Alchemy

Alchemy allows the player to craft items and weapons without the typical yuan cost for Shep's shop. It can be performed by Ven, who is located in the Enchant Shop in the Sewers. Through alchemy, the player is able to craft healing items, teas & coffees, as well as stat boosting items, and weapons. You can also use alchemy to create mogwai DNA for Mott in the Witch's Hut through Ives. While the ititial number of alchemizable items is limited, more can be added through acquiring ritual books through various sources.

Rather than yuan, alchemy has an elemental material cost. Materials are mostly obtained as drops from wild mogwai. The higher level the mogwai, the higher quality the material.

## How to Alchemize

The alchemy menu might look overwhelming, but can easily be broken down into a few key sections. Along the left side is the list of items available to be alchemized. To the right is the kinds of materials you have in your inventory. And the box at the bottom acts as a general guide as to which elements you can use to alchemize your chosen item.

The box at the bottom contains symbols relevant to crafting your item. It details the amount points needed to alchemize, the level of your item, the list of elements, as well some symbols underneath those element icons. The level is determined by the book used to unlock the item, so books obtained later in the game unlock items that are at a higher level. The symbols under the element icons show the effectiveness of the element when you use it to alchemize. The '~' means neutral, '+' and '++' give a positive multiplier to the effectiveness of a certain material, and '-' and '--' lower the effectiveness of a material. Elements with an 'x' underneath them cannot be used to alchemize that specific item at all. These multipliers change per item. To understand more of element effectiveness as well as how points work, first go to the next screen (by pressing the space bar once you've selected your item).

When you first access the materials menu, you can see each material available listed with another colored box attached to it that shows a scale. The first number is the amount of material you're using for this specific alchemization, and the second is the amount of this material you have in total. So, using the Warm Embers shown in the image as an example, if the scale is 0/13, you have 13 Warm Embers available for use and haven't used any yet.

As you go through the game, higher-level mogwai start to drop rarer materials. Only when you encounter such materials in the wild does it show up for use in alchemy. So, if you're early on in the game, the materials menu shown in the image might not look the same since you haven't encountered the higher-level mogwai that drop rarer materials. The rarer the material, the more points it will give you as well.

Points can be used to fill up the bar at the bottom of the materials menu, and when you fill the bar complely, you can successfully alchemize an item. There is no way to alchemize an item with points lower than the requirement. As for points, each material has a set amount of points given. In the previous menu, the lower box showed element effectiveness in terms of alchemizing an item– this is where it comes into play. Of course, it is possible to fill up the points bar and alchemize items with only low-level material and material that isn't boosted, but its more efficient to go with higher-leveled and boosted materials, especially when the point requirement increases.

## Types of Alchemy

### General Alchemy

This is offered by Ven in the Enchant Hut. You use this type of alchemy for recovery items, attack items such as tea and coffee, and any other miscellaneous items that might not fit either of those prior categories. Pretty standard alchemy, and requires nothing extra besides materials.

### Essence Fusion

This is offered by Ven in the Enchant Hut. You use this type of alchemy to create stat-boosting items. As it is currently the only way to get mogwai stat-boosting items besides finding it in the field, each alchemization in this category is incredibly valuable, and requires 1 Mog Essence. Mog Essence is a rare drop from wild mogwai, but also drops when you fight mogwai in a boss battle. Thus, the amount of stat-boosting items you can create is limited by the Mog Essence you have.

### Weapon Rituals

This is offered by Ven in the Enchant Hut. You use this type of alchemy to solely create weapons, whether it be Eve's or other playable character's weapons. This category of alchemy is very reliant on giving books to Ven– it's not even available initially until you complete a side quest for her.

### DNA Alchemy

This is offered by Ives in the Witch's Hut at Cirruwa Forest. You use this type of alchemy to create DNA fragments only available through this method. New DNA fragments are added every sidequest you finish, which correspond to the mogwai you've interacted with. Some DNA fragments are also added when you beat certain bosses– be sure to check regularly!

## Book Requirements

* Ritual Book– Talk to the Tiny Oni in Sunwich once you first talk to Ven. Gives access to Weapon Rituals.
* Forbidden Book– Complete Quinn's Picnic Quest. Gives access to the next level of Weapon Rituals.
* Jiuweihu Cookbook– Complete the Otecho Party Animals Quest. Gives access to another level of recovery items.
* Alchemy 4 Kids!– Talk to Blitz once you reach Harbei and receive a text message from him. Lets you alchemize tea & coffee.