine Soul Hegemon  I guess is one that they say is pretty good, its not my favorite but, so on and so forth. Basically go to wuxiaworld.com and just kind of go nuts. There is gonna be something there to suit your taste because there is something there for everybody, there's a million things there and they do a fantastic job of keeping everything organized and translated.

Questioner

Is this a Cloud Nine reference?

Will Wight

It is not a Cloud Nine reference. I'm sorry. It's really not. Ninecloud Court is just a cool sounding name.

Garoob

 You mentioned you were recently coming up with some magic systems. How do you start coming up with magic system ideas?

Will Wight

I have a little form I fill out when I'm making a magic system; what are the limitations of the system, what are the actual powers of the system, which sometimes when people are designing magic systems, they forget to have what the system can do, because they've talked about what the system can't do. I have what kinda what makes it work, what are the costs and limitations, what the history of it is, and I have all these little things that I fill in. Usually what happens, what I have to do is narrow down, because of course a generic magic system can do anything right? its magic. So I'm usually picking one narrow theme or set of abilities that it can do. Which means I'm really choosing a set of things it can't do, so usually when I'm working on a magic system I then am thinking about all the things it can't do which then suggests another magic system. That's how I actually did it when I came up with a bunch of magic systems in a row. It normally gives me inspiration for what any other magic system could do.

one of the other things I do, interestingly enough, I come back to D&D because there's a lot of stuff you can think about in D&D, like wizards are just better than non spellcasters in D&D, so the problem that some people refer to is, linear fighter and quadratic wizards, so wizards improve exponentially and fighters improve linearly, because of course wizards can stop time and fighters can swing they're sword a little harder. There's kind of an inherent issue with having magic users and non magic users, that issue being, one of them can use magic, and the other one is inherently bound by the rules of physics, and I don't like that. So I've tried to develop a lot of magic systems, kinda like in Cradle, but in Cradle, everyone is a magic user, and that's the obvious answer right? you have everything be an extension of the magic system, that's the easiest way to solve that.

One of the things I've thought of, is I've been trying to do different expressions of a D&D system, even one that would fit in a real table-top RPG, where the martial characters are not inherently outclassed by the arcane characters, because they can do such supernaturally amazing stuff thats its effectively magic but it's just martial magic. It becomes magical. I've done various approaches to that, there's a lot of ways to solve that problem, so I have that problem in my head, and that set of criteria, so then I try to design systems that have the things I want and dont have the things I don't want, so I've approached that many different times.

 

Questioner

Is that process how you came up with a whole bunch of magic systems along side each other in the Traveler's Gate series?

Will Wight

Actually, no. The Traveler's Gate series really is one magic system. The gates work the same way, every territory requires the key, something to open the gate. But then I just added another set of restrictions onto each one. So this is a unique thing. So yeah, Tarturus travelers open gates quicker, Endross travelers, their gates slowly grow and grow and grow but they also get harder to control, Helgard travelers have to know the names of things they summon, so on and so forth. And I did that just to kind of-each one is a little unique, in addition to being thematically unique. And that was just a way of distinguishing each Territory from one another. I did not really design 12 magic systems. I designed 1 magic system with 12 different expressions.

Argent

Are there any cool places/creatures/magic systems you've thought of that you haven't had a chance to share with us in the books, but can talk about here?

Will Wight

Yes there are cool places/creatures/magic systems.

In Cradle, one on the things that I was originally intending, was I wanted ziel to have another sacred beast contract. Just like Lindon does, because we don't see a lot of that, mainly because I don't want to introduce two characters, so it's not something you see anybody but lindon do very much. There are other sacred artists out there that work with sacred beasts. What I really wanted to do was show off somebody else that did that.

Now what his original design called for, instead of a giant hammer and a script based path, he had a void key and he kept creatures in it, and he was kinda like a Pokemon trainer if I'm being honest. So he had a core that allowed him to share and connect with madra from a bunch of different creatures, but he formed a contract in a different way. What he would do, is he would then release these less advanced Sacred Beasts that he had a bond with, and use them according to the situation.

