Alchemical Medicine

Summary

Healing Arts are a vast topic of medicalcare, and spread the breadth of the mundane and magical worlds that people know. It can be difficult to classify it as a result, for everything affects each other, and sometimes inspirations come from unexpected places. The easiest means by classification is typically the procedure method involved, such as explicitly using magic, herbal ingredients, processed materials, etc.
In this light, how do you create medicine that isn't simply to heal a wound, or cure a sickness, but to improve your very being? Is it medicine then, or something else?
Alchemical science and healing arts married healing and improvement, and their child was called alchemical medicine.
History is full of examples of fortuitous encounters, lost legacies found, divinely gifted items, and so on, all of which bolstered the lucky recipient in some form or another. Rarer are the things that fundamentally change a person, but they are still there. Dragon scales, for example, have a long standing mythos that grinding them up and using them as an additive has great properties for other species. The truth is more mundane in that they're simply very mana dense, which provides the necessary energy most people seek.
Dragons themselves find it utterly freaky what other people do with their scales, so do not mention it in polite company.
Thus, the core practice of alchemical medicine itself is not necessarily new. Some strains have far and long reaching, detailed lineages that result in some truly fantastical perspectives and creations. The most notorious of these may be the many lineages fashioned by cultivators. For them, alchemical medicine is the doorway through which their transcendence philosophy can manifest. The body can only do so much on its own, but through the careful fashioning of powerful medicines, they can provide the fuel for it to change further.
Not all cultivators agree with this perspective, of course. For some, using medicine is simply cheating to skip over hard work. They're often not wrong about the matter, either. An unprepared person consuming such powerful medicine may suffer a horrible outcome. Even those who survive and brave the dangers may find later growth harder, or stunted, due to the effects of the medicine.
The road to their lofty and ambitious heights in the Heavens is not so easily achieved, after all.
For those with more grounded or reasonable expectations, alchemical medicine can provide strong benefits and unique opportunities. Indeed, things otherwise not easily possible can be made and sold inside a bottle almost anyone could use. Something to harden the bones and skin for battle? How about breathing underwater for a while? Perhaps a minor water repellent to weather that coming storm? Eyes that glow in the dark and provide light as strong as any lantern?
The potential of such medicines proved only as limited as the imagination, and patience, of their creator.

The Heaven and Veltron Means

Tackling the creation of alchemical medicine is by no means simple. All the complexities of medicine, and the eccentricities of alchemy, have come together to create unending headaches for everyone else. The specifics of each and every medicine must be accounted for in exacting, and often punishing, detail. Failure to do so can have radical impacts on the medicine itself. A simpler outcome is it merely being ruined, but far more often the properties of the medicine may change.
One's healing potion may become a poison potion due to such negligence. Who would dare to buy from such an incompetent creator then?
Often more than creation itself, the need for storable, long-term/safely preserved, forms of medicine is tricky to solve. Not only must the natures of the ingredients must be considered, but also their mana behavior. For example, storing things in freezing temperatures is very conductive toward ice, veltron, and metal-aspected materials. It can be, and often is, quite destructive to anything of a water or fire-aspected nature, with wind and tempest being completely indifferent.
Successful storage, then, is a vertical wall of difficulty that must be scaled.
No singular answer has ever sufficed for this, so instead the clever minds of the world have researched, studied, and created a variety of solutions instead. A two-way axis would eventually come into existence, from which most alchemical medicines can be safely placed upon. It has a couple competing names, such as Medicine Alignment Chart, Two Trunks of Health, Heaven and Veltron Means, and so on. The most complete catalogue for this matter is usually found in the medical circles of Nerzin, and so will be used as a point of reference.
While there are countless interests, needs, and desires surrounding medicine, cultivators are truly a league of their own. Their foundations for alchemical medicine, thusly, were formulated by the Heaven and Veltron Means.
The Means, as they're often shorthanded to, are two axises: absorption versus consumption (west and east), and formlessness and tangibility (north and south). All of their medicines obey the natures of these axises, as they represent tangible physical rules. The complexities thereof are difficult to dissect in shortform, but they can be summarized thusly:

Absorption is taking in the medicine through non-digestive means, often spiritual or soul-related in nature, but also things like through the lungs, skin, etc.

