Spending Quintessence per Turn

Question

I got the Dark Ages: Mage rulebook and it seems to have a confusing rule regarding the spending of Quintessence. In page 99 it says:

Assuming a caster can spend up to three points of Quintessence per turn, he may do so on a single casting to lower the difficulty of a given spell by one per point expended, to a minimum difficulty of 4. (Spending more than two Quintessence points per turn requires the Fount Background; see pp. 86-87)

What does this mean?

1. There is a mistake in the text and you can use 2 pts/turn (or whatever Fount gives you)?
2. You can spend 2 pts/turn (or more if you have Fount) but is limited to a maximum of 3 pts/turn, even if Fount gives you 4 pts/turn?

In the second case, the Fount Background does not make sense in level 3 or higher, because you cannot spend more than 3 pts/turn. So, what I'm missing here?

Answer 1

Here's what that means, in context.

1. If you wish to reduce the difficulty of casting a given spell, you may spend Quintessence to do so.
2. Each point of Quintessence spent to do so lowers the difficulty by 1.
3. You may spend no more than 3 Quintessence this way in a turn…
4. …and, as a reminder, unless you have the Fount background, you can only spend at most 2 Quintessence in a turn anyway.

So, if you have Fount 3 or higher, you can spend more than 3 Quintessence in a turn, but you cannot use more than three to lower a spell's difficulty. (There are other things one can conceivably spend Quintessence on.)