Excise

What it is

Excise cuts an enemy’s Zone spell at its core. You hold a thin thread on the Zone’s small living knot, and when the cut lands, that Zone stops pulsing. You learn it from The Root That Outlived Its Gardener, the Rootbound study.

How to get it

You need both of these:

An active Sixteenth Heart Circle (see Heart Circles).
Heartwood, the feat for pruning the Root Guardian’s bindings and defeating it in the Rootbound Maze (see Root Guardian and Storm Conductor).

Then:

Open your Cord, then Grimoire → Master studies → Excise: Rootbound.
Read the three pages in order.
On the last page, press Learn Excise.

Heartwood alone recovers the study. You do not need a book, the old altar or a second Guardian kill. If the reading closes, start again from page one.

The Grimoire can also give you an optional paper book, plus one replacement. Losing it never removes the lesson. With a full inventory, the study stays readable; reopen it when you have room for the book.

How to use it

Wear an Echo Cord and thread exactly Beam + Excise in a normal spell slot.
Select the slot (default V).
Find a harmful Zone cast by an enemy. Look at its small knot, within 12 blocks.
Hold Cast (default R) for 0.8 seconds until the thread closes. Let go early to cancel.

A clean cut stops that Zone’s future pulses. Anything it already did stays: poison or fire on you remains, and a neighboring Zone from the same cast keeps working.

Cost and limits

36 base mana, paid once when the thread starts. Normal discounts apply. No overcast, no refund.
A 12-second rest, shared by every Excise slot.
A short recovery (about half a second) after a cut or a cancel. Let go of Cast before trying again.
Exactly Beam + Excise. No modifiers, links, Knots, woven runes, passives, scrolls, imbues or copies.
Only enemy Zones show a knot you can cut. The caster must be someone you can fight, and who can fight you.

What breaks the thread: taking damage, losing sight of the knot, moving more than 1 block, opening a menu, or changing world. The mana is spent and the recovery still applies.

Practice (optional)

Find a hostile caster’s Zone, stay out of its reach if you can, and cut its knot. Your first clean cut records the exercise. Real cuts also earn a small amount of mastery.

Tips and counterplay

Stand outside the Zone’s edge while you cut. Getting hit breaks the thread.
Cut early. Excise stops future pulses, not damage already dealt.
Against Excise: hit the caster during the hold, push them more than a block, or block their view of the knot.