Alchemy

**Alchemy** is the art of creating magic consumables. It is similar to Forgemastering, but unlike Forgemastering, Alchemy products are not meant to last, but prepared quickly and in large batches for an affordable price. Alchemic products are also one-use and cannot be recharged, but alchemical spells require relatively low mana. The main advantage of Alchemy over Forgemastering is that anyone, even non-magicians, can use Alchemy products, and for lower prices. A common example of Alchemy products are healing potions and magic wands for frontline soldiers, and physical/magical enhancement potions for mages.

Alchemical tools mostly use up to yellow mana crystals since they're designed to be cheap and mass produced. The cost of any higher tier gemstone would be better to buy a better Forgemastered item.

Golems are complex constructs born Forgemastering, Warden magic, and sometimes even Alchemy.

## Equipment

### Magic Wands

**Magic Wands** are Alchemical tools with mana crystals acting as cartridges for magic charges.

Projectile weapons like arrows or bullets have been decommissioned since Forgemastering was born. Even the most common enchanted armors have gravity sheaths that react to fast incoming objects to reduce their weight to the point they are harmless. Additionally, one would need to train their aim and take into account weapon accuracy, distance to target, wind, friction caused by the air, etc. On the other hand, magic is energy and is unaffected by such things, even the gravity sheath.

Earth magic wands can provide instant protection from all threats, helpful in crossing quagmires or walking through muddy fields without traces, and is the only element that can stop every other element. Fire wands are used for open spaces and grouped up enemies. Lightning wands are particularly good against heavy infantry since it bypasses metal protection. Water wands can be used to easily wade through rivers or act as an umbrella offering protection against rain, snow, or hail.

Magic wands are military-grade weapons that had been charged by at least bright cyan-cored mages. It is impossible to infuse willpower inside an alchemical tool since the caster of the spell and the person that actually uses it would be different and so is mixing different elements together. Yet with enough wands firing at the same time, it is easy to produce a destructive power that outclasses even a Tier 5 spell.

### Safety Masks

**Safety masks**, shaped like plague doctor masks, offer good protection against pathogens but are not suited to fights. When worn, a thin white layer of solid white energy covers every inch of the wearer's body thanks to Manohar's Life Ward spell. The masks are equipped with puke bags placed right under its beak-like protuberance, making the wearers resemble pelicans rather than crowns. Once full, the vomit sack detaches and is replaced by an empty one.

## Consumables

### Consumable Spells

Tier 1 spells can be bottled up, but tier 2 and above need the use of ingredients as a focus for spells to retain their potency. For example, a tier 3 fireball can be turned into a fireball seed that can be thrown as a grenade, and requires an ingredient with high fire affinity (i.e. fur of a fire using magical beast or Phoenix Rose). Usually, Alchemical tools damage even their user because they're fueled by foreign mana, but if the user is also their maker, they are immune to their effect.

**Fire Roots** are the Alchemic equivalent of a concussion grenade. **Fire Seeds** are fireballs in a candy-like shell that explodes on contact, each with the same power of a Tier 3 spell cast by a Great Mage.

### Magic Potions

**Magic Potions** are special spells in a vial, the most basic being **healing potions**, and the most precious being physical enhancement, which are the most useful and expensive potions for a mage. There are no such things as "mana potions" that restore mana. Once a potion is imprinted, it is impossible to share potions with other people, as after the liquid leaves the flask, it loses its magical properties.

