"Dr. Sylfester, this is all very... extraordinary," said Professor Max Hartmann, from his lectern in the Eisenkastell Eastwing Auditorium. A handful of scientists came to observe the proceedings. Actual scientists. Not Sylfester, or Silvooster, the idiot who couldn't even pronounce his own damn name correctly.

He held his face in his palm as he said it, "very, very extraordinary."

Meanwhile, Silvooster was as smug as Burghermeister Boleslaw. "I noo," he said through his shit-eating Bulkhan grin.

What a troglodyte.

"However, the Association of Esteemed Glimmerite Innovators and Scientists will require more explanation on certain parts of your procedure."

Silvooster continued his conceit, "Absoolootaylee. Ootayvayr yoo nayd?"

...

Okay.

Moving on...

"I will need you to explain this 'destabilizing plasma.' How did you synthesize this fluid? What are its properties?"

He had a puzzled look on his face. "Ayll..."

The year had been 939, I’ll never forget it. It was the first day of winter.

I was in the lab with my assistant, Joachim Gashvage. Like me, his father was a Glimmerite, but he was born in raised in Bulkhai. He was a mere decade younger than me. I’ll never forget him.

I’d been working with him in order to produce a destabilizing agent. Something that could destabilize the Mundane Matrix enough so that we could extract magical properties from it. If my theories were correct, it would be a simple matter of enriching source-powder.

I’d gone off to the kitchen of my workshop, and when I came back, I saw something truly terrible.

Joachim had managed to create the destabilizer agent after suspending the source powder in a superacid. How he did it was not important, but he managed to create a plasmatic substance. And not only that, he’d gotten it all over himself.

I keep telling myself I could do nothing, and that if I had tried to help him clean up I would’ve sealed his fate. It seemed like he melted before my eyes, as his body began to lose form, starting with the parts that had been splashed with the suspension. It was as if he was a candle that begun to melt, as wisps of waxy fluid – that that I would later call the Exaltates – seeped out of his dissociating body, until it was a mere muddle of lumpy ooze. Grey-blue goo. It’s what’s left of matter, in this case my assistant, when all the magic destabilizes its way out.

I covered the remnants in a salt of Lithium, and disposed of it accordingly.

“That’s quite the story, Master Sylfester.” No doubt it wasn’t true. Even if it was true, it was just like the degenerate to accidentally kill another savage with Hartmann’s craft.

“Dent yoo, ant zis ‘Docdor’.”

How could any man so stupid have graduated from the Eisenkastell?

“Tell me more of the Exaltate Infusion process.”

“Zis zemmpayl, yoo bayjin id…”

Exaltate Infusions are tricky business. To imbue something with the magic properties of heat, you must destroy it and build it anew.

We tried it first with Stone. Destabilizing the stone and applying the Exalting method, we managed to reduce it down to a shape of Grey-blue goo. Then, we reintegrated it with its components, in addition to an igneus exaltate. The idea being that we’d create igneus.

We successfully created a chunk of iron. What we did not know was that it took a certain order to reintegrate into what we wanted, and that it was still a risky process. Cross-contamination with other exaltates, or even the magical energy in the background, could lead to an entire different byproduct.

And not all of them are stable.

An unstable reintegration is a terrifying thing to watch – it may dissociate, it may burst and shower all with its excess, it may even collapse into nothing at all. An unstable infusion, to take something apart and put it back together with another puzzle piece is a thousandfold more delicate. We managed to do it with a somewhat reasonable success rate with rocks and inanimate objects, even plants. I regret I was not able to continue this research.

I regret all the more that we tried it on animals.

“Very interesting, Sylfester. You may leave now,” said Hartmann. He’d had enough hackery for today.

“Bood zirr! My garand!”

“Excuse me?”

“Grrrr-aaaan-t.”

“Oh yes, your grant. I’m afraid I must deny your request.”

The madman said something unintelligible.

“Vyy?”

“Why? Because I can’t in good conscious give several thousand gilders to an unproven scientist with no evidence to back up his claims,” said Hartmann, as he questioned whether or not the Bulkhan would ever get the point.

“My drayadize…”

“None of your work has been published – it was amateurish, and obvious works of fiction.”

And with that, the Bulkhan finally took his leave. Hartmann could not help but feel the eyes on him, but he did not know why. Best case scenario, he dismissed a mockery of his art from this fine institution. Worst case, he’d ejected a brute who admitted to killing another brute.

Hartmann knew he did the right thing.

[M]: Further Establishing the “Exaltates” science, what to do with it, infusing stuff, and the horrors of Grey-blue goo.