Alchemy!

[Mathias VonTepes]

Mathias observed the others, he decided it would be best for him to sit back from the others and practice on his own. He did his best work without distraction of a social life. And at 50 years old he had gotten past that highschool mentality of whos cool and whos not.

He paid close attention to the teacher and surprisingly enough understood it. He raised his hand dispite best judgement and asked "So the seal is set between the transmutater and the object to be transmutated, right? And after that the mana flowing from your body into the object effects which will will be transmutated? I heard that the only way you yourself could be transmutated is if there is a reflecting spell in the object or if it can send energy back to you in any way. For instance, if one were to try and take the blood from the wound of a dying man and transmutate the iron in his blood into an iron object, he could send energy back at you if he isnt dead and end up transmutating your arm or hand in some way. Am i correct so far?" He was just praying to god he didnt just make an ass of himself.

[Brandon (Tech)]

Brandon grinned slightly as the teacer repsonded, he sounded like a mixture of a scientist, a politian and a jurist, the way everything he said sounded like it was carefully arranged so that he could never have been blamed if what he said was wrong. Or maybe that was just Brandon being paranoid, for the ghist of what was said was the answer to his question: It was simply a matter of focus. "No sir, that was all" He answered when the teacher asked if there where more questions.

Brandon had all sorts of ideas for what uses he and his research would have fro mthe alchemy. By being able to seperate the individual 'building blocks' of matter, it would be a lot easier for him to attain whatever materials he needed for specific experiments, for instance he would be able to purify and concentrate oxygen if he needed to maximize the size of a flame, or cause an explosion. Being able to purify and alter the metals he stored would ensure that he didn't need to buy anywhere near as much material for his reasearch as he did today, as only a quick trip to a local scrapyard would be neccesary. Not only would he save money, but also time, both of which he would spend on even more research, but also with his girlfriend. Good times were ahead.

He knew that it would probably be a long time before he would be able to master alchemy on that level, but until then he would have an interesting new subject ot study, a thing he had begun enjoying since he got to AA. He had always been the brainy of his friends, and now he was now putting it to good use. Another of the students asked a related question, and Brandon listened with interest. This class seemed to be going somewhere now

[Onira]

Onira didn't have to wait for very long before two replies were received, as well as quite the welcome comment. As of yet, the students had been dubbed "Big Fella", "Cyborggy dude", and "Bazooka Joe". Well, he kind of made the last one up because he didn't really know what to call the other guy, but he was happy to see him speak up and actually present some of his own information. It was well enough to put a smile on Onira's face, but then again, that could be seen as not saying so much.

"Well, you look like you're ahead of us all there, Bazooka Joe. I like to see you talking a bit, too, guy. However, there are a few things I need to talk to you about of what you said.."

He coughed quickly before continuing.

"When it comes to human transmutation, which by the way is shunned down upon by certain alchemists, provided the one being transmuted still has an active will, seen in almost everyone only when their conscious, it becomes a battle of power. Whoever puts more energy into will essentially be the victor of the transmutation. This is actually part of something I want to go over with you in this class.

"The other thing is about the iron in the blood. It is a well-known fact that there are amounts of iron in the blood, taking it's home in every red blood cell, as well as in other parts of the body. However, one must always remember this is very little, as are quite a few elements in the blood. Think about it this way. In the human body, there is roughly..."

Onira turned around, quickly erasing the picture he drew before, and once again beginning to write something down, apparently in list form, as he spoke what he was writing.

"65% Oxygen
18% Carbon
10% Hydrogen
3% Nitrogen
1.5% Calcium
1% Phosphorus
0.35% Potassium
0.25% Sulfur
0.15% Sodium
0.05% Magnesium
0.70 % Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron
Trace Amounts of Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead, Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine"

He turned around again and side-stepped out of the way to let the class see. He motioned with his chalk to the list, beginning to speak again.

"As you can see, even as big as the human body is, the amount of iron is so low that nothing more than say a piece of shrapnel would be able to be created. Not to mention that once the iron is gone you're dead, but this isn't chemistry or biology, so we'll leave that be."

He gave a smile before putting the chalk down.

"I like that you're enthusiastic, Bazooka Joe, and most of what you said is right. Just remember how critical and confusing the human body can be. Even healing the smallest of cuts can be quite the straining ordeal."

Onira kind of clap-brushed his hands, getting the chalk powder off his hands before continuing still.

"Well then, i presume all your questions are answered, so lets get right into it, shall we? Now, you won't have this in the books I gave you, because that specific volume doesn't deal with this part of alchemy, but remember what I tell you, because it's pretty much the essence of alchemy."

His eyes light up slightly as he suddenly seemed to come up with something.

"You know what, this is pretty valuable information, so I'd actually like you all to take out a pencil or pen and a piece of paper."

he silently waited, happy to finally be getting into the class.

[Tristan Knightrhode]

[Paper, paper...where the fuck did I- Aha.] Tristan thought to himself when Onira asked them to copy it down. While the hunter could use fire magic to lightly scorch the air and make an ash trail on a surface, he still needed the paper to act as that surface.