* **Physical enhancement potions**: can temporarily make the user stronger, faster, and even more physically resilient. The spells for physical enhancement are not used in combat because the cast time is very long (at least 1 minute), while the effects only last around 3 minutes. Thus, it is better to bottle up these spells in potions so they're ready for use in combat. Physical enhancement potions also have side effects, as injecting foreign mana into one's body is akin to poison. Thus, even tier 1 physical enhancement potions require ingredients to mitigate the effects. Top grade alchemical potions can temporarily boost users' physical abilities to the level of a magical beast. However, drinking too many body-enhancing potions can cause deadly mana poisoning.
* **Tonics**: some of the highest grade potions. They temporarily enhance their user's metabolism, induce a state of relaxation, and provide most of the nutrients required for a hasty recovery. Their effect allows a body to digest and assimilate a meal in a matter of minutes instead of hours and relieve mental stress. A tonic can't replenish mana reserves, but it can at least remove the side effects of mana depletion, like headaches, lack of focus, and blurred vision. Tonics can't reset the effects of Invigoration, but can lessen the time required.
* **Mother Earth potion**: made by Tyris for the Queen's Corpse in times of emergency. It has the same properties as its namesake (Tyris' breathing technique), stimulating the mana and the auxiliary cores of the Corpse members so that they absorb the surrounding world energy much faster than usual. For the next few minutes, every time one of the fake Awakened has a moment of respite, their vitality and mana constantly replenish as if they're using a breathing technique. In theory, by taking turns to attack and defend, they are nigh-invincible. However, just like Invigoration, every time Mother Earth replenishes a user's strength, it loses part of its effectiveness until it has none.

### Grenades

Lith develops grenades that resemble Earth's grenades. The fire magic stored within detonates, giving the small earth magic projectiles the speed to pierce through its victims. The grenades have no timer and trigger on contact, exploding at the slightest vibration. Moreover, the stone projectiles are just a carrier to bring their filling past the gravity sheath of any magical protections. The explosion weakens the shell and the impact does the rest, releasing the white phosphorus inside the the victims' bodies. The chemical compound dehydrates their fluids to produce phosphoric acid and burn them alive from the inside.

### Claymore Mines

When detonated. the claymore mines resembling slightly curved black tiles send countless stone projectiles infused with darkness magic in every direction with great momentum. The rocks bounce around like pinballs, following unpredictable trajectories that allow them to hit their victims even from behind and turn them into swiss cheese. Darkness magic temporarily negate any regenerative abilities.

## Enchanted Tattoos

Coirn Hatorne's masterpiece injects potions directly into the skin, making it possible for the imprinter to activate it with a thought. The tattoos can be consumed to boost speed similar to a high grade potion.

Tyris later finds samples of and reverse-engineers Hatorne's work from the rubble of Kandria, creating a tattoo with the words "In Theory" for the Queen's Corpse members. The tattoo works as a multi-function potion with the same properties of a nutrients potion, a body enhancing potion, and a tonic at the same time.

## Poisons

### Mana Parasites

Alchemist Coirn Hatorne devised an alchemic poison that, when laced into a person's body, disrupts the effects of light magic, turning any attempt to cure it into a new wound. The poison's weak point is that it is static, designed to remain in the place it is injected instead of entering the bloodstream in order to retain its potency.

The poison is later enhanced into 4 separate plagues that infect the host and spread to the entire body, but remain dormant until magic is used. At that point, the plagues alter the mana flow, making it chaotic. In reality, the "plagues" are 4 different tiny parasitic worms barely the size of a needle, which continue spawning as long as the host is alive, planting eggs in all the victims' bodily fluids, including sweat.

* **Mana parasite**: feed on mana by releasing toxins which control the mana flow and are extremely hard to detect unless the healer is capable of perceiving even small alterations in the human body. Unlike the other parasites, however, the mana parasite does not deal any direct damage to the host. Even then, the parasites will fill the host with toxins to the brim over time, and become enveloped by cocoons which hide them from detection. The stronger the core of the host, the greater the amount of toxins released. The parasites also introduce foreign mana that suppresses the natural one (e.g. mana poisoning), slowly degrading the core over time and causing blue veins to appear on the victims' necks. Those with weaker cores can be cured by having only their abdomens cleansed.
	+ The mana parasite were intended for the Gorgon Empire, as they have the strongest magical might.
	+ An unintended side effect of the mana core degradation is that the victims have a possibility of becoming true mages. Once the mana core degrades to a point of being empty, world energy would fill them and they could potentially perceive the mana flow and discover their cores in the process.
* **Water parasite**: causes the host to turn into ice when using water magic. Water parasites have a much longer reproductive cycle compared to the fire and light parasites. It was intended to be used for the Blood Desert.
* **Fire parasite**: causes spontaneous combustion when the host uses fire magic.
* **Light parasite**: disrupts the effects of light magic, turning any attempts to cure wounds into new wounds. The parasites consume not only the host's mana but any external mana used for attempting healing. Hosts with this parasite have the highest mortality rate.

