**Note the edit at bottom.

I found a technique to permanently increase intelligence using the absorb attribute spell in conjunction with spell stacking (on the Xbox).

Create several spells:

1: On touch:
Weakness Mag. 100%; 2 sec
Cmnd Creat. 25; 2 sec

2: On touch:
Weakness Mag. 100%; 2sec
Cmnd Creat. 25; 2 sec

3: On touch:
Fortify Intelligence 50; 2 sec
Weakness Mag. 100%; 2 sec
Cmnd. Creat. 25; 2 sec

4: On touch:
Absorb Int. 20; 20 sec
Cmnd. Creat 25; 2 sec

Purchase or make a long lasting summons spell.

Cast summons, then cast spells 1 and 2 on the summoned creature repeatedly (a la spell stacking). Then cast spell 3 and 4 on the summons (in that order). Your intelligence will skyrocket after the last spell is cast.

Spell 3 is necessary because summons do not have unlimited intelligence for absorbing.

Beginning with int of 115 I stacked spells 1 and 2 about 40 times, after finishing the ritual I had int. 1750 and magicka of 3600. After the spell wore off, the increased intelligence and magicka remained. I was unable to remove the effects after waiting for 3 days, nor did they show up in my active effects. I can only imagine how enormous these numbers can become for a master of restoration.

I attempted it again and again and it appears to be repeatable with this character.

I assume this will work with any attribute by using the appropriate absorb attribute spell in place of absorb int. This may also work for skills, but I do not currently have the spells to test it (no fortify skill spell yet).

Enjoy being a god.

EDIT: It seems that this "permanent" increase doesn't save. But, as I recall, it doesn't wear off after being repeatedly cast. So, it seems that this is something that can be done at the beginning of a game session if desired without having permanent effects on the save file. Further testing might be necessary.

Sounds... boring and time-consuming to me. But that's my personal opinion. I need challenge in my game.

Agreed.

You're not adding anything by saying that. This was a by product of trying to make use of the absorb spells. They are among the worst balanced spells in the game in terms of magicka cost for effect benefit. They are more expensive than using a drain on touch and fortify on self combination to achieve the same effect.

On the other hand, they aren't immune to spell stacking, while spells cast on self are. This means that you can achieve incredibly large amounts of magicka temporarily by amplifying a lesser absorb spell - at least in theory. After applying this theory to the game I found that it had permanent side effects.

I was hoping to use it to make conjuration more interesting by preparing summons as mana batteries for more powerful spells before entering into combat. Unfortunately it isn't a temporary thing.

As this has not been mentioned anywhere before, and because it is a cheat, I've posted it here for others to appreciate. There is the potential to make spells in this game that cost 2k magicka (or more) to cast, so there is some utility to this cheat - if only to experiment with the harder to access aspects of the magic system without tedium. But what's interesting about this is that the maximum constant effect magicka has been claimed for years (in an unmodified game with the official expansions) to be 1072 while using exploits. I've seen constant (without additional effects from equipment) values at 5k+ by this exploit and I currently believe that there is no hard limit to this exploit.

Finnally! I can make some serious spells and really mess things up! :clap: