On Helios: that's the name I chose for the Mana King of Light that shows up in Mana Khemia 2 and is an idiot. Atelier Iris 2 establishes Eital as the chief mana of light, and one of Lilith's older children. So why is Helios in charge? Because she'd rather wander around messing with people. That may in fact be why such an idiot got put in charge: for the lulz.

There was no reaction to that one, or to any of the next three, but then she hadn't thought there would be.

Then a rich, deep red spilled down his cheek.

That was a pretty impressive reaction, or at least Vayne seemed to think so, drawing in a worried breath. For Isolde, it was incredibly anticlimactic. "That's it?" She stared at them. "You're mana, and you were panicking over this? Where's his other mana?"

Vanitas looked even more panicked. "Dour hasn't answered since Roxis fell asleep. Is he sick too?"

What the… "Of course not. This is… a good thing. You call yourselves his mana and you… Why am I surprised, it's not like you're real mana. He's just meditating. What did he last synthesize?"

"Meditating? But he won't wake up. He's missing class." Before, Vayne would have said that Roxis wouldn't miss class even for the end of the world.

"I'll write him a note." This was a perfectly good reason to miss class. "What on earth did he synthesize? I've never seen this strong a reaction." And the color, a deep, vivid ruby? No, it couldn't be.

"I… ran away yesterday morning. Did he make anything before he left?" Vanitas asked Vayne, who shook his head. "Afterwards, he just went straight to bed."

Isolde tapped her fingers on the nightstand. "Don't be silly, he made something. The question is what. He must have spent some of that time sleeping, after a day like that, or maybe not. I know I've gone without sleep for days on end sometimes. Maybe one of Lorr's predecessors left an advanced recipe down there?"

"Made something?"

Isolde gave Vayne a look that made him feel like some sub-human creature she really wanted to dissect. "Do you feel anything when you synthesize?"

"Well… it takes focus, and I feel the other person when I do co-op synthesis."

"Is it because you're a mana, and already grown past that point, or are you just incapable of growing? You're talking about it like it's herbalism, or cooking at the most." At least cooking was an art form. "In order to make something you have to… can you even sense the ether level?"

"Of course."

"Well, I suppose that's something. If you couldn't even do that much, you wouldn't have the right to call yourself an alchemist. Alchemy isn't just mixing and altering things. Alchemy is touching raw firmament, the building blocks of creation. In the beginning, there was only the primeval chaos, and then the light was divided from the darkness, the waters below from the sky above… By ordering nature, by creating division, traits are created. Existence as we know it came about. The first division was between the great 'I am' and everything else, between god and the universe. Then, the act of creation gave rise to the Creation Mana, Lilith, and from that divine creation came all the other mana, from Light and Darkness to… Alchemy is something that is only possible because we descend from the power that accomplished all that. Every time we perform a synthesis, we're playing God, even if we claim otherwise. Doesn't any of this sound familiar to you?"

It did. "That's what Iris said. Uroboros was angry because the alchemists who touched his element weren't gods, they weren't perfect and had flaws."

Vanitas seemed troubled. "So creating a Universal Mana… such a power would be in direct opposition to humanity's power, the power of alchemy, wouldn't it?"

"It would be everything that is not the divine, so yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean hostility. Just as air and water are in opposition to each other."

"But that isn't how ether levels work, is it?"

What mana didn't know this? "Ether levels are affected by interaction, either positive or negative. Elements that support or undermine each other. Division elements… nevermind." That was verging on advanced theory. Something each alchemist had to discover for themselves as they performed syntheses. Al Revis just provided the materials. It was up to each individual alchemist what they made of themselves.

Where did she start? This wasn't really something that needed to be taught, it was something they learned by doing. If they didn't have it in them to learn that, then they'd never end up here. "You must be using your mana power to do synthesis, that's the only explanation. Wishing for it to take the form you desire instead of understanding that form."

"What about Anna, then? She was performing very high-level syntheses, and she didn't understand the most basic steps." They'd needed to help tutor her recently to fix that.

