Apparently there's a whole ton of alchemical references, plot points and symbolism in Yu-gi-oh 5ds and possibly GX as well. Someone's been doing posts on the playthedamncard livejournal group about that. However, I stopped following the series when they started doing things unrelated to the original manga (although I did watch the Doom Arc), having been scarred by too many horrible spin-offs.

The various Alchemic Beast cards, like Ouroboros, are very weak in the actual game. However, a game set in the MK universe would have based them on mana, therefore the cards are much stronger and at a higher level, requiring sacrifices.

Also, given that the goal of the villain in Mana Khemia 2 was to save his species by forcing all of them out of the human world, I tend to think it's pretty certain that those weapons were just banishing them. Killing them would have been counterproductive, on top of what Mana Khemia said about the consequences of actually killing a mana.

Zweis Monde is apparently German for two moons, which explains the fact there's a light one, a dark one, and they cycle between the two. Since killing a mana would require harming their element, at the minimum, and the wish that Vayne granted her was freedom, she was almost certainly banished instead of killed.

I hate ffdotnet's editor. It's deleting dividers again?


Roxis was surprised to see mana within crystals under the school –why on earth hadn't they been released? – but it wasn't a new concept to him, unlike the others. Nor was it news that alchemy had a dark past.

Alchemy was associated with the pagan gods Hermes and Thoth. They had once been considered aspects of the same being, and the teachings of 'Hermes Trismegistis' were really an amalgam of Greek philosophic natural science and Egyptian magic.

The classical Greek and Roman gods were respectable, even fashionable these days, as long as everyone made it clear that they didn't actually believe in them, they were just myths. The monstrous, often animal-headed Egyptian gods were still considered dark beings. In its rush to distance itself from the taint of magic, Al Revis had discarded all traces of the lore of Thoth from its curriculum.

When Roxis' father had been unable to learn Hermetic alchemy, he had turned to the other half of the art, hoping that if he mastered it he could pass the exams. Roxis had studied it along with Hermetic alchemy, but it had actually proved detrimental to passing the exams. Quite a few things that everyone knew were impossible to accomplish with alchemy could be accomplished by its lost half, and so on.

In ancient times, Greek proto-alchemists had advanced themselves by trying to purify the corrupt elements of their souls. Egyptians had believed that people had not one single immortal soul, but several, and had strived to call forth their nobler selves and, sometimes, discard their base ones.

The Egyptians believed that those souls would survive as long as their names remained and they were remembered. Criminals who were unable to restrain their base selves sometimes had them taken away, sealed into tablets. Commoners hoped to prove worthy to have their soul-beast depicted on a tablet, as another guarantee of immortality. Priests and magicians would create tablets for their own soul beasts, and call them as well as other spirits forth to do battle.

And the souls of a pharaoh? Several of them were nothing less than divine. Horus the bringer of dawn, Set the defender of the realm, and Osiris the lord of the dead.

Only two pharaohs had their true divine selves sealed away. One was known as Exodia: the other remained nameless, a secret his father hadn't been willing to risk death to uncover.

The images of the cards were the images of those tablets, and thus partook of their magic.

So if a human soul or a pagan god could be sealed in stone by the magic of Thoth, then it seemed perfectly logical that at some point someone had tried to adapt that to Hermetic alchemy and sealed mana in crystals.

Perhaps they just didn't know how to release them? Roxis was examining a crystal and trying to resist the urge to discover if drawing a sketch of it would allow him to summon the mana within when they heard Jess' scream.

Ah. That would explain why they weren't trying to free the mana, even though there were tons of students like Tony and deserving alchemists like Roxis who had a hard time finding mana. Ahem. Not that he was angry or anything.

This mana was, however. Roxis would be angry at alchemists too, under the circumstances.

No one had seen Isolde in awhile: had she knocked Vayne out and released the mana to finish him off? What did she suspect?

Or perhaps he should be asking what did she know, if she truly had been Theofratus' friend.

When the others returned to campus in varying degrees of dismay (except for Flay, who was pleased with both the fight and the mystery), he remained. "Dour."

"Yes?" When Roxis called his name the Mana of Wood appeared, looking nervous but speaking intelligibly. He stuck close to Roxis' side: being underground this far away from the sun was a little scary, and the crystals were far more so.

"Would all of them react that badly to being released?"

"You… can?" That was a little close to a stutter, but a pause was better than mumbling intelligibly.