The worms cannot be killed or removed either by magic or surgery without causing them to release the necrosis-inducing toxin that kills its hosts. Even if the parasite's effects aren't triggered by the active use of mana, once their number grows beyond what the host's mana capacity can sustain, they will start to feed on the host's flesh and blood. The parasites are unable to survive without their host, which increases the difficulty of detection since most diagnostic spells can't detect them when the host is alive, while after their death the autopsies cannot find any foreign bodies.

The water, fire and light parasites are able to be neutralized by flooding patients with darkness magic limb by limb, starving the parasites of any nutrients.

### Anti-Mana Toxin Labs

Archmage Lukart orchestrated for locked dimensional boxes to be sent to each of the Great Academies, which contain stronger and more potent versions of the anti-mana parasite toxin. The boxes have 3 pseudo cores and multiple mana crystals, making them extremely secure. Each box contains what resembles an automated, portable Alchemic lab the size of a huge wardrobe. It features mechanical hands opening and mixing the contents of glass containers and several Bunsen burners that warm up the liquids before the vials are placed in the center of the cabinet. The silver liquid is odorless and tasteless, and instead of dispersing or mixing with saliva, goes straight through the stomach and intestines before entering the bloodstream throughout the body. The liquid is designed to turn to dust once the stopper on the vial is removed, leaving no trace.

Additionally, each box contains a set of slave item accessories, such as a ring identical to the ones students exchange points for in the academies, a necklace, and a bracelet, etc. Each slave item has an extremely complex forgemastered spell matrix, and is accompanied by several pills.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 87: Solus’ Surprise (2)
2. ↑ Chapter 290: Bonding (Part 2)
3. ↑ Chapter 659: From Bad to Worse (Part 1)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 344: Overwhelming (Part 2)
5. ↑ Chapter 346: Abyss (Part 2)
6. ↑ Chapter 1639: Power Move (Part 1)
7. ↑ Chapter 678: Body Modification Center (Part 2)
8. ↑ Chapter 679: Survival of the Fittest (Part 1)
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 1246: Bets and Arsenals (Part 2)
10. ↑ Chapter 351: Demons (Part 1)
11. ↑ Chapter 1007: The Mark of a Genius (Part 1)
12. ↑ Chapter 1143: Burden of the Past (Part 1)
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 44: Doubts And Regrets
14. ↑ Chapter 74: Day Two (2)
15. ↑ Chapter 449: Perfect Form (Part 1)
16. ↑ Chapter 1371: Quality Over Quantity (Part 1)
17. ↑ Chapter 469: Royal Pains (Part 1)
18. ↑ Legion on Discord
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 1393: One Mind, Five Bodies (Part 1)
20. ↑ Chapter 1395: Downfall of the Conceited (Part 1)
21. ↑ Chapter 158: A New Power
22. ↑ Chapter 132: Despair
23. ↑ Chapter 48:
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 Chapter 138: Plague (2)
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Chapter 141: Prisoner
26. ↑ Chapter 150:
27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 151: Rush for a Cure
28. ↑ Chapter 155: Crisis (2)
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 147: An Unexpected Threat (2)
30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 Chapter 124: Chaos
31. ↑ Chapter 148: True Genius
32. ↑ Chapter 144: The House of the Dead (2)
33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Chapter 226: Mystery Box