Reaching into his pocket and with a bit of difficulty due to his gauntlets, Tristan pulled out a note pad and a somewhat mangled old pen. He generally just used this to take notes on what he was hunting to keep track of the evidence and determine what the quary might be. He began scribing down the ingrediants to the human body. The percentages sounded familiar to the Crusnik, but then again the boy who'd taught him the small bit of alchemy in the first place was a bit of a fenatic about it so it was possible he could have rambled the subject once.

Once finished, which only took a minute, Tristan leaned back a bit and waited for instruction. Since being in the academy he'd grown used to being in school and the fact that he was usually taught by people younger than himself. It was like going to college.

The little black, shiny, lump that was Igneus stretched on his partner's shoulder, and hopped down onto the desk, relying on it to be a steadier perch than the constantly shifting shoulder.

[Mathias VonTepes]

for the first time in what seemed like ages, mathias smiled from the teachers pet name for him. How he figured it out, mathias didnt know, but it was a funny name none the less.

He drew a paper pad and a pencil from the inside of his jacket. He flipped through the first couple pages which were seals he used with his aeroscribing. He went to an empty page and awaited his instructions. He lightened up seeing the teacher wasnt as disturbed with him as he first thought, dispite the lightly morbid question he asked (it seemed he would have to fight very big creatures for his weapons... or possibly take a trip through a portal to hell he found in an abandon chapel a ways away from the city so he could fight some of the blood beasts). he felt welcome for the first time in a while.

[Brandon (Tech)]

OOC: Sorry for wait

Brandon sent a message to Mek who immediatly began recording, both in terms of sound and and vision. The information displayed on the black-board was not in Brandon's immediate data-bank, but it was sure to be in the stationary one he had moved to his dorm in the sub-levels.

Making a mental note on the what the teacher had said about the changing of material being controlled, Brandon began boiling down what he had learned so far. It wasn't much but it was a start. Brandon knew he would be spending hours in the library after this, looking for whatever knowledge he could find there, but according to the teacher most of it was knowledge of the 'building blocks' of alchmey, and little more. Still Brandon didn't feel discouraged. Every journey started with the first step, and journeys of science, no matter the form, were no different

[Onira]

OOC: Sorry for wait.

Onira, sufficed to say, was enjoying the class. He was very comfortable, which when it concerned him was either very good or very bad, but his students had also seemed to warm up to him, and Bazooka Joe appeared much less conflicted. The enthusiasm, as he had already noted, was quite good, and one couldn't help but wonder if it was like that with all teachers. Was everyone in the school so excited to learn more magics? Then again, everyone else had many more students, so maybe Onira had just gotten the lucky draw. Well, either way, it put quite the smile on his face.

"Now that you've all got your stationery, let's all learn a bit about alchemy, or actually, the transmutation itself."

He stepped foreward, as if placing himself on center stage, beginning his long, drawn out speech of several hours. Well, probably not that long. They only really had about 45 minutes left.

"Transmutation, in it's most basic form, is making anything become something else through means unnatural. When I say this, think of, say, sand. When desert wind blows, it kicks up sand, and can eventually make a sand dune. This is natural. However, if, say, an elementalist were to take the sand and make an Earth snow man, that isn't natural, and though the Elementalist wouldn't appreciate me saying this too much, that would be considered a transmutation. Oh! And if anyone in here is an elementalist, please don't hurt me."

Onira would provide only the slightest of pauses for laughter before he quickly continued.

"Now, that's transmutation in general, but we're talking about alchemic transmutation, so for future reference, whenever you read about transmutation in an alchemic text, it's probably talking about alchemic transmutation unless otherwise stated.

"All alchemic transmutation can be broken down into steps, and these must be completed in the same order every time we transmute. This will generally be pretty hard for you to grasp, for these decisions, as well as your power, are limited in their time span, but still, persevere and I'm sure you will be successful."

He gave another reassuring smile as he finished his sentence.

"Step 1! This is where you'll want to start writing, by the way. So, the first step is energy. You want to begin supplying the solomn seal with mana, and this requires a steady balance. You don't release the mana instantly like you do with most other magics, because everything doesn't happen instantly. As well, though, you have to find the right amount of mana to supply, but also, not take too long in your supply of it, and remember, the supply needs to remain balanced over the course of time it takes. This takes practice, and when you become skilled enough, it'll probably be just intuition.

"Step 2! The decision. As we talked about a minute ago, there's two things that will be touching the seal: you, and what you want to transmute, or in some cases, just you. This is pretty much where you tell the seal what to aim at, and this will most likely be the simplest part for you to complete.

"Step 3! The breakdown. By now, the aiming becomes more difficult. You have to focus on the molecular structure of what you want to transmute, and essentially break this apart, which should soon become step 4, but some of the more skilled alchemists can stop at this particular point, turning the material into a bunch of atoms with no molecular bonds. This is, in-fact, shunned by most alchemists, for it will undoubtedly kill anyone who is placed into it.

