"Scalpel explained you have taken up spell weaving. What spells have you mastered?" Vessel asked.
"Well, I only really know how to throw a fireball, and I wouldn't say I've mastered it." Acacia replied.
"Demonstrate."
"Here? There is lots of fragile-looking glass, are you sure?"
"Cancel the spell instead of releasing it." It clarified.
"And... how do I do that?"
Vessel opened an eye port just to narrow its eyes at her. "Troubling. Cancelling spells ought to be the first thing one learns. Who taught you?"
"Bluoro, a slime elementalist. They got assigned to me because they have experience with using spell on the caster's own body, if I remember correctly."
Vessel's eyes narrowed further, before the armor covered them again. "The tendency to disregard the safety of regenerators is irresponsible and inefficient. Will file a complaint at the earliest convenience. Let's continue. With your talent, grasping the concept should be easy. Do you know what a comb is?"
"Yeah, I used to have hair."
"When you want to get rid of a weave of mana, let it go through a comb that untangles the knots and rips off the detritus of meaning. Then, let go of the threads of mana, and they should disperse on their own. Some mana will be lost."
She nodded, and formed a single strand of mana, imbuing a simple concept of velocity into it. Worst case scenario, her hand would be jerked forward a bit. With the practice she's had the day before, it took her about a dozen seconds.
Picturing the comb was trickier. She hadn't tried to make a rigid construct out of mana before. In the end, the comb teeth ended up more like thin, sharp needles. When she pulled them along the mana thread, it got promptly reduced to shreds, instead of unraveling like Vessel said it would.
Skill: [Spell Devouring 1-B] acquired.
[Spell Devouring]
Level: 1 Tier: B
Allows you to form teeth out of mana, capable of breaking and consuming mana constructs, siphoning some of the mana for your own use.
Ah. That would explain it.
"Never said to form the comb using mana. Uses a mental construct. Not sure what you did, but it will work." Vessel commented.
"I got a Skill from that, too."
"Efficient." Vessel replied, which was the closest thing to a compliment the creature was capable of. "Proceed."
She took a deep breath, and tried her best to form the fireball spell as quickly as possible. Altogether, it took her just thirty seconds to form the whole fireball weave. She quickly ran her newly developed mana teeth over the spell before she lost her grip on it.
"Adequate for our purposes." Vessel reached a hand to one of the shelves, and procured a small bottle containing red dust. "The most basic requirement to perform alchemy is the ability to analyse substances. Form a probe spell. The spell should impact the specimen and return information to you."
"What kind of information?" She asked, already thinking on how to properly build the spell.
"Physical, chemical, and magical properties. What the specimen is, and what it means."
She narrowed her eyes in thought. She sat on an empty portion of a table and began planning out the probe.
She quickly started her first attempt.
First came the probe itself. She spun three different strands for this task.
The first, she branded with images of a hammer's impact, of gravity, of matter melting and solidifying - different physical properties to be tested.
Second thread got treated with the concepts of corrosion, burning, of stereotypical bubbling vials - chemical processes a substance is capable of.
Third strand was the most difficult. Magic relied on symbols, but how to symbolise the concept of a symbol? In the end, she added the idea of an item laid on an altar, a priest muttering incantations above.
The three strands got wrapped in a sort of mana-band that held the concepts of testing, prodding, and asking questions, of writing the answer down on a piece of paper.
With the band wrapped tight, she let go of the three strands, freeing up her mental bandwidth.
Now, she needed a way for the information to return to her. She spun a thread she imagined to work like the string of a yoyo; after a moment of being extended, she would pull the string, and let the "yoyo" spin up and back towards her. The string got attached to the band.
Finally, she wrapped the whole thing in a - by now very familiar - concept of velocity.
Taking a deep breath, she launched the spell at the bottle.
No ripples were caused in the air; the spell lacked any tangible properties. The three creatures present in the lab could only use their mana sense to track the projectile.
The bundle of mana and meanings reached its mark, and Acacia pulled on the string that was still in her hand. She felt it go taught, and moments later, the spell returned to her.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As soon as her mind made contact with the probe, she collapsed on the ground, her whole being overwhelmed.
She regained her senses quickly, and sat up, wondering what went wrong.
Thinking back on the moment of impact, she realised that the spell worked just as intended. The information she requested got transferred flawlessly into her mind. All at once.
Such amount of information wasn't something her brain was equipped to handle. She would have to figure out a way to filter the data, or at least have it released into her mind gradually.
She formed the spell again, this time adding a second band wrapping around the first, holding the scene of water trickling from a faucet into a bucket.
When the new spell returned, the stream of information was still intense, but now it was manageable. She began parsing it.
High melting point. Brittle. Transparent. Chemically, mostly inert. Symbolically, an object of containment, albeit an easy barrier to surpass.
She would have almost believed it - she had no idea what the alchemist handed her, after all - except she could clearly tell the substance was red and not at all transparent. It also made little sense for her to store an ingredient like this in a bottle, if it was really chemically inert.
She quickly realised her problem: her probe did not pierce the bottle, and instead gave her a report on the glass container itself.
She sighed with frustration.
"Well, I've figured out the bottle is pure glass. Probably not made out of the dust that's all over the Barren."
"That is not what-" Vessel began.
"Yes, I know." She cut it off.
Another couple of minutes later - she had started to run out of mana - a third probe was formed, this time launched straight into the bottle and impacting the red dust.
Red, duh. Brittle. Very high melting point. Can be refined to produce metal. Symbol of decay and neglect. Though there is also a hint of... freedom?
