Reading Music
Alchemy is a fundamental block of the universe, specifically relating to the material interactions, though also encompassing how materials can interact with otherwise magical elements.
Alchemy is generally understood in three categories: the elemental, the metallic, and the enchanted. While there is an expectation of any Alchemist being proficient in all of them, their overlap consists mostly in the fundamentals. Ultimately herbalists will specialize in the elemental, engineers will specialize in the metallic, mystics will specialize in the enchanted, and the like.
Comparing magic and alchemy between two scholars often leads to a hotly debated chicken and egg problem of whether alchemy is just a study of material magic, or if magic is a more abstract form of alchemy.
The most well known usage of alchemy involves simply combining premade vials of chemicals to create a short-lived effect. Those premade reagents are either done by hand each day by alchemists, or at a mass scale at manufactories.1
Humble Goal
“Don’t tell me you’re happy simply doing what you’re hired to do. I would refuse to believe it.” “It’s more that I’m happy when I have an interesting problem before me.” “And that’s all you ever want to do?” “No, there are other things. For example, I like to sit by the river, watching the barges go by.” “I have the feeling you’re not being entirely serious with me right now.” “I assure you I am quite serious”
While in the past alchemists were limited by their environment in regards to what reagents they can prepare, now practically any common materiel can be dissolved into a lower state of matter and then recombined into different substances or polymers.2 As such, Alchemists will be hardly found without any reagents on them, lest you forcefully confiscate them and their tools so they cannot reprepare.
One of the more revolutionary innovations in the field of Alchemy have been Transmutation Engines. While requiring constant supervision, these alembics can automagically transmute one material to another, often used by particularly savvy alchemists to prepare their daily repertoire and improve efficiency at manufactories. But as with any new technology, the rate of incidents is high, with a variety of implosions and explosions being common due to miscalculations or still-experimental runes. This often renders the engine irrecoverable.
Particularly legendary alchemists have also been known for using homunculi and constructs to do their alchemical chores.
Footnotes
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An Alchemist working at a manufactory is considered an indignant way to use their knowledge, at best an uninspiring, unassuming desk job and at worst a failure of an alchemist not being able to get into any superior position. However, one benefit of a quiet, steady unassuming career is that of a way longer lifespan compared to the ever ambitious house alchemists and their short-lived schemes. Or falling prey to them. ↩
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The only exception are the Herbalists who insist on using raw materials without dissolving them into base components, believing that dissolution and reconstitution lowers the potency of its end result compared to using harvested matter. ↩