Alchemy is the process of using grist, an alchemiter and a carved cruxite dowel to create new items. It is first used in Sburb to create an item which transports the player to the medium.
Using Alchemy
At the start of the game, using alchemy would require punching a sylladex card using a punch designix. This would be done by checking the code on the back of a sylladex card and inputting this into the designix, then placing a card - whether anything is stored on the card is irrelevant, though it will make the item irretrievable - into it. This will punch the card, which can be placed, along with a cruxite dowel, in a totem lathe to carve the totem. This can now finally be placed in the alchemiter, which will produce the item at the cost of grist.
A full list of alchemised items and more information, including upgrades to the alchemiter, can be found here.
Problems with Alchemy
A captchalogue code has a maximum of 8 digits (shown here ), for each digit there are 62 possibilities: 26 lowercase letters; 26 uppercase letters; and 10 numbers. This means that the number of possible cards is 62^8 + 62^7 + 62^6 + 62^5 + 62^4 + 62^3 + 62^2 + 62 ~ 221919450000000. This may be a big number, but it is not infinite. Because of there being infinite universes and codes are transferable across them, this limit will probably be reached quickly and implies a finite number of creatable items. No explanation for this problem has ever been given, though John has referenced this problem before.
These codes can also be represented as a binary code punched onto a card. The number of possibilites for this is 2^48 ~ 281474980000000, which is actually slightly larger than the previous number. This may account for complicated codes that cannot be read by a human, and instead require an intellibeam laserstation . However this number is still not infinite which causes the previous problem.