To be honest it was too complex of a power set, it's more suited to a protagonists than a secondary character. Mainly because you have to introduce every single little creature he's fighting with, and you have to describe it, and you have to name it, and because they're sacred beasts they're mostly intelligent, so you have to give them a personality, so instead of creating one character you're creating half a dozen characters.

So I had a mantis that used sword madra, but he didn't grow any bigger, so was literally like the size of a mantis, so he would like go and attack....there was some cool stuff that I did with him, that was neat. Then I could have him really understand Sacred Beasts and talk about the difference between sacred beasts and humans, and how they viewed the world, and there's just a lot of things I wanted to do with that, and that was a cool thing that never made it into the books.

 

One of the things I developed recently, I spent some time just going through making up some magic systems for fun. One of the ones I worked on was the idea that spells, it's a world I'm envisioning kinda wizards, casting spells, so of course when you think of the traditional fantasy setting, wizards casting spells, it's a very intellectual thing, but there becomes kind of a problem where the spread of information, like so if you have wizards that work like they do in D&D, where its all knowledge and education, and then you have the internet, every wizard is gonna have access to every spell. Not that I was intending to give the internet, but there's a perfectly efficient was to learn these spells.

So therefore I thought, okay what is a way to keep the intellectual nerdy side of it but also it'd be a very personal thing that you really do have to explore in kind of an arcane way. So I thought of, each spell you have to really describe in a personal, interactive way, and by describe I mean write down in a book, or you could do sculptures, you can do songs, you could do poems. What you're doing is you're describing a concept, and this whole whatever, alter or whatever you're building that becomes the structure of the spell, it suggest the nature of what the spell does, so if you're sculpting a really big buff dude, and then you're writing all this poetry about how strength was the most important value, and then you wrote a thesis in your own blood on how only strength matters, maybe you'd get a strength buff, maybe you wouldn't anything because you didn't put enough passion into it. You're subjectively describing the effect you want, rather than objectively describing it like a programmer would to a computer, because its not literally interpreting your commands, its is interpretively and artistically manifesting your ideas.

That feels more magical to me, instead of a scientific mathematical sort of magic system, is more of an artistic, expressive magic system. I thought that would be a cool way of doing it, and it could take years to craft the perfect spell for you, but then once you do, the spells are very flexible and they have a lot of power to them, its not just a spell that sets things on fire, its a spell that is fire, is a living flame or is a spirit of fire or creates a fiery house I don't know, I didn't flesh it out too far. That's something that I really liked, that concept, and that's something I might work on further developing some day.

Lorvan

Will we ever see how a Drudge is normally made? It's clear Dross will serve as Lindon's Drudge, but I'm extremely curious how even an Iron Soulsmith can make such a complex and multifunctional construc?

Will Wight

Potentially. I had intended for you to, it's just that Dross kinda works that way. It wasn't intentional that he would work that way, it was intentional that he would have those powers, but I didn't realize until after doing it, I was like 'Huh. He kinda just negates the need for a drudge.' I didn't realize that until after I already gave him to Lindon. I intended for him to do everything he did, I just did not realize that that would do that. So maybe you'll get to see the way a Druge works? I would like to, it's kinda cool.

SapphireSuniver

Is it possible to eat a remnant before or after Jade? If so, does one get a goldsign?

Will Wight

It is possible to absorb the power of a remnant before or after Jade, but not in the same way. So no, it is not a goldsign. It is a different relationship between you and the remnant so it's less of a part of your advancement going forward. But you can use it for power, there are other ways to bond with remnants, some people do do that. Other people who don't get a goldsign can get a goldsign later, that's a thing that you can sorta do kinda, but it's never quite the same as if you did it as a gold.

Cash4Golda

Are there aspects of madra aligned with emotions? Like anger or happiness madra, or would those be derivatives of dream madra?

