The Tools of an Alchemist

In their line of work, alchemists will be confronted with any number of difficult problems. Knowing the tools that the college allows you as a state appointed alchemist is critical to your success. To begin: The most important tool you possess is your compound pouch. Typically knitted from the hide of an adult Trig, the pouch is imbued with a natural resistance to the potent mana of your ingredients, even before it is charred with the many standard warding sigils. This makes it a fairly effective anchor against potential dangers, as well as a reliable sink for your own spells. In fact - many of the tools an alchemist uses have similar brands of multiuse. As you will come to learn, adaptation and quick thinking are some of the most important traits to separate a mediocre alchemist from a great one.

In addition to your pouch, your sigil set will most likely be your other most used tool. Each sigil set consists of nine silver and brass sigils, each about half a handspan in diameter. You will eventually craft your own set of sigils, and they will determine how you use mana, more than anything else you carry. These sigils will act as intense mana-batteries, as well as conduits for energy you draw from the environment. They will be imbued with the pathing to support your most common draws, and as such are vitally important to anything you do involving mana. An alchemist without their sigils is like a wolf without their claws; it can't be overstated how important it is you take care of them like your life depends on it. Someday, it's likely it will.

For the time being, you will be given practice sigils; these are old sigils that have been stripped of their manastone cores, but were in use long enough to accumulate a manadraw of their own. They won't ever carry enough charge to seriously harm you or your classmates, but they will be invaluable for you to learn the basics of draw pathing.

Last, but certainly not least, every state-appointed alchemist is required to carry a lodestone with them. These stones serve a dual role; They are beacons for other lodestones that allow alchemists to schedule meetings even kilometers apart. They are also bound to the mana stream of the entire plane of Rodan, meaning they can absorb an incredible amount of mana before the path ruptures. This makes them ideal grounding zones for exomanal spells, sucking away the excess mana before it can cause issues in larger rituals. As a bonus, they are also massively customizable, as they only require the sigils to open the most basic kind of path; as first year students, it's likely some of you have already experienced this binding path.

In addition to these essentials, alchemists can also choose from a practically infinite array of tools - from traps specialized in the capture of certain mana-oriented creatures, to alchemical torches that can reveal pathes out in the world, to alchemical constructs that can perform mental tasks faster than any human. To use any of these tools, however, an aspiring alchemist must first master the mana flowing through their own body at any given moment.

As a general rule, mana wants to move. Given a path, mana will take it, even from an area with low energy to one with high energy. This may seem impossible to you; how does it find the energy to do this? The answer lies in the fluxfields on Rodan. As you may recall in your history classes, 122 years ago the goddeath reshaped the ways that mages were able to access the power on Rodan. Back then, mages were forced to get their power from sentient conduits known as 'gods'. After the fittingly named goddeath, this was no longer the case, and these clerics of old were left without their power. In their wake, alchemists who had already been finding ways to sidestep this restriction, quickly overcame the old mages in terms of both power and influence.

History aside, this latent power is a boon and a curse. Manas tendency to move means that it is exceedingly difficult to force mana into a construct for any meaningful stretch of time. Instead, constructs are made by charring an object with sigils of pathing; certain shapes and indentations that change the texture of an object in the fluxfield. By combining a number of basic sigils, artifacts can be made to twist mana into basically any path imaginable. Crucially, these artifacts carry no power of their own, and are instead entirely dependent on the alchemist's ability to pump mana through them.

Of course, as with most sciences, there are exceptions to everything you learn. Certain artifacts, like the godsuns, do hold onto manabanks of their own. Although even in the case of these masterful constructions, the mana never stays stationary. Instead, it is constantly funneled through the suns, in a process that gradually condenses the mana into a much more viscous form. This viscous mana can then be captured and 'cooled', forcing it to take a solid form. In general, this process is how the manastones used in sigils are created.

It is also interesting to note how wildlife makes use of constant motion of mana. Herding species, like cartoas, make use of natural paths to inform their migrations. Other species can actually pull energy from mana flowing through the fluxfields. Most species of grass actually have incredibly complex pathing built into their structure; with enough of them, the flow of mana over an area actually slows by a noticeable amount. This can make these plants desirable for places where people may want to stay, as a slower fluxfield can inhibit the senses of both oriq, as well as many other mana-oriented species.

Mana is a fascinating part of our world, and one that you will become intimately familiar with in the years to come. Besides the practicality of alchemy, it is by far one of the most wonderful parts of our world. It's important not to lose sight of this as your workload increases, and you start to feel fatigued with the more mundane aspects of alchemy.