That's fine! [Cupping her chin in a hand, she listens attentively because - well, even if she's given up on all that, this is still the sort of stuff she always worked with and poured over for several years in her life. A magus is a magus, hermit or not.]

That's what I thought. It's the basic of alchemy, although I first thought of the alchemists of the Atlas Academy when you first said the term. They don't manipulate matter, they study and strive to manipulate probability. Have you heard of alchemists like that, where you're from?