"Now, step 4! The reconstruction. This phase concludes the alchemic equation. The atoms are moved in a sort of human ladder kind of way, where one atom climbs on top of another, and then another on top of that, and so on and so forth. This is very important, however, because as this is taking place, one msut reform the molecular bonds, so that it doesn't become jsut another pile of atoms again."

Onira let himself take a break, not worn out so much as just letting it sink in. He was aware that very many saw alchemy as just another simple magic, but it wasn't so, not by a long shot. It had so much potential, but could make a person crazy trying to accomplish it.

"And that, my students, is what we call the Transmutation Equation. And this is what it looks like."

Onira fell quickly to a squatting position. He had been hoping for this part of class for quite a while, seen obviously by the joyous expression on his face.

The palmed tattoos lit up quickly, as all four steps, the mana, the decision, the breakdown, and the reconstruction all happened in the blink of an eye. The result was a life-size, concrete, and very detailed statue of Onira with overly muscular body, in a very heroic position.

He stood up as quickly as he got down, looking over his class with an amused expression.

"Any questions?"

[Brandon (Tech)]

Finally! The basics of alchemy! This was what Brandon had been waiting for the entire lesson! Brandon eagerly absorbed every nugget of knowledge the teacher shared with the class, recorded both on Mek's enviorment obeserving gear and through the pen in Brandon's eagerly scribbling hand. He loved this, it felt as thouhg he was greedily drinking from a well knowledge that the teacher had opened up to him, and he thirsted for knowledge in all its aspects, but especially this, the aspect of power.

Perfect! A bunch of notes, precise almost down to every word the teacher had spoken and containing everything said about the four steps, the importance and efects of focus that had been explained earlier and complete with a before/after picture of where the statue had appeared, taken by Mek. Brandon made a mental note to himself of writing 'Flattering self-image by teacher' on the printout he would make of the picture for his notes. He laways kept two copies of things, one in his stationay memory bank and one on paper. That way, it would take a catastrophy to destroy both and leave him without. There were few things he dreaded more.

Brandon quickly wrote 'Transmutation equation' on top of the page on his note-book before running through what Mek had recorded. He had captured some very satisfying pictures of the teachers show of alchemy in slowmotion, that would look good in Brandon's personal portfolio.

[Mathias VonTepes]

Mathias frantically jotted down the info on his pad in abbreviations. he even sketched out little stick figure instructions for on-the-spot references.

Mathias shuddered at the end of step 3. One time he had gotten his hands on an alchemy book. He wanted to turn a kitten into a plushie for his crush. He placed it in a box with a symbol on the top and tried to follow the steps. When he took the top off the box the kitten was gone. He read through the FAQ and found the question, "I transported something! The object i tried to transmutate was gone, it must've been transported somewhere, can you tell me how to find it?" to which the answer read "Sorry, you didnt teleport anything, you just dissolved it into a form of 'nothingness', i hope it wasnt something alive!"... Mathias sobbed in his room for days on end knowing he killed a baby kitten. He was very young at that time.

Dispite this somewhat disurbing flashback, mathias once again raised his hand and said, "So theoretically, relating to my last question, if you cant harvest enough iron from a pool or pack of blood, you can change the entire thing into iron if your good enough, or possibly even make diamond from air, correct?" keeping in mind the definition of alchemy, 'The ability of transmutation, especially the changing of something into something better'.

[Tristan Knightrhode]

OOC: sorry for the lateness

Tristan wrote down what Onira had said word for word. It all made perfect sence whether you were a mage or not. Alchemy was- is- the science of magic- a base for technomancy. The hunter was all well familiar with the process, as every time he made his gauntlet blades to hack an opponent apart, he had to go through it, but he wrote it down any way.

When the student teacher made the statue, Tristan sniggered a sort of 'what a dope' laugh and finished writing down the steps of alchemy.

When Mathias asked his question, Tristan intergected, hopefully not to Onira's iritation. "Technically, yes. You could, in all prospect, make any thing out of thin air. The problem with that is that you would have to know exactly what was in the air, blood, excetera, and know how many protons, neutrons, and electrons were in those elements. Then you would have to break them down into individual sub-atomic particles, and re-bind every thing into the new substance. Iron, Steel, Diamond, what-have-you."

He took a short pause, then continued. "The problem with that is that unless you were a master alchemist, that could possibly take hours, depending on how complicated the substance you were attempting to make was. Not to mention the Mana that would require. Alchemists of our level, and probably even of our teachers here would most likely have WAY too little mana to pull it off and would most likely need a philosopher stone- if they even exist- to make much any thing more complicated than iron. Let alone in any sort of vast quantity." The hunter finished in his deep voice that had taken on a surprisingly light tone. He then realized that he probably cut Onira off and turned back to the student teacher, "Sorry if I stole your thunder a bit there."

[The Helper]

+7 EXP to all participants, because Onira left, claiming you all FAIL anyways!