"It's clearly possible. These aren't symbols of the mana," like the ones helping hold up the school. Really, they'd seen that they were using an imprisoned mana to maintain the Corridor of Mist, so why was everyone else so shocked by the concept? "Just traps. It should be simple enough."

"But, if you do that…"

"Well, obviously I'd have to make sure I wasn't caught at it." That wasn't the issue.

…Wait a minute. "I wonder if there's a key. Are the crystals all individual, or is there some central monitoring device or spell, I mean glyph." Glyph was the 'it's not really magic, of course not' term modern alchemists used for permanent spells. "Something that would release all of them at once."

There was. The dust around it lay thick and undisturbed, obscuring the gold color of the fan-shaped ornament on the statue's arm. Gold, the ultimate pure substance, was commonly considered the goal of much of alchemy. Perhaps because it never tarnished, but Roxis thought that the real reason was that ancient alchemists had indeed dedicated a lot of time to making gold, not just for monetary purposes, but because it could enhance the power of magical devices.

Perhaps even Isolde thought it was just an ornament. Roxis itched to try it on, but he disliked the idea of being struck by lightning for blasphemy just as much as being burnt at the stake, thank you very much.

"My my my. I wonder where they found it." There were entire tribes dedicated to protecting sacred treasures like this.

It was clearly being used to cast several spells, but that panel didn't have an image engraved on it, so…

…well, it wouldn't hurt to have a little insurance. "Dour, would you mind floating underneath the walkway and attaching this to the ground under that statue?"

Mana were the foundation of this world. It was disgusting to see such powerful and noble (even if his mana didn't look like it) creatures treated like this. It would be… appropriate to free them and allow Al Revis to be judged. Would the school's mana love it enough to defend it against their brethren, or would it be punished for its hypocrisy?

Alchemists didn't do things like that, he reminded himself. Not to mention that a mere student magician shouldn't be acting as though he was a priest with the right to call forth such powerful beings to sit in judgment.

There was also a risk that the card would be found there and traced back to him even if he never used it. Which he would not, it just wasn't safe.

"Of course, I tell myself things like that and then the next thing I know I'm teaching Vayne how to call on this power in full view of the Mana of Light. Honestly…"

"Eital…" his mana looked around to see if they were being watched. "She knows about the, um, paper glyphs and things."

His mana knew? Well, of course his mana knew. He'd realized that the Wood Mana would be able to sense magic embedded in paper months ago, he just hadn't wanted to put that goodwill to the test. It was easier to pretend to ignore the unspoken, and he wouldn't want to wear on his mana's goodwill. "I know. How likely is she to turn me in the instant she gets bored?" Since his mana wouldn't.

Dour shook his head. "She likes oo. An…"

"What did I say about mumbling?"

"Sowwy."

"No, what I said was don't apologize... Never mind. "

"It's not bad. A lot of mana don't like it because the people who started trying to use it again did this, but the Mana of Light is very old, and she says mana were more respected then, even though the other people respected us even more."

"You might not think it's 'bad,' but most humans do. How many mana know about me?" Roxis asked as he started to head back up. There were interesting ingredients to be found here and hopefully Pamela was far, far away still.

"Um…"

"Oh, don't tell me the gossip is all over campus." Someone would slip. Perhaps Renee's Azureflame Mana. He had suffered at the hands of alchemists and was quite dedicated to preventing further abuse.

"No, but, um…" His mana hesitated to say it, which likely meant…

"It's about Vayne, isn't it."

"…Es."

"I can't ask you to reveal other people's secrets and expect you to keep mine at the same time, so I won't press you. I happen to live in a quite flammable glass house, after all."

"Ank oo." His mana was practically hiding behind his legs.

"People nowadays say that it's impossible, and it is with alchemy alone, but the ancient Greek alchemists had the ability to create homunculi." He had a few in his deck for that reason. "But that's not all he is, is it. And no, you don't have to answer."

His mana's silence said enough.

"Eital does realize that if I go down I'm likely to take Vayne with me, correct? He seems to be far more important to Isolde than I am, and given the choice between naming my father to an inquisitor and getting Vayne in only slightly more trouble than he'd already be in, there's really no contest." Try to hold out, and they'd just end up finding out all of it. Anyone could break, and with Isolde involved, truth serum was the least of what he'd have to worry about.

