Alchemy

"Alchemy," A handsome middle aged blond man says, "Alchemy is often viewed as magical or miraculous by those unfamiliar with the craft. However, it is a science, it is the scientific technique of understanding the structure of matter, decomposing it, and then reconstructing it. It is a science because if two people who don't know each other go through the exact same methods they both get the same outcomes, it is repeatable and verifiable."

"However, for all that it is a science; it is a contradictory and fickle science at that. There are two main things needed to use alchemy. First, comprehension. In order to do alchemy, you absolutely require the knowledge of the inherent structure and properties of the atomic or molecular makeup of a particular material to be transmuted as well as the flow and balance of potential and kinetic energy within."

"And this knowledge must be all encompassing. It is not enough to know that water is H2O. In a water molecule, the hydrogen atoms form a 104.5° angle with the oxygen atom. The hydrogen atoms are close to two corners of a tetrahedron centered on the oxygen. At the other two corners are lone pairs of valence electrons that do not participate in the bonding. In a perfect tetrahedron, the atoms would form a 109.5° angle, but the repulsion between the lone pairs is greater than the repulsion between the hydrogen atoms. The O–H bond length is about 0.096nm. Not only this but because it is a liquid you must have knowledge of how the atoms chaotically act in the liquid, which are not held still like for solids. Finally, you must understand that water does not just contain H2O, but many other molecules, and you must either understand those too or you must actively choose to not manipulate anything besides the H2O. You must know all of this before your can do a single thing with water, even moving it from one pot to another."

"The second thing is something completely contradictory to this vast knowledge comprehension required; it is the metaphysical science of the object you are trying to manipulate, something based more on belief than real fact. Beliefs of the people and beliefs of the alchemist doing the alchemy. To use alchemy, a transmutation circle is necessary; this is where this metaphysical science comes into play."

"All transmutation circles are made up of two parts. First, the circle itself is a conduit which focuses and dictates the flow of power, tapping into the energies that already exist within the earth and matter. It represents the cyclical flow of the world's energies and phenomena and turns that power to manipulable ends."

"The second part is the specific alchemical runes. These runes vary widely based on ancient alchemical studies, texts, and experimentation, but correspond to a different forms of energy, allowing the energy that is focused within the circle to be released in the way most conducive to the alchemist's desired effect."

"There two different kinds of transmutation circles. A full transmutation circle and a simplified transmutation circle. Both of these types of circles have advantages and disadvantages. A full transmutation circle will have a lot more details, such as extra runes and most notably text itself is basically only used in a full transmutation circle. Now the language of the text itself does not matter, just the meaning of text must be the same. The advantage is ease of use and the disadvantage is it takes longer to write these circles out."

"A simplified transmutation circle will have far fewer details on them. This can be good because it keeps your work making the transmutation circle from being stolen or easily reverse engineered. To use a simplified transmutation circle the alchemist must have the full transmutation circle memorized. This means that alchemists who don't know the full transmutation circle cannot use your simplified transmutation circle, but it also means that it is more difficult to use because during use you must be thinking about the full transmutation circle while you are also thinking about the transmutation you are doing. Finally, simplified transmutation circle are a lot less detailed and so require less work to draw and therefore can be used more quickly."

"Now before we get started there is one more thing you need to remember before doing any kind of alchemy. And that is the Law of Equivalent Exchange. You get out exactly what you put in. Trying to attempt to much with too little will cause something unpredictable and catastrophic called a rebound. This is a very good way of causing serious injury or death. This generally only happens because of a mistake in your calculations, a lack of important knowledge about the thing you are trying to transmute, a mistake in drawing your transmutation circle, or that your transmutation circle is flawed in the first place."

"So, before attempting any alchemy, you must triple check your work, both your calculations as well as your circle. A single mistake will not cause you to get a 90% instead of a 100% on a test, but could possibly lead to your death, generally via explosions, but also in many other unpredictable ways."

"Now in Amestris, generally the very first alchemical transmutation to be done is molding a wood block into something more interesting, such as a statue. However, I disagree with this, because wood is ridiculously difficult to comprehend. Not only that but every type of wood, even sometimes ones on the same tree, is different and therefore requires a different comprehension. They choose this because of three reasons. First, wood is a solid, which is easier to manipulate than liquids, with gasses being the most difficult. Second, it makes it so that only the most talented of people can learn alchemy, not to hold power to themselves, but because if you are not talent you are very likely to blow yourself up using alchemy. And lastly, for some unknown reason, wood is more forgiving in terms of errors, a rebound with wood will never kill the alchemist, unless you're are really, really wrong, but will lead to failure instead and a ruining of the wood via melting, fire, or some other rather strange ways."

"None of these things matter to us right now because, for your first transmutation, I will be drawing the full transmutation circle, and I will be giving you the answers to everything needed for this transmutation. So, you will not have to worry about any kind of error."

He pulls out a large piece of paper and puts it onto the floor. It is two concentric circles, with something of an S in the middle of the inside circle with two small circles inside the S's curves. There is text all around the middle of the two concentric circles with even more text written above it and on the bottom there are to arced legs sticking out with even more text between the arced legs.

Then he pulls out another large piece of paper and puts it onto the floor next to the first. It a much simplified form with only the two concentric circles, with the S and the two smaller circles.

"This is the simplified transmutation circle in case you were wondering. You will not be using it for now, because you will just be focusing on the transmutation required and the knowledge you will need to keep in mind while doing so."

He then tosses to me a small journal filled with answers.

"This transmutation circle and the mathematical answers written in that journal will take exactly 1 kg of the H2O from a pot put in the left circle and put it into a pot in the right circle. This transmutation is more than just a demonstration though; it is actually very useful in case you are ever in need of drinkable water, because it leaves everything not H2O in the left pot."

"First, read through the journal and memorize it, and then check it two more times against your memory, to make sure you have it."

She then opens the journal and looks through it slowly one time and then more quickly another two times.

"Ok, watch this." He says and then puts two pots down one with about a litter and half of water and the other empty, "First, always make sure that the left pot has more than a litter of water, because less than a liter of H2O would be really, really bad. Second, put both hands onto the circle." He puts both of his hands onto the circle. "Then, imagine all those water molecules that I told you all about before floating chaotically in the water. Then, imagine energy flowing into the circle, but exactly as much as you memorized from the journal. Next, imagine the chaotic water molecules stand still and then go up exactly how much I had written down in the journal, then to the right, again exactly how much I had written down in the journal, and then down into the right pot, again just like in the journal."

At that the transmutation circle shines blue, and then the water comes up in a cylinder shape, the same as the pot, moves over, and the goes into the right pot. Not a drop of water is spilt.

"Now, when you do it, you will very likely spill some or even all of the water, this is ok, your technique will not be as good as mine without lots of practice."

"Now, look one more time at that journal, and then you can do it yourself." He then pours the water in the right pot back into the left pot.

She looks one more time at the journal. Then, puts her hands onto the circle. After a moment, it turns blue and she smiles at her success.

Sakura's eyes snap open to see her bedroom at night.

'My dream… it was so real… and the transmutation circle looked so much like the seals I saw in class.'

After a moment, she gets out of bed and turns on her side table light. Then she pulls out her class notebook and starts writing numbers. The same numbers that were in the journal she saw in her dream. These numbers were hard to write down because her mathematics class had not covered anything as advanced as it, luckily in her dream she saw it four times, or else she would not feel like she could write them down perfectly. However, the two seals, transmutation circles her dream called it, was far easier for her to draw even the incomprehensible characters for some reason were easy to remember and write down.

She has no idea why she is doing this though...

'It wouldn't work... It was only a dream... Right?'