Let me elaborate, now that I've had more time to think about it.
I acknowledge the style that Botania goes for with regards to having no numbers with regards to mana storage, generation, transfer, etc but when it comes to the mana pool the major flaw with this is that minute mana costs, like mana item making (petals, diamond, pearls, etc) isn't noticeable. But then what's the problem? Surely if the cost is so minute, surely it's not worth worrying about?
Well if the mana pool was supposedly "end-game" or a later tier pool as Vaz was thinking of doing then you'd be right, it wouldn't be worth thinking about, but early game when you're shlepping with dayblooms and nightshades and your pool's contents are so tiny you don't know if what you've got is enough even when you whack it with a wand? Then I think a smaller pool, which would register smaller amounts of mana more efficiently, would be more welcomed. This goes doubly for rune crafting with infusion.
So my thoughts are this, two lesser tier mana pools, one with maybe a cap of a quarter of the current pool's contents and the next with half.
The quarter capped pool wouldn't be able to hold open an Alfheim portal or create terrasteel, due to the mana required and the supposed "mana transferal" needed for the Alfheim portal, however it will be able to (in theory) register smaller rates of mana gain and loss from lesser generating flowers and mana infusion with diamonds, pearls and etc. It would be made using 5 livingrock, like the current mana pool.
The half capped pool would be able to hold open an Alfheim portal, perhaps not as efficiently with a slightly greater cost to keep the portal open and to open it in the first place, however it wouldn't be able to create a Terrasteel with a beacon. Perhaps it's contents being capped just short of "half" of the current mana pool's contents to stop people from using it to create terrasteel. Perhaps this pool will have the ability to use the Alchemical Catalyst where the lesser pool didn't? Crafted perhaps with a mana diamond or something? Runes?
Finally, the highest tier, which would have the abilities of the current mana pool. Crafted with elvish materials, perhaps their livingrock equivalent? Livingwood? Elementium?
Just a thought, anyway.