His mana didn't want to think about it.

"Well, I think we've had enough excitement for one day."

Sulpher had been listless lately, and Vayne was clearly worried. Honestly, alchemists nowadays. "It's rare, but mana can become weak like that."

"Huh?" Nikki asked. "Aren't mana, like, spirits and stuff?"

"Merely physical weapons might not be able to harm beings that truly exist in another plane of reality, but there are ways around that." Bringing together the two planes, for starters.

"The legendary mana-slaying weapons?"

Roxis wasn't surprised Flay had heard of those. "They aren't mana-slaying, they just destroy the matrix they use to shape a form that can exist on this plane of reality." That was easily fixed. Well, with ancient alchemic magic, at least. "In order to kill them, you'd have to severely damage the element as well. I'm not surprised by what Ms. Isolde said, that killing a mana unleashed devastation. I wonder which one it was… In any case, there are quite a few healing potions that act directly on the spirit, allowing them to be used on mana as well as humans."

Except the potion of the ancient healing master Dian Keto didn't have any effect on Sulpher besides clearing his head and giving him a little more energy and willpower, as far as Roxis could tell. And it had been difficult to hide that it had come out of a card with all of them wanting to look over his shoulder, too.

"Mrow."

"Sulpher says he feels a lot better. Thanks, Roxis."

"Don't thank me." Roxis pushed his glasses up. "You owe me another game for this."

The pretext of a rematch allowed him to get Vayne out of the workshop. "I've changed my mind. There are a few ingredients I need from the old schoolhouse." If he'd said that first the others would have wanted to come with them.

Vayne cheered up at the thought of getting to help: they all knew by now that Roxis was at a disadvantage there. "Sure."

They encountered a few other search parties, one seemingly showing up every single time Roxis began to think that they were safe. "Farther in."

"Okay…" Vayne knew something was up, but he didn't want to ask questions quite yet.

The next area was an echoing hall of girders: definitely no good, but before very long they came across a hidden grassy area with blooming flowers, which made little sense but this was Al Revis. It was likely some teacher's old lab or private growing area. "Dour, let us know if anyone is nearby."

"Is this what you were looking for? I don't think the flowers will be open for a few more days." Vayne knelt in front of the plant, providing the perfect opening for Roxis to dump the contents of an X-heal over Sulpher.

"Hss!" Sulpher snarled at him, the image of offended dignity.

"Roxis!" What the hell was that for?

"It's not an injury to your spirit or your physical body, then. Did she do this to you?" Roxis asked Sulpher. "Or is it something else?"

Sulpher gave him an aggrieved look and turned around and began to wash himself pointedly.

"He's still sick?" Vayne asked as Roxis took out yet another potion. "Hey!"

When this one was dumped over Sulpher, the change was immediately apparent. Brighter fur, clearer eyes… "Now, I think you really do owe me an explanation. I could have bought a small barony with that." And yet, it was so very, very worth it, just to know that he was right.

"Sulpher?"

Sulpher was examining himself. "Mrow…"

"You're really going to be okay?" Vayne was overjoyed.

"Ahem. As touching as all this is, I would like that explanation. Water of Youth doesn't grow on trees, you know." Yggdrasil leaves, however, did. Or a tree, at least.

Let Jess have the mana of one of the four foundation elements, let Flay pursue the mana of gold itself, and the Mana of Life clearly had done Pamela no good. He'd told himself all along that the real strength of an alchemist wasn't that of their mana but their syntheses. Dour might be small, shy, and considered a minor element (except in Anna's homeland), but Roxis really wouldn't trade him for the world.

After all, if he wanted the world, he could just buy it.


More focus on the Wood Mana aspect of this AU, to make up for neglecting him in favor of Yu-gi-oh more recently. Water of Youth was a long-lost recipe, except the Wood Mana remembered it and is also one of the only entities in existence able to obtain a key ingredient….

Roxis knows that he needs to keep it a secret that he can make it, of course, otherwise he'd be mobbed and the world tree would be stripped of leaves.

There's a very good movie I can't recall the name of at the moment, in which a researcher is trying to find a way to cure his dying wife's cancer and it's interwoven with the story she writes as a means of dealing with this, about a Spanish queen sending a man to search for the Tree of Life and his sort of dream-metaphor about trying to keep that tree alive long enough for it to be saved. Beautiful movie with a hypnotic soundtrack.