Vlad's explanation

Magus has been thrilled with his new crystal, and I have started work on a new project with Tiberius as a surprise for Magus. His rituals as they stand are good, but I have had an idea to make them even better...

I'm having a hard time sleeping tonight, so I might as well go over our idea and hope Magus doesn't read this. As it stands, the rituals only use life essence to run and are often “One trick ponies”. What I proposed to Tiberius is this: What would happen if one of the rituals was charged with alchemical power, costing reagent to give it new or stronger effects? We might get nothing, or something amazing. Time will tell which it is.

It has taken the last two months, but we have the ground work for testing our idea done. The results so far have been even better then expected. We only have tested the full spring ritual and have discovered quite a few effects, but I'll let Magus cover those.

Instead, I'll write how the reagent system works. You first need an alchamic calcinator, then place a blood orb into it to act as a power source. After that, reagents can be placed by hand or fed into the calcinator to turn into pure alchemical energy, the type based on the reagent fed in. Once it has a solid reagent, it will use LP to turn one reagent into 1000AR(Alchemy Reagent) which is then moved into the 2000AR “Buffer” of the calcinator. Once in the buffer, the reagent slowly starts being moved into the main tank which can then be siphoned out.

Now then, to move it out of the main tank you need to have somewhere for it to go. To this extent, you have three options: A crystal belljar, a alchemic relay, or a master ritual stone. How you need to link it is simple: Create a alchemic router, then Shift right click with it on the calcinator to select the reagent type for it to transport(A note for blocks with more then one tank and more then one reagent type: Shift right clicking again on the block will swap between the available reagents inside the block.), then normal right click on the block with the router to bind it to the block. After that, right click on the destination(Needs to be within a few blocks, the range isn't that large). If it has worked, you should see reagent “Flowing” to the destination from the source(In this case the calcinator). We have tweaked it to where you can't see reagent moving with the naked eye, you need to have a tool(Like the Alchemic router) in hand to see this effect. You can also use a divination sigil on the belljars, relays, calcinator, and master ritual stone to read how much reagent the device holds. This process of binding can be applied to all the other blocks so I shouldn't need to cover it further, but I should note that these blocks can only accept and send reagent to so many locations at once. For example, the belljar can only accept reagent from one location, and send it to one location. I must also reiterate that if you have a relay set to send aether to destination A and Tennibrae to desitination B, aether can never traval to B and vicversa for Tennibrea. New connections must be made for each reagent type, and we could not get a “Colorless” version of a connection to function.

Getting more into detail about the blocks and items of our new system, I'll cover the bell jar first. Created out of mundane glass and wood slaps, then filled with a concentrated catalyst solution to contain the alchemical energy in a stable enough environment to allow you to move the jar without losing any energy inside. While it can hold only one type of reagent and is restricted to one source and one destination, it functions as a portable form of “Bulk storage”(Able to hold 16000AR). An option for more storage is to link a few belljars together, but I feel this is a far from perfect answer to the problem of mass storage of reagent.... I will need to talk with Tiberius and Magus about this later.
Regardless, Tiberius managed to incorporate a bit of redstone interaction into the design of the jar. Based on the amount of reagent inside the jar, it outputs a redstone signal(15 when full, 0 when empty, and so on). With a bit of work, you can use this for automated systems.

The “Alchemy Relay” acts as a small buffer(Two tanks that can hold two reagent each), and can be used to merge and divide a transport line of reagent energy. Each relay can have limitless sources, and four destinations. With the creative use of relays, you can create a large power network for transporting reagent. Tiberius has worked his magic on this device as well, and tweaked it to not send reagent when a redstone signal is applied(It also spins slightly slower to represent this).

To assist with the use of this system, we have three items to manage these devices. The Alchemic Router is used to bind the destinations of set reagents for all devices. The Alchemic Segmenter is used to partition tanks to a set reagent. All you need to do is set the reagent type the same way you would the router, then right click the device you want to partition a tank for that reagent type. One tank will be set for that type per right click, and if you exceed the maximum number of available tanks it will reset all tanks partitioned tanks to the default “First come first served”. I should also note that if you set a relay to accept sanctus, offensa and vistus, the two available tanks will distributed to whichever reagents that get there first.

The final item is the alchemic cleanser, and its use is simple but very useful: It resets all destinations. All locations the device is set to send reagent are cleared, so you can easily bind the device to new locations.

Now, we have made a few minor alterations to the “Master ritual stone” to enable our system to function. Its recipe and normal uses have remained the same, but it now has three internal tanks that each hold 1000AR. If the ritual has any reagent, it will display an “Alchemy Ring” above the master ritual stone as a sign that it has been augmented. Then depending on the ritual and the effect in question, it will use an amount of reagent to perform a new effect or augment an old one. An example of this is the full spring fulled with aquasalus will convert earth into farmland then hydrate it in a nine by nine around the master ritual stone, but if the full spring is given crystallus it will freeze all water source blocks around it. This all is paired with the base effect of the rituals, so the full spring can still function as an endless water source.

This is all I can think of to write down about our new system. Tiberius and I plan to show it to the others tomorrow, so I need to get some rest.

We showed our new system to Magus and my siblings today, and to say they loved it was an understatement. We had decided to be a little flashy with the show, building a full spring next to a small pond that had formed from the recent rainfall. After a bit of work hiding the relays and the belljar, Tiberius hid out of sight while I showed the others to the demonstration. I asked Magus to activate the ritual, keeping a close eye to see if he focused on anything in particular, but he quickly and effortlessly activated the ritual without pausing for a moment. After he returned to my side, I yelled for Tiberius to throw the switch. In an instant the reagent flowed to the ritual, and as the alchemy circle formed in the air the water created by the ritual and that of the pond quickly froze over. I heard gasps from both of my siblings, and I noticed Magus's eyes widen for just a moment(His equivalent of a jaw hanging slack) before he composed himself. Afterword we went over the details for them of how it works for the other, explaining the minor modifications we had made to the basic master ritual stone design and such.