Will Wight

They would be derivatives of dream madra. So one of the things I did not do a great job of conveying at the beginning was how the world works, like what aura is, and I wish I had. So I initially didn't want to limit the types of madra because I didn't want to limit myself, I wanted to be able to use any cool powers I thought of. But what I wished later, because what I've effectively done is I have created an elemental system, so wish I had just names the ten or twelve elements that there are on Cradle, and the ten or twelve common aspects of madra. I didn't because its environmental, so maybe in some places...like again, sword madra is effectively just force madra, but it's so distinct and so concentrated that people can cultivate with it, and make sword paths and so on and so forth.

So I liked the idea of it being mutable like that and being culturally different and different people having different paths based on where they've come from and what they've learned, and they're environment and all that stuff. But what I wish I'd done was have a certain number of static elements, because you can mix and match. I think that's the more compelling part of the magic system, is you go "what would a sword/dream path do? what would a sword/storm path do?", and that's cool to think about, that's cool the picture. Where as when your trying to figure out, is there emotion madra? is there leaf madra? is there metal madra? that becomes confusing, because you're like " so okay, my path is not sword and....eyeballs..." and it's like, "thats...play...well, that's not a thing", but it makes you think it might be, and I didn't give a reason why not. So that's one of the regrets I have about developing the system, was I wish there had just been twelve elements, or whatever. 

Railalis

How much was Ravnica an influence on Asylum's guilds?

Will Wight

Absolutely zero, despite what you would think, I realise I ended up in a similar place. But I had not actually played a Ravnica block at the time I came up with that system, so I really missed out, because there's some great, really colourful, fleshed out guilds there. One of the things I would have taken from that is the distinct visual styles between the guilds, also the nature of the guilds, they way the interact with one another, the way they think of one another, the alliances that form between guilds, all of that stuff I could have learned from and maybe enriched the guilds a little more, maybe made the world even more interesting than it is. All of that I could have learned from Ravnica, but I didn't! Because I didn't really know anything about how Ravnica's guilds worked. I knew that like, for instance, the red/white combo was called Boros, because I did play Magic, but I didn't know anything about the guild it was named after.

So that was not something that has anything...yeah really, it's also Magic the Gathering, the Plains Walkers didn't have any impact on the territories either. I fully understand why people thought they did, but they didn't really. Really it's just the themed power coming from them, that's an overlap, but I didn't think "oh man Magic does this what can I do to develop....", I maybe should have again, but I never really got into, until after I started writing, I never got into Magic for the lore reasons, I was always playing it for the mechanics, I  just enjoyed the games. So I didn't do anything with that.

 

One of the things I regret is that in Magic time travel, time magic is called Clockworking, which is the greatest name for time magic ever conceived of by man, and I really wish I had thought of that.....but I didn't.

Altonahk

Is there such a thing as Gravity Aura, or is it just Force Aura? If there is: are there gravity paths? If it's force aura: do any force paths cycle it?

Will Wight

I actually had a real difficulty about that! When I initially came up with the Fishers, they were using gravity aura, they were using attractive force aura so it was effectively the power of gravity. That's what they were doing because gravity was a constant power....so I ended up saying no, what they call connection madra or whatever was just directional force madra. So I ended up saying no on that, sometime in development that's what earth power was going to be, was just gravity, kind of like the dresden files where earth magic is gravity magic, but I steered away from that.

Udhay

Herald is the level just below monarch but in skysworn it is shown that the gatekeepers of akura castle are remnants matching herald in power and it makes it seem like herald is not a big deal since herald level powered remnants are used to just guard gates was it because at the time you intended to be a few more levels between herald and monarch or some other reasoning?

