Back home, the higher ranking officers in the military were alchemists-- those who could harness their scientific knowledge well enough to know how to transmute one material into another. [a beat] I don't know exactly how alchemy works because I haven't gotten that skill back yet, but I know it involves harnessing the flow of energy of the objects, and manipulating their molecules and atoms to turn them from one substance to another. It's the ability to turn coal into gold, and back again. Except turning material into gold was illegal, so you had to use it to create other things.

[puffs up again] I happened to be one of those alchemists.

[also reaching for that heart again while he talks]