“Let’s start with a quick definition of alchemy. Then, I’ll show you what a trained alchemist can do,” said mister Delmont.
“There are two basic types of alchemy: Affixation and Transmutation. Affixation is also occasionally referred to as ‘enchanting’ in modern tis. It allows you to bind concepts to physical matter. For example, you might bind the concept of ‘strength’ to a pair of gloves, making the wearer stronger. Affixation is harder than transmutation, and is often used to help maximize the effects of potions.
"Transmutation is the art of turning one material into another by binding physical objects to other physical objects. The specifics of how that works is hard to explain, and we'll get more into that later. For now, rember that affixation binds the physical and the conceptual together. Transmutation binds the physical and the physical together."
Then, he took an ordinary rock out of his pocket, before he held it up so everyone could see it.
“Today we’ll focus on transmutation, because it’s simpler and easier to understand. Once you understand how matter works and get better at using binding essence, here's what you can do.”
Mister Delmont set the rock down in the middle of an empty tub. Then, took out a few different flasks of liquid, and started pouring them into the tub one after another. Finally, he placed his hands into the tub of liquid.
I felt a binding essence trickle out of his hand and into the tub, before the liquid started bubbling.
A few seconds passed by, and the rock started to change. The liquid from the tub flowed into the rock, as if it were a sponge sucking in the surrounding liquid. Monts later,, the rock started to glow. The liquid from the tub continued to flow into the rock, until after about a minute, it settled down.
Mister Delmont picked up the rock and held it out for us to see. Instead of ordinary stone, he was now holding a small hunk of silver.
Mister Delmont smiled.
“That is what a proper alchemist can do. Of course, the reagents that allow the creation of gold and silver are pretty expensive. You lose a bit of money every ti you do this. But the heart of transmutation is turning materials into other materials, just like that rock. It involves a lot of chemistry and physics... but we're going to learn that by the ti you graduate." He grinned at us, as several of the children oohed and aahed at the magically-produced chunk of silver.
I joined in.
Even though it might not be cost effective, the man transforming an ordinary rock into silver was pretty impressive. And transforming materials into gold or silver held a lot of potential. Even if sothing wasn’t cost-effective in this world, it might be incredibly profitable in a future world.
“Why does transmutation involve so much knowledge of chemistry?” Felix asked, his eyes shining with curiosity.
“Well, the key to this has to do with the nature of matter. You see, every piece of matter is actually made of smaller and smaller chunks of matter. At their very smallest, we call these little building blocks of reality 'granules'.”
I blinked.
Granules?
“Granules are essentially tiny building blocks of matter. But the way that these granules connect to each other changes what they are. Transmutation is about ssing with the chemical bonds ford between granules. Of course, so things are harder to break apart than others, so transmutation can beco very convoluted very quickly. And living things resist transmutation, so getting useful chemicals from plants is difficult. Machinery has made this much easier, though. We'll get into the specifics later..”
“Really?" asked Felix, glancing at the tub of chemicals again. "What about bacteria? Even the simplest item should have lots of bacteria on it. If all living things resist transmutation, how do we handle that?”
The teacher opened his mouth, as if he was going to answer Felix's question, before he glanced at the rest of the class. “You know what, we can talk more about this later in the year if you want. We’re getting a little bit into a much more complicated subject, and we're going to learn it later anyway. The quick answer is that the first liquid I added to the rock gets rid of most bacteria. We'll talk about the way granule bonds work much later in your education.”
Felix reluctantly nodded, but I could see his eyes were still shining with curiosity.
He seed even more excited to learn alchemy now. anwhile, I was really starting to suspect that this magic system wasn't for . Granule bonds sounded very, very complicated.
said Sallia.
I paused. I said. Once I thought of it that way, it seed less intimidating.
said Felix.
I nodded. Felix was right. With how much the underlying physics of a dinsion could change, I should be careful. It would be very easy to get stuck with a conception of reality that was totally wrong if I wasn't careful.
Mister Delmont cleared his throat, and returned to what I assud was his lesson plan.
“Now, a lot of teachers wait until the second week to teach you this, but I think you kids can start a little earlier. One of the biggest hurdles an aspiring alchemist needs to overco is learning to sense matter using their binding essence. After all, transmutation works by manipulating the smallest pieces of matter. It's very hard to sense those without any help. We have a lot of exercises we’ve developed over the centuries to train our senses. Today we'll start with one of the simplest ones. I’m going to give each of you a bowl filled with oil and water. I want you to try to sense the oil floating on top of the water. Then, I want you to inject so binding essence into the oil. It’s a special kind of oil that will change colors when it cos into contact with binding essence.” Then, the teacher grinned a bit more widely at us. “But be careful. The water also has sothing added to it to make it change to a different color if you add binding essence to it. If you have one color in your bowl, it ans you succeeded. If you have two colors in your bowl, you need to try again. Injecting binding essence into the liquid should be instinctive for you. After all, it's the exact sa thing people use to handle prosthetic limbs. It's not very difficult. But if you have trouble with it, ask and I’ll help you.”
After that, mister Delmont poured two different kinds of liquids into bowls before handing them out.
I stuck my hand into the bowl, and spent several minutes trying and failing to use my essence-senses in the bowl of liquids. I had an easy ti using my essence senses to sense the liquid in the bowl. I had a very hard ti distinguishing the oil from the water.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, I thought I had sensed the oil but not the water. I tried injecting my binding essence into the bowl… only to get a bowl filled with two differently colored liquids. I had ssed up.
I asked.
Felix grinned, and showed his one-color bowl. he said.
Anise nodded.
I sighed.
I smiled. I was glad to hear that Felix had enjoyed his ti in school.
she said.
I smiled.
There had been a few hiccups in my first use of binding essence, but our first day of school had been a success.
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