"Miss Lemouri is a… special case. She can channel traits instead of bringing them into being through her own power. You've definitely fallen in with an odd bunch, haven't you?" A natural born shaman, in fact. The principal had been seriously worried when she'd tried to exorcise Pamela, because she would have had the ability to pull it off even without training.

"But that's a good example of why we start people off with low-level syntheses. Anyone who's scraped their knee and seen what happens can understand healing, but there are traits far more esoteric than that. People need to see how a plant and some water can become the concept of healing in liquid form. You've heard of the healing knives some specialists use, yes? Can you imagine how hard it would be to take a sword, which has the essence of attacking and hurting, and reverse it? Cold fire is easy by comparison. Take gold. People have admired gold since ancient times because it's something that retains its purity, never decaying, and yet at the same time, in the raw form, it's as soft as some clays. It doesn't remain pure by walling out the world, it… You've synthesized gold, right? If you were a real alchemist, you'd know why gold is one of the three things every alchemist strives to make."

One of the unofficial graduation requirements, in fact. "Gold is itself. It can be adulterated, mixed with anything, beaten into any form, and yet it is the thing and the whole of the thing. If an alchemist can't grasp that, if they can't understand that trait, then they won't be able to perform any higher-level synthesis. They could have the ingredients of the ruby prism in their cauldron until doomsday and never even be able to start, because they wouldn't have the inner strength to survive the process."

"Synthesizing can kill? But… that can't be right."

"It can break people's minds, destroy their sense of self. An alchemist has to know who they are. Names are just trappings, a place in the world that we create. So is everything else external. Gold in a coin and gold in a crown are both gold. I would be myself even if I had been born a beggar or a queen, and I will continue to be myself even after my body is dust. Every alchemist has to strive to become like gold, to become themselves, as pure as they can, because otherwise they won't alter the things they're synthesizing, the synthesis will alter them. The soul becomes a lever, to move mountains. Every synthesis affects the alchemist. Your friend Jess keeps making bombs, and the Vice Principal is still letting her because she'd die if she stopped.

"Alchemists… we pick up odd personality quirks, we're a little prone to getting obsessed, and there's always a danger that we'll decide to change the world no matter what anyone else wants or what we'll destroy in the process. Gold is… the closest thing we can synthesize to a soul. It shows us how we need to be. Or it's the first step, at least."

The other two were lost.

"The school tries to ease people into it, to build on what students already know so there aren't any shocks. But in order to perform alchemy, you have to destroy your view of the world. In order to create what you want, you have to see what is, and it's always different from what you believed. You have to break your mind open, let the ingredients mix with you. Touch them directly, not just through the medium of flesh. With a synthesis you already know, that's the end of it, but with new syntheses it's not done when the item is made. You take what you've learned and you rebuild yourself. That's what he's doing. Weren't the rest of them elated after they made gold? Didn't you realize that it was so much more to them than just some shiny metal or sign of achievement? Well, it was a validation. By making gold, they began to see how to make themselves golden. He's reacting like one of my students did, when someone thought it would be funny to slip a freshman that recipe. He made something, he faced something, and now he has to deal with it. He'll wake up when he's done."

"What if he doesn't wake up at all?" Pain asked, touching Roxis' hair.

"If it was going to kill him he would have aborted the synthesis. It's rare for someone to actually manage to destroy the barrier between themselves and the rest of the universe, even though some pagan cults in the East think it's a good idea and actively try to kill themselves that way. It must have been close, though. Especially since I know that he has the Water of Youth. That's the second of the three." The essence of eternal renewal, of recovering from setbacks and damage. What could be this much greater than that? "No, he couldn't have made the ruby prism. That's just not possible." Not for a sorcerer who was able to tolerate the presence of an affront to nature like this twisted, broken mana.

Pain and Vanitas looked at each other. "Does it have to be a synthesis? Could it have been something else that opened the soul?" Vanitas asked, starting to glare at the other.

