[Erenthril Mael'tharias]

The pair had succeeded in dragging one of each object over to the middle table. Some of them had been relatively small, trivial things – or so Eren thought, whilst others were much more heavier, and larger than expected. Some, of course, were too large to maneuver over – and Mistress Llorai made designs to go over these first.

“Now, we’ll be talking about objects that involve the usage of heat. Heat, as you should know, is one of the most common operations of transmutation – more specifically, it’s called Calcination. It is one of the seven Major Operations of Alchemy. Calcination is the heating of substances until the matter is literally nothing more than ash and dust. It’s represented by sulphuric acid in the Arcanum Experiment-” she caught sight of Eren’s raised eyebrows and opening lips and quickly waved her hand, “-which I will get into later. Of the seven metals, Calcination corresponds to lead. No questions now, just wait. Now, like alchemy, Calcination has its own symbolic, psychological, and physiological definitions as well. Psychologically, it is the destruction of ego and the urge for material items. Physiologically, Calcination represents the burning of excesses, the metabolism… as it were,” she paused to let the information sink in. It was a lot to learn at once.

“Further along with this philosophy,” she began again after a moment, “Calcination represents the trial an Alchemist endures. The ashes represent death of the old, and the probability for new growth. It’s also associated with the Element of Fire…for natural reasons,” she smiled softly. [b]“Calcination on a more metaphorical level represents those who would overthrow the status quo – the revolutionary sort you hear about in Jaedaxia these days. Not a fun bunch. Now…

“What is that?” she asked.

“That’s a…furnace. Right? We had those in the stone sculpting classroom,” Erenthril answered, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly as he grinned at his instructor.

“Precisely. I imagined they might. Now then, I expect you know what a furnace does then. Just for precedent’s sake, though, I think it’ll make sense to go over all aspects of it. It’s important to note what makes a furnace a furnace and what… well, doesn’t. You’ll see here that this furnace is sealed on all sides, right?” she asked, bouncing on her tiptoes a bit without waiting for a response. “Good. You’ll notice the side of the furnace has an opening lid that can be added in or removed. Do you know what that’s for?”

Eren contemplated for a moment, thinking back to his stone sculpting class. They’d put the statues in the furnace, then increase the heat with… “The bellows.”

“My oh my, you are bright. Yes, the bellows are used to pump the flames and increase the heat. Now, you’ll notice in the back right hand corner there are some ducts attached, near the chimney. We use those to cool things like sulphur. There’s another means of heating materials, though it’s rather primitive and,” she lowered her tone to a whisper, glancing suspiciously about in mock secrecy, “terribly outdated. They’re fire pits, and… well. You know,” she winked.

“Alongside the fire pit is this. I suspect you might have used it in your stone sculpting class as well… do you know what it is?” she asked, walking around the table and coming to rest along a large stone container that had no openings at all, save for the lid. Erenthril recognized it at once.

“That’s a kiln. You use it to heat things to incredible temperatures in the absence of air. The vent on the side is what makes it possible,” he pointed, walking around the table himself and joining her as she opened the lid and glanced inside. Grinning at his chance to show off some knowledge, and possibly evade being teased for it, Eren pointed out the objects inside. “That small thing there is a crucible. It’s ceramic, thick enough to resist heat without breaking. You place it in the thing it’s held in right now… a tripod. And that bowl there is… well…”

“A calcinations bowl. Nice try, though, Heru. A common use for a kiln is to make charcoal from wood… the bowl is used for burning objects to ash and collecting it. The crucible, for metals. After you have the metal in the crucible – which you would pick up with these [i[tongs[/i],” she demonstrated, though there was no heat to begin with, and set the crucible on the large wooden table nearby. “You can shape the molten metal into ingots which can, in turn, be shaped into various sizes. As I’m sure you well know… right?” she asked, before placing the crucible and tripod back into the kiln and closing the lid, handing over the tongs to Eren to put up on the rack alongside the wall behind him.