The Celestial Exaltation of a mortal is one of the most impressive events any being of Creation goes through, marked by both an amazing increase in power and a profound growth in all aspects of the former mortals being. Most Exalted instinctively grasp a few charms within moments of their Exaltation (as many as 2 or 3, often Excellencies), even after the initial rush of nigh-godlike power wears off. The manipulation of Essence comes very easily at first, with new charms coming every few days, and almost all reach an Essence rating of 2 within a week. Usually this comes with impressive changes to their mind, body or soul. Eventually this astonishing growth begins to reach a plateau, which is likely a good thing, as the mortal soul can only take so much concetrated power.
In the First Age, the final sign that the rush of power and growth started by the Exaltation had come to an end was when the young Exalt had achieved Essence 3. The border between the limits of the body and the possibilities of the soul, all Exalted experience a certain amount of difficulty surpassing this limit. While prior to reaching this limit an Exalts command of essence "just gets better by itself", afterwards it takes a considerable amount of effort. In addition to the large amounts of experience necessary, the Exalt must spend many long months in meditation and contemplation of the world around him.
Yet for all that such effort is time consuming, it is also worthwhile. During such lengthy periods of retreat, those Exalted that have prepared for their time of contemplation can learn many other things in addition to simply increasing their natural capacity with Essence.
Game Rules
After you've reached Essence 3, you may begin depositing earned Experience Points into a special pool called the Meditation Pool. This pool has a limit in the amount of experience you can keep in it equal to your (Essence x 10), and you cannot deposit more than your (Essence) in experience every session. Once placed in the Meditation pool this experience is earmarked for when you retire to meditation and raise your Essence rating by +1. In order to use it for anything else you must first take it out of the pool, which costs a surcharge of 1 experience.
The benefits of the Meditation Pool kick in when you go to raise your Essence. Every three experience points in your pool gives you 5 experience points to spend on increasing traits or gaining special benefits (see below). In effect, multiply your pool by (5/3). You must actually raise your Essence rating during this period of retreat and contemplation in order to gain this extra experience.
It may be possible to gain some of the benefits below without actually retiring to raise your Essence. If the Storyteller allows this, it takes a minimum of one weeks meditation before you can spend points of your meditation pool on special benefits.
Special Benefits
The Focus "background" is bought while in Meditation. When you purchase Focus, you specify a particular event or action that its directed toward such as "Defeating the Golden Warlord in Combat," or "Incorporate Oldun into our Nation State". You can't pick Focus directed toward tasks you have no exposure to; i.e., you can only pick Focus toward defeating the Warlord if you've faced him in combat at least once. A Focus must be fairly specific, only applying to a narrow circumstance. Each point of Focus gives you three bonus successes that you can use to increase applicable rolls. These bonus successes can apply up to +3 successes to a single roll, or can be used more slowly, but are all gone once they've been used up regardless of success or failure.
You can also ask the Storyteller for a given benefit, and haggle on the cost or if he'll allow it.
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