I have been reading my new rule book for a couple of weeks. I have not yet played the game.

As I read the rules what spells a mystic can know is based on his/her spell level. And spell level is completely determined by the intellegence score. Now the book does mention that it might not be a good idea to let a character have all the spell levels that they actually have access to at character creation. So in other words once a character is built and stats to progress in levels, the only way that he/she can increase his/her spell level is to increas his/her intelligence?

Is that correct?

If it is how do you handle the allocation of spell levels through out the game as the characters improve. I find the advice in the book rather sparse.

I have a spell user at my table, he has the advantage "half attuned to the tree", that gives him bonuses to 6 spell paths, he chose to develop 5 and at lvl 1 I allowed him to get 2 at lvl 40 and 3 at lvl 30, he still had 60 pts left (has the "aptitude for magical development")(about 1/3 unspent, the screen booklet advises to have 50% remaining for normal level magic campaign). It really depends on the player's knowledge of the rules, he could just take on path and lots of spells chosen from other paths. But the general rule of 50% spent seems good for players new to the game, allowing 10/20 points more spent each level gives a good progression.