Will Wight

Good question. I admit that that was more of a presentation problem than anything else. The reason why I did that is just to show that the resource reach of the Akura family and also to show that even the most advanced remnants still do, remnants do weird things, so that's kind of part of what I was trying to show there. I did intend them to be Heralds because what I intended was the Akura have virtually unstoppable guards at their gates. The reason why they are doing mundane guard duty despite being as powerful in combat as heralds is...so, that's kind of why I had them be Heralds, but its also, remnant behavior is really simplistic, they're almost like, not robots because robots make it seem like they follow a specific set of programming. It's really more like there are only certain aspects of a person where you remove the rest of the aspects and then you kind of stitch the remaining aspects together, so they are not full people. They are not fully what we would call sentient, aware, or intelligent in most cases. So, therefore, its difficult to say that they are aware, these particular remnants, just by being as powerful as Heralds are also, they just guard things. That's what they do. So, they are compulsive about guarding things. They will just stand there and guard it as the world crumbles around them. So that's what I was trying to illustrate about remnants, but I didn't go into that at all so, you didn't even miss anything, I just didn't convey it.

Nick S.

What stage was Li Markuth at when he invaded Sacred Valley?

Will Wight

So in terms of advancement, he would be like a Sage, that would be the area he'd be at. But he was gone for a long time, so he also learned some of the magic beyond cradle, so he would therefore be more powerful than any sage in the world, which is why a long time ago when people asked me what level he was at, and I said Archlord, but I also said similar level to the Blackflame emperor... well the reason I did is because in an early draft, the Blackflame emperor was originally intended to be an Archlord. So that's what I was thinking, is Archlord, Sage and then Li Markuth. But I new even then that he was using magic beyond cradle, because he'd gone beyond cradle so I knew that was true, its not a retcon, I was aware of that, but its just hard to talk about things that are coming up without spoilers.

 

There's another thing that a lot of Cradle kinda looks like i'm making up the power levels as i go,  and every once in a while i am...like i'll make up something, like there'll be something I didn't know the answer to, and I knew I'd need to figure out at some point but usually that's terminology or exact specific function, because i had the general idea of how all these ranks worked way back in Unsouled.  I came up with most of this pretty early but i didn't know exactly the terms i was gonna use cos i didn't know how it'd work and what i liked and how it fit. It looks like i'm coming up with it as i go mainly because im trying not to overload the reader, I'malready overloading the reader with way too many terms they don't understand. The more ranks i throw at people earlier the more confusing that gets, so i try to not deal with it until it actually comes up in the plot, so as a result it feels like it just came out of nowhere like "wait a second now everybody know what an Underlord is", they're also moving to more advanced areas of the world where they do know what an Underlord is. But its really more about trying to control the release of information to the reader for the sake of confusion, and for the sake of what makes sense in the world.

Wodan

Who are Orthos’s parents? And which one is dragon?

Will Wight

Neither of them are dragons. He comes from a line of dragon turtles. So one of his distant ancestors was a dragon in the shape of a turtle

Questioner

Is there a decision/scene/event which wasn't pre-planned (i.e. you decided on something while writing a book that wasn't part of the vision for the series) which has greatly impacted the story's direction? What is that decision/event/scene?