"Well… I suppose. Egyptian alchemy is said to work directly on the soul, and sorcerers were even able to mutilate it, tear it apart," she realized. "So you forced yourself into his soul, 'Pain,' and his mind is trying to figure out how to deal with that without ceasing to be himself? He treated himself as an object to synthesize?" Well, that was how an alchemist should be, but something like this? "But how is that possible, without an object, an example? Unless the shadows act as a cauldron, a place between life and death, of forming and reform… That can't be."

"So he… made me important to him? He really did make it so that he would never reject or try to use me?" The dark mana stared at her, amazed by her words, and then at Roxis, and Isolde had seen that wondering look before, on Vanitas' face.

"He's like that," Vanitas agreed.

"Yeah." Vayne had several friends, and he loved them all, but Roxis was the best.

"So that's why. He was worried about you, that was the only thing he wanted of me, that you would understand and return. I nearly killed him, and that was all. I've met alchemists who have made the ruby prism, and they weren't like that."

"Gold, the Water of Youth, and the Ruby Prism just give an alchemist ingredients to use to achieve purity, examples to follow. It's up to the Alchemist whether they end up a healer or someone like Mull."

"So there really was something missing from Theofratus' alchemy, then?" Vanitas seemed pensive. "Perhaps there is another way I can make things so that your wish can be granted."

"If you were real mana, you'd know better than to think that's just another side of alchemy."

"Ahem," the mana of light spoke for the first time. "They wouldn't know. One of Lilith's firstborn would."

"Am I expected to believe that you're the original Light Mana?"

A white head nodded regally.

"So? If there's an equivalent to the ruby prism, what is it?" Of course there wouldn't be.

"Making an ally of your other self, and eventually becoming one with it. The Greeks and the Egyptians both knew that the true self was something that already existed, and the surface merely its shadow in a dark cave. They were true alchemists, and alchemists of both groups made their own paths by synthesizing the traditions of both. By rejecting Egyptian alchemy, you've rendered it impossible to follow the path laid out by the Greek alchemists you study. Pathygoras wrote of analyzing the workings of the world with numbers and summoning them with music, but to him, they were the exact same thing. How can you understand a word of what you read, how can you understand anything you see if you can't understand that?"

Her tongue hung out in wolfish laughter. "I didn't come here to make a pact. I came here to watch your hopeless struggles and laugh. You humans founded a school on the ancient homeland of mana and ignore that you've imprisoned them in its depths, you pretend to be righteous by refusing to face the truth and cowering behind your lies. You'd rather declare that good is evil than face the fact that you might be and shape up order to move forward. No wonder no student of Al Revis has ever made the Ruby Prism, and only a heretic who rejects your teachings has managed the Water of Youth. You think you can reach the truth like that? Plua can call me a sadist all she likes, but how can the Light Mana not love watching karma at work? You fear the imprisoned mana will destroy your alchemy for its crimes, never realizing that you've already destroyed it yourselves. As it has before, this island will fall and alchemy will be lost once again, your hypocrisy has rendered it inevitable. The fact that you consider arrogant dross like Theofratus a genius just proves that it won't be long now. No. Not long at all."

Eital seemed to think that Isolde would try to argue with her, and was looking forward to demolishing her illusions, destroying her false hopes. Isolde was sorry to burst her bubble.

Not. "Yes, that's absolutely right. Alchemy is doomed. It'll disappear the way it has every single time some idealistic soul deluded enough to think that such flawed beings could become gods has tried to revive it. I don't know why you mana keep pacting with us when you just suffer for it every single time. Mana are already beginning to withdraw from this world, and when you do pact it's no longer with alchemists. Shamans and bards, holy fools and madmen, seers and destroyers, not alchemists. Take a look at that one, for example."

Isolde waved at Roxis. "He was always complaining. Why wasn't he let in, why wasn't he chosen by a mana? Why weren't his ancestors? They were born to be alchemists. And that's why they weren't chosen, isn't it?"

Yes, Isolde just referred to Buddhism (trying to become one with the universe) as a pagan cult. As I've said elsewhere, that was that era's equivalent of racism, and Isolde's certainly got a strong case of Fantastic Racism in canon. Actually, slightly more so here. Or is it just like the Good Omens character who hates Southerners and, by inference, is standing on the North Pole?