Why arcana is not going up

The short answer

Arcana stays at 0 because almost nothing you have placed gives any. Vanilla bookshelves never do.

1. Arcana has no build of its own and no ceiling of its own. Only eterna uses the sort-and-cap ladder. Arcana is a plain sum, and the only bound is a clamp to 0-100 at the end. There is no max arcana field, no method that reads one, and no arcana attribute. Go to Arcana has no ceiling of its own.

2. A Brass Bookshelf's 0.25 is 25, not a multiplier. That config value is a fraction of the 0 to 100 scale. Multiplied by 100 and truncated, it is a settable maximum of 25. Go to The 0.25 on a Brass Bookshelf.

3. Arcana is not more levels. It re-weights the pool toward rarer enchantments, and it raises how many enchantments the roll is guaranteed to include. A wall of vanilla bookshelves gives exactly 0 arcana. Go to What arcana changes and Vanilla bookshelves give no arcana.

On All the Mods 10 8.2, do not put a golden sword in the slot to raise arcana. Before 1.6.1 the table added half the item's enchantability. This pack ships 1.6.2 and that line is gone. All the Mods 10 4.5 ships 1.4.4 and still has it. Go to The item in the slot.

None of this was tested in a world. What was not read is in What was not read.

Applies to Apothic Enchanting 1.21.1-1.6.2 (commit 00fbcf0), Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1.251, as shipped in All the Mods 10 8.2. Create Enchantment Industry 2.5.4 is the Brass Bookshelf. Occultism 1.224.4 is the large candle.

Arcana is the third number on the enchanting table, a percent from 0 to 100. Eterna is the number that sets how high a level the table can roll. Quanta is the middle number. An empty table already shows 15 quanta and 0 arcana. This page is about arcana staying at 0 while you add candles and vanilla bookshelves.

If eterna will not move, or every slot says Limited Enchantability, that is a different page: Eterna stops short, and every slot says Limited Enchantability^↗ (another troubleshooter). This page does not restate that one.

Arcana has no ceiling of its own

Only eterna runs through a ladder. Each eterna block is filed under its own ceiling, the ceilings are sorted, and the running total is capped as those groups are added. Arcana does not do that. Adding arcana is a plain sum. One block that gives arcana never blocks another, which is the opposite of how eterna behaves.

The only bound is applied once, at the end: the result is clamped into 0 to 100. There is no maxArcana field in the data, no getMaxArcana in the API, and no arcana attribute. World Tier clamps eterna. It does not touch arcana.

A block with no enchanting-stats entry, and no override of its own, gives 0 arcana. Eterna is different: any block with vanilla enchanting power still contributes eterna. There is no such fallback for arcana. That is why a vanilla bookshelf moves one number and not the other.

The floor on the screen is 0, not a negative. One shelf, the Stoneshelf, subtracts 7.5 arcana. The screen will not show a minus. It can still eat 7.5 of what something else added, and if that was all you had, the number stays 0.

Sources: Apothic Enchanting 1.6.2 table/EnchantmentTableStats.java at commit 00fbcf0, the builder and the record constructor. table/EnchantingStatRegistry.java for where a block's arcana comes from, and the default of 0 on api/EnchantmentStatBlock.java. Ench.Attributes declares one attribute, max eterna, and the menu reads arcana raw.

The 0.25 on a Brass Bookshelf

All the Mods 10 8.2 ships config/create_enchantment_industry-server.toml with a [kinetics] section and no [stats] section. The bookshelf therefore runs at Create Enchantment Industry 2.5.4's own default, which is that 0.25.

Two gates, and either one leaves the bookshelf at 0 arcana. It adds the value you set only when its panel is set to arcana, and only when it is turning at the medium speed the block requires. Stopped, or slower than that, it adds 0, with no error. Each bookshelf provides one of the three stats. One set to arcana is eterna you are not getting from that block.

Sources: Create Enchantment Industry 2.5.4 BrassBookshelfBlockEntity, in create-enchantment-industry-2.5.4.jar. The pack file is All the Mods 10 8.2 config/create_enchantment_industry-server.toml.

What arcana changes

Arcana does two things. Neither of them is a higher level.

It raises the guaranteed count. The roll steps through 0, 33, 66 and 99, and takes one more enchantment at each step you have reached, as long as the pool still has a compatible one. At 0 to 32.99 you are guaranteed 1. At 33 to 65.99 you are guaranteed 2. At 66 to 98.99 you are guaranteed 3. At 99 to 100 you are guaranteed 4. On a small pool the incompatible ones are removed as it picks, so you can get fewer. The top of what arcana can do is 99, not 100.

It re-weights the pool toward rarer enchantments. The level on an enchantment still comes from eterna. Arcana is applied after the list of enchantments your eterna can reach has already been built, so it cannot offer a level your eterna cannot.

The tooltip's "minimum enchantments" line does not match the roll. From 25.01 to 32.99 the screen says 2 and the roll guarantees 1. From 66 to 75 the screen says 2 and the roll guarantees 3. From 99 to 100 the screen says 3 and the roll guarantees 4. Read the bands above, not that line.

Sources: Apothic Enchanting 1.6.2 table/ApothEnchantmentHelper.selectEnchantment for the 0, 33, 66, 99 steps, and ApothEnchantmentScreen for the tooltip line that disagrees with them.

Vanilla bookshelves give no arcana

Vanilla candles do give arcana. The rate is 1.25 for each candle in the block, and a candle adds no eterna.

Any of the seventeen vanilla candles works, and four in one block is 5 arcana. Nothing in the candle's own tooltip says this. The code is Apothic Enchanting's, attached to Minecraft's candle block, which is why a note about candles never shows up on the candle.

The table counts 32 positions around it, a five-by-five ring at two heights. A candle outside that ring adds nothing. Twenty blocks of four candles reach 100 arcana, and they add no eterna.

These are the other arcana sources read in All the Mods 10 8.2. A datapack can add another. This pack's own files do not.

Five Heart Seashelves alone reach 100 arcana.

An Occultism large candle is the +4 row. It does not also take the vanilla candle rate. The data entry is used first.

The Apothic shelves in that table also change eterna. The Occultism large candle adds none. How far eterna can go, and what caps it, is the other page. This one does not restate that.

The quest book in All the Mods 10 8.2 has a banner that reads ARCANA and no further text. It will not tell you which block to place.

Sources: Apothic Enchanting 1.6.2 mixin/CandleBlockMixin.java, and the shelf stats read from the pack's jars. Occultism 1.224.4 large_candles.json on the tag occultism:candles. The worked totals were computed from the same builder the table section cites. The quest chapter is All the Mods 10 8.2 chapters/apothic_enchanting.snbt.

The item in the slot

Before Apothic Enchanting 1.6.1, the table added half that number as arcana when you put the item in. A golden sword made the bar jump. The line was deleted on 19 August 2026, commit 5da4beb, and the deletion shipped in 1.6.1. All the Mods 10 8.2 ships 1.6.2, and that jar's constructor does not add it. All the Mods 10 4.5 ships 1.4.4, and that jar still does: the item's enchantability is divided by 2 and added. Every guide, video and comment written before August 2026 describes the old behaviour.

The tooltip still prints Base Value and Total Value. Both are the same number, the arcana from the blocks. Total used to include the item. A matching pair is the current mod, not a tooltip that failed to add up.

Sources: the 1.6.2 constructor is ()V with no addArcana from the item. The 1.4.4 jar is CurseForge file 6751658, project 1063926, and its constructor still divides the item by 2. The two tooltip lines are gui.apothic_enchanting.enchant.arcana.desc4 and desc5, both passed the same value.

What was not read