Will Wight

Alright. Yes. Absolutely there is. There's a lot of them. I don't even know where to begin answering that question. Not because its a bad question, it's a great question, but because there's so many answers to that...So, when I'm writing, one of the reasons why I wrote Uncrowned the way I did in terms of writing the major rounds first and then going in and filling in the gaps is because I needed to lock down the story line because if I don't lock down the story line I change my mind constantly and I'm always like 'aw, I've got a better idea' and 'aw, this would be an awesome thing I could explore.' So, I have to lock that down so I don't, so the story doesn't run away with me. There were a few, mostly, I'll create characters or concepts or powers or places just because..So if you've read Traveler's Gate, there is a scene in the second book that is everybody's favorite room in the house, in Valinhall, and its these water cats that are made of water and they...there's rain in the room and its an enclosed room in a magical house, but it basically is like this open garden because magic and its raining and there are gaps in the rain that form the basis of perfect movement that you have to fight your way through the rain and if you touch the raindrops, the rain stops and the raindrops coalesce into these cats made of water that then attack you. And I loved the visual design of that room and that took me absolutely no time at all to come up with because I just came up with that off the top of my head. That entire concept was completely random. I was just like 'Hmm, I need this room to be cool,' tap, tap, tap, 'what's coming out of my fingers? There it is.' So that was one of my ideas that I was like 'Huh, that was cool.' And, yep, that was a surprise to all of us when that happened and so then I thought it was really great and so I came back to the room and I knew that in this room which I didn't know the details of, but I knew that in this room this was gonna be something that Simon was going to attempt multiple times, this was kind of going to be his growth over the course of the book, and it was and that was very cool. So, I really liked that. That's one thing that was completely of the top of my head. What about in Cradle? What was something in Cradle that I didn't plan? I don't know. There's definitely some, I don't know. Let me think back to Underlord, there's gotta be something there. For one thing, its hard for me to remember where each idea came from sometimes but its very often I'm writing the book and....but anyway, that happens all of the time. It doesn't usually affect the whole shape of the book. For instance, I had already plotted out that Simon goes to a room and he ends up learning and growing over the course, and he gets mentored. So, what happens in the plot, I had already determined and it didn't change that. But the actual execution of what the room looks like that and how that all worked out was all pure improv.

Will Wight

What nobody asked and I'm going to answer anyway, is 'What is the new thing I wanna write and develop?' I want to develop something that is kind of in that world, in the isekai-isekai, by the way, is a Japanese genre, it's from another world. It's like people in our world being sent to another world. I don't really wanna write that particularly, like somebody that's literally from this world that we inhabit right now because I don't want to incorporate Earth slang or Earth words, that kind of breaks me out of it a lot. But what they do is they get teleported basically into a fantasy world, and then they have to learn to survive and adapt in that world. So I don't mind the idea of an outsider having to learn to survive and adapt in a world he's not familiar with and it is kind of a standard fantasy world. He's going around doing standard fantasy things, like adventuring. Kinda like if you got pulled into a D&D game. Something like that, some mix of that and dungeon novels and LitRPG, something in there is something I'd like to write. Kind of a light novel concept. I've been developing a lot of those. Attempting to develop a lot of those, I have not gotten very far. I want to have a good vision for what it is before I begin writing it, and I don't, so I have not.

I've tried a bunch of stuff, one of the things I've tried most recently is a world kinda based on the magic system of 5th Edition but more of the worldbuilding of 4th Edition [D&D] because 4th edition has better worldbuilding than 5th edition does because 5th edition is kind of designed to do whatever game you wanna run. Therefore they don't tell you what goes on in the world, you decide as the DM. So I have tried to do some stuff like that, and I didn't really like it. It didn't work for me. Maybe I'll continue developing that and that will eventually ring my bells, but so far not.

One of the things I've tried often is 'What if I just sat down and I just put very little planning and thought into it, and I just wrote one of these isekai or web novels, or if I just wrote a character just running around a fantasy world. I can't do it. I don't work that way. I sit down and I start writing and I have no interest in this person or place. I have to have some development in the world in order to want to explore it so I just don't enjoy it. I tried to write it off the top of my head, and I couldn't do it.

RxBriggs

How often do you read LitRPG books? Opinions on the future of the genre or of the progression fantasy genre as a whole? This includes Xianxia and Wuxia as well as LitRPG and some Manga iseka stuff. Just a fad or here to stay?

Will Wight

So the overlap, that people have noticed, between these Chinese cultivation novels and LitRPG is that they are more systematized, supposably they have a more harder magic system, but in reality they just have more rules and they have more specific things to know, a lot of times their magic systems are not hard at all. They have a focus on progression, on leveling up, they have that fantasy of getting stronger as part of the system, as part of the story. That's the overlap.