"This is some sort of rust." She concluded. "Redder than from regular iron, or maybe the substance just works differently here. I think - though this is just speculation - that this particular bit came from a chain or some sort of cage. It has that 'broken bondage' vibe."
[Spell Weaving] achieved rank 2-A.
Nice! Probably because this was quite the complicated spell.
"Your analysis is correct. This is rust scraped off of a cage bar in one of the scavenged compounds." Vessel nodded. "Coloration likely stems from the different laws of reality in the universe of origin."
"You now understand what variables alchemy is concerned with. Now, will show you how to manipulate them." It said, beckoning her with a wave of a spindly hand.
Vessel put a nutrient bar into a stone bowl.
"The nutrient bars publically available are a potent source of mundanity and boredom influences. That on its own has little use, but magical properties can be altered in a way similar to chemical reactions."
It took out a small glass object and placed it on the nutrient bar. "This is an ordinary glass lens. Used for the connotations of focusing energies." It then filled the bowl with an unpleasant-smelling liquid. "It's much easier to combine substances using some form of solvent. Developed this blend from vinegar and own mucus."
Acacia watched as the nutrient bar dissolved into a disgusting mush in the "solvent", the lens sinking into the muddy mixture.
"Now, will combine the ingredients into a single object."
Several hands sprouted from in between Vessel's plates, and Acacia could feel mana gathering in them. It was unlike her weaving or Scaplel's item bonding; it felt like a heating flame, or maybe radiation. This emanation was thick with the concept of change, of melding.
Soon, the mixture began to bubble and stir, and Vessel proceeded to move its hands in odd, rhythmic patterns. After a few minutes, the goo began to compress, and when the alchemist stopped pouring mana into the bowl, all that was left was a small, grey, uneven marble.
"Don't do what about to do." Vessel warned, and reached for the marble. "Only doing this with bare hands because knows the substance's properties intimately. Use protection for everything. Treat every substance like a deadly acid."
It then put the marble into the bottle of rust, poured some more solvent in, and corked the bottle, before vigorously shaking it like a bartender mixing a cocktail, pouring more mana in as it did so.
After another five minutes, the mixture took on an orange hue. When it did, Vessel put the bottle down on the table.
"Called this substance 'spell acid'. It reacts with any object altered by magic, removing any active alterations. It also works on reality bending, to a lesser extent. Useful for breaking any barriers encountered during scavenging."
"It also leaves the actual physical objects fully intact." Scalpel added. "The materials that an artifact is made of are usually more valuable than any of the item's uses. Citadel is generally more technomagically advanced than any of the civilisations that made the detritus falling into the Barren."
Acacia rubbed her chin in thought. "This is... agh, it's almost something for me."
"Elaborate."
"Like, I can see the passion you have for alchemy, and Scalpel has for the item bonding. It's right for you. Your calling. You know some adjacent bits, but for the most part, this is what you are the best at, and what you enjoy. Or your approximation of enjoyment. But I can tell that it's not my calling. There is something here, but it doesn't quite fit."
Vessel opened a few eyes to look deeply at her. "What elements of alchemy call to you?"
"Well, the bit about using a substances physical and magical properties is very interesting. But I wouldn't like relying on having the right materials on hand. On the other hand, creating a magical object also really appeals. I could just store the thing somewhere inside myself. The entire theme of transformation is great, too. But the procedure itself... it doesn't seem magical enough, I guess? I come from a technologically advanced world. Chemistry isn't something I see as magical."
"What is magic to you, then?"
"Ah fuck. Good question." She scratched her head, the hair-leaves rustling between her fingers. "I guess... transformation. Power. Forcing the world to look like what I want it too."
"...godhood." she added after a second. "Surpassing my mortal limits."
"Growth. Mastery." Vessel supplied, and she nodded. "Supposes, then, you would like a method that maximises both power and versatility?"
"Yeah, though I'm guessing every path has trade-offs."
"Knows of one that might work. As to the trade-off, its biggest downsides are the steep learning curve and lengthy casting process. It does, however, offer incredible results."
"I'm fine with that. It's the Barren, I have all the time in the world to master and cast spells. What's the method?"
"Runic magic. It is used for creation of magical devices and rituals."
Ritual. That word resonated with something in her. With her idea of what magic is supposed to look like. What witches and druids of Earth would pursue. Right place, right time, right ingredients, right words and gestures. Repeated regularly to carve its significance into the fabric of reality.
And the runes themself also felt like something for her. She imagined a circle lined with words of power, a union of mathematics and magic. Circuits conducting mana like electricity.
"It seems like we found your 'calling'." Scalpel said, seeing her eyes wide with anticipation.
"Another problem with runes is that they have very little practitioners, and thus lessons and learning materials are scarce. Scarce means expensive."
"So I gotta start earning big time to learn runes."
Vessel and Scalpel both nodded.
"On the other hand, since you're going to be part of the team, Vessel can provide you with basic materials you'd need. Writing implements, some simple reagents."
"Okay. When can we go out scavenging, then?"
Scalpel let out an amused breath. "I like that attitude. We've been mostly stuck in the city because one of our teammates got severely injured. He's gonna be fine eventually, but the healing can't be sped up without some serious credits getting spent, something beyond our budget. If we are to go out, you'd have to fill in for him."
"Is it something that requires me to pick up a new skill overnight?"
"No. It's actually a pretty simple role, and something you can already do a pretty good job at. Do you understand the term 'tank'?"