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At the heart of alchemy is the practice of transmutation. The ability to transmute substances into other, more useful substances is a valuable skill for any would-be crafter, and it starts with understanding the world around us. Our world is fundamentally made of two things: materia and essentia.
Materia is the physical material that all objects are made from. Although in principle all matter is interchangeable, in practice an alchemist will obtain poorer-quality materia from more common items, and richer materia from rare items. Thus, materia comes in seven grades, from F rank through to A and S rank. There are rumors of an eighth "omega" rank, but no concrete evidence of such a thing has ever surfaced.
Essentia, on the other hand, is the metaphysical essence of an object. You can't interact with it directly; when not bound within an object, it must be dissolved into solution. There are thirteen known types of essentia in this world, which have been named after the eight planets, plus Apollo (the Sun), Diana (the Moon), the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto, and the mysterious Void.
Materia gives essentia substance, and essentia gives materia form. By breaking substances down into these two elements and recombining them in different ways, new substances can be formed.
There are three core devices that alchemists make heavy use of in their work. They are the Calcination Furnace, Dissolution Chamber, and Synthesis Table. The Calcination Furnace uses solid fuel (the same sort you'd use in a regular furnace) to burn off the essentia within a substance, leaving behind only materia. The Dissolution Chamber does the reverse, using alkahest (the universal solvent) to break down the materia of a substance and leave its essentia in solution. Finally, the materia and essentia can be recombined in a Synthesis Table with a small sample of a desired substance to create more of the catalyst substance.
*This wiki does not contain crafting recipes. Please use Roughly Enough Items or a similar mod to view recipes.