So what progression fantasy is, is what Andrew Rowe and I started calling, mostly Andrew Rowe, full credit to Andrew, he came up with this term, which is a good term, but what we started calling what we write, which has that progression built in, and it has those systems of progression, but its not LitRPG 'cos its not in a video game and it's not exactly cultivation, it's kind of an in between. So its more of a blanket term for fantasy that focuses on cultivation as a primary method of advancement. Wheel of Time for instance shows a lot of progression in the main characters...like he grows stronger as a channeler and he grows better at doing what he does, but its not really a progression fantasy, because that's not the focus of the series, that's just something that happens. Main characters often get better and stronger and whatever, but its not focussed on his progression, it's really focussed on how he relates to the world, and how he grows into the person the world needs him to be. That is less of a progression fantasy.

 

So I have read a lot of LitRPG, I wouldn't say I frequently read a lot for LitRPG, because its not my cup of tea, I've never enjoyed it much, and there's a good reason for that. I'm not sure what it is, but im sure its a good reason. I read LitRPG and I just can't get into it much, either it takes place inside an actual game, or a VR game, in which case, if it's takes place inside a game, why am I not just playing a game...I would rather just go and...I don't feel like the stakes are real, because they're just playing a game, and I don't really care cos I'd just rather go play a game. If its not inside a game, if its inside a world that works like a game, usually it's just the character running around playing the game, that is usually what a good rpg does, is it gets you really involved in the character just running around playing the game, and that's not compelling to me, I don't enjoy that, its... I don't know, I want there to be some significance to it, I want there to feel like there's a story playing out, I don't want to see him go on his quest, kill fifteen wolves and take their pelts back. When I'm playing a MMO and I'm doing a quest, I'm not fantasising about doing a quest, I'm fantasizing about being an awesome warrior or wizard or whatever, and part of what I do is go around and I do these things because there's an important reason and I'm going get something out of it, so therefore reading a book about someone going around doing these fetch quests is not my favourite thing in the world.

I've read what everybody recommended to me, I've read what people considered the best in the genre, I read them fairly regularly, I just don't like them that much. However, having said all that, I play a lot of video games, I really like their stories and I really like the experience of playing them. Obviously what I'm writing in Cradle, if you put numbers on the powers and the abilities, and you said Burning Cloak takes 5% hp per second but it increases your attack by whatever, and you put numbers on it it would basically be a LitRPG, so I'm not against that in theory, so I think there's probably a LitRPG that I'd enjoy writing, I just don't know what it is. I've spend a lot of time running at that and trying to figure out what is the LitRPG that I would want to write, what's Will Wight's favourite dream LitRPG that I can make happen. I don't know yet, I don't know what that is. There's also some adjacent genres like the dungeon novels like for instance, Dakota Krout write in the Dungeon Born Series, which I enjoyed those. So those LitRPG adjacent are considered LitRPG, I don't consider them LitRPG but they're similar, like Isekai and that kind of thing. Those I like, and I could easily see writing something like that, but it would have to be an idea that really struck me, that carried me.

I think a version of the genre is always going to be here, and has always been here, because these are... I mean Conan the Barbarian, it's not progression but its somebody going around fighting a bunch of stuff ad-infinitum. He goes around, he fights, he wins, he gets loot, he goes home and rinse and repeats in the morning. So I think that this kind of genre is going to take different forms, its fashion, a lot of literature stuff is literally movements or fashion and they come and go like anything else. I think some from of this is going to be here to stay.

TE

Does orthos have a normal turtle head or the chinese dragonish head?

Will Wight

More like a nornal turtle, its less like the actual chinese dragon turtle creature, which is really a form of dragon in that case. So its more like a turtle.

Crinisen

If Lindon had known more scripting or Soulsmithing, could he have converted the water binding into a near-unlimited canteen?

Will Wight

Yes, and that's commonly done. You can drain water from the atmosphere and you pick up water. That is something he absolutely could've done. It's not unlimited because the binding still would run out at some point, but it would be effectively, as long as it lasted, an unlimited canteen.