Exploring Alchemy (1)

After looking through the various alchemy ingredients that were supplied as a part of his birthday gift Jien decided to create a list of the ingredients so that he could have an easier time working with the inventory in the future when he began working with the recipes that were held in the green alchemy book that he had been gifted. This process took him about an hour and a half, significantly shorter than it should have because of Runa's diligence in marking down the materials along with the amount contained in each container.

After Jien had created the list of ingredients and amount in stock of each, he turned to inspect the cauldron. He carefully walked around the large brass cauldron, inspecting it to see if there was anything special to it or if it was just as it appeared. He felt that though it was potentially nice to have such a large cauldron should one need to create large batches of an alchemical mixture, that if one was working with a small amount of materials, it would make controlling the alchemical reactions difficult to say the least.

Luckily, he had examined the cauldron closely because though it was slightly hidden under the lip of the cauldron's top, he found a single, almost rice grain sized mana crystal. The crystal was attached to a formation that was drawn over the whole of the cauldron, though the color it was drawn in matched the brass of the cauldron itself, hiding them in plain sight. When Jien pressed his finger to the small mana crystal and injected his mana the cauldron shrunk to a small degree. This gave Jien a basic idea of how the formation likely functioned. His best guess was that the cauldron's natural size was as it appeared when he walked into the room. One could likely adjust its size by injecting mana into the formation, the more mana, the smaller the cauldron would shrink. The formation itself piqued his interest as well. Could it be used on other items easily? Could it last long periods? It could potentially make a lot of things easier to carry around if one knew what they were doing. The possible utility made him curious to learn more about the art of arcane formations as well.

After having examined the cauldron Jien used more mana to shrink it to the size of an average saucepan. The he wanted to explore the art of alchemy he would never be so wasteful as to attempt to create a large batch of anything on his first try. He felt that this size would likely be acceptable for whatever recipe he would start off with. However, before he could start concocting, he still had a few other things he would need to look at. He needed to understand the formation plate beneath the cauldron. Any surface that held a formation that could be moved would be considered a formation plate, though usual the term would only be used for flat surfaces that held a formation, ignoring items like the cauldron or his newly gifted rapier.

Jien moved to lift the newly shrunken cauldron to get a better look at the formation plate beneath, only to find that though the cauldron had shrunk in size it appeared to maintain its usual weight. Luckily, though he had underestimated this at first, he did not hurt himself, moving the cauldron to the side with a little effort.

As he looked at the metal slab that was now free of obstruction Jien saw a complex pattern of lines and runes held within a circle drawn around the center of the metal plate. On one side of the circle a line stretched toward the edge of the plate where a smaller pattern appeared at its end, likely representing where the user could interact with the formation. In the center of the smaller design was a singular small red crystal-like stone, looking like a drop of crystalized blood. At certain points throughout the larger formation circle where similar crystals that Jien knew as ignis stone. They were known to heat up based on the amount of mana supplied to them. It was likely that the ignis stone in the smaller formation was meant to be a control point for the temperature itself, while the larger formation would evenly distribute mana to the other ignis stones so that the heat provided would remain even. To ensure that this was the case prior to working with it live during what would be his first alchemy attempt, he injected a small amount of mana into the smaller formation through the ignis stone there.

Upon injecting the mana Jien immediately sensed, as if it was a sixth sense what the temperature of the plate would end up as. It was almost an instinct that he would understand how to control the heat. This formation also interested him similarly to the size manipulation one on the cauldron, but more for the precise control than the actual uses, though there were likely to be quite a few if he thought it through. The ignis stones on the plate had begun to heat up immediately upon his control and they each lit with a small warm, amber glow. This made Jien smile since he had found it easier to control than he thought it might have been in the beginning. It seemed that the hardest part would be learning the recipes and how to properly complete the concoction process.

With that thought he quickly used the instinctive knowledge to turn off the formation heating the ignis stones, causing their glow to extinguish quickly. He then placed the cauldron back on the formation plate carefully, not bothering to feed it more mana to maintain its small size for the moment. The lack of mana added to the cauldron's formation led it to gradually increase back to its original size over the span of about a minute. This was a part of the downsides of formations, though the mana expense was minimized, they would require a near constant flow of mana. That being said there were patterns of providing mana that one could use to maximize efficiency, but Jien would have to spend time to learn them.

For now, he was excited to really dig into the light green book that he was provided 'A Beginner's Introduction to Alchemy' By Perse Everhart.