Quintessentialist - The Exemplar's Ability Scores

[Wonderstell]

So I've been having a lot of fun with my Quintessentialist, but stumbled upon some questions about the Exemplar's ability scores recently.

Exemplar:

Instead of bonding to the phantom of a dead soul, a quintessentialist forges her best qualities into a spiritual aspect called an exemplar, which resides in her subconscious mind at all times rather than on the Ethereal Plane. An exemplar uses the quintessentialist’s ability scores when fully manifested rather than those of a standard phantom, but otherwise advances as a phantom. The exemplar can cast any of the spiritualist’s spells while fully manifested, sharing the same spells known and spell slots, and does not suffer from the quintessentialist’s unfocused spellcasting ability.

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In our latest session we were ambushed by some creatures dealing strength damage and my Quintessentialist ate two hits before managing to manifest the Exemplar. My GM reminded me to apply the strength damage to the Exemplar, since it "uses your ability scores", and so I did. After we escaped I recalled the Exemplar back to my mind and healed my own ability damage.
Now what made us come to a stop was that the Exemplar had taken a couple more hits, and a lot more strength damage. When I manifested it again my GM ruled after some discussion that the Exemplar's ability scores were also fully healed, since it "uses your ability scores".
We weren't fully in agreement though, so for future scenarios it might be good to clear these issues up.

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Let's say the Quintessentialist has been buffed by Bull's Strength before manifesting the Exemplar. Will the Exemplar benefit from the +4 Enhancement bonus? What happens if the buff's duration on the Quintessentialist ends while the Exemplar is out?

[avr]

I think I'd interpret that as the phantom's base ability scores, before damage or spell buffs or whatever, as being the same as the spiritualists. 'rather than those of a standard phantom.' suggests to me that it's the unbuffed/undamaged ability scores being replaced.

[Wonderstell]

That's the most elegant answer, and probably the intention. I guess I'll just avoid ability drain to not open that can of worms.