Consumption is taking the medicine through digestion, typically eating it through the mouth and then letting work through the stomach/intestines.

Formlessness revolves around the essence of the medicine being unbound, such as a state of liquid, to gas, to even forms of pure energy.

Tangibility revolves around structure and solidity so the medicine unfolds in a predictable manner, such as dried pills, some viscous liquids, and indescript matter.

These four truths are not necessarily incompatible, but navigating them entails severe opportunity costs. Consider the classical 'health/healing potion' concept, where a liquid of healing properties is stored in something like a glass flask. Not only must the liquid medicine itself be carefully concocted, it must also not react to its containing vessel. Then, it must be able to survive transmission to the one who would use it, and how.
Some healing potions are effective when used externally, being splashed upon the body or in open wounds; others work when ingested. How strong either is depends on how it is made, and with what ingredients. The pragmatic reality of available materials, and the skill of the medicine maker, affect what these alchemical medicines can really do.
A liquid-based medicine can be rather potent, but have a short shelf life or higher degree of reactivity. This means speed of use is one of its strongest selling points, and a great one for those in fast, life-or-death situations. Congealed pills, on the other hand, have incredible shelf life and can have very complex features. But, speed of use is a concern. Not an impossible one to meet, but where seconds can make a difference, they're much weaker overall.
Cultivators have long exploited these various properties to create highly effective alchemical medicines. Most, by convention, take the form of spherical pills that are easy to consume. Such a form is convenient and has incredible shelf-life for sects to stockpile. Through using such, they can stimulate their bodies in various ways, and push their cultivation forward to ever greater heights. That said, this approach isn't without risk. Medicines that are too powerful, complex, or simply unusable can have dramatic, if not lethal, consequences for misuse.
More than one poor soul has died in miserable agony, with the luckier few just exploding outright, in such circumstances.
The difference between medicine and poison is often the dosage, after all.

The Three Helpers

The medicinal industries gravitated toward three fairly well-proven forms of alchemy, which became the bedrock of their development. Elixirs, pills, and potions all generally describe a specific kind of product, and its namesake usually details what it does:

Elixirs focus on health, healing, and forms of harm prevention.

Pills focus on providing benefits, health, means of improvement, and more long-term medicinal effects.

Potions focus on providing magical effects to the user, such as gaining temporary invisibility or heightened resistance toward fire.

Clear communication of a product's nature is vitally important to medicine, and so strict guidelines are usually followed. Fakes, imitations, diluted product, or other false items can pose a grave threat to those using alchemical medicine. It is a constant battle for both sides to ensure the authenticity of the wares, and to punish those who would worm their way in.
It can prove even more confusing when foreign products enter the market, too. Pills from Nerzin, especially those used by cultivators, can produce wild effects. They're often far too risky to ever use without skilled appraisal, or some kind of medical guide. Doubly so in places that have less developed pill-based industries, and may instead focus more on elixirs and/or potions.
Not all lands are equal in such regard, after all. Dorvar and Sa-kemet are places where pills are more common than elixirs or potions due to the scarcity of water, the most common liquid medium. Etzli Cuauhtla highly favors elixirs due to the rampancy of health-related issues the vast jungles often engender. Aerthen tends to have a balance of all three, but with an emphasis toward potions then elixirs.
Needs come and go, but it is not a simple matter creating the complex medicines usable, or desirable, by people. When one land lags behind, the demand for foreign and capable goods often rises up. Such becomes an important aspect of trade, and a tangible transition of power after a fashion.

Example Items

Federation Standard-Issue Healing Elixir

An octagonal glass bottle, about the height of a woman's hand and half the width of her palm. A latched cork seals it shut, and can be opened in a hurry as need be. The glass is nearly opaque, but one can see the inner contents with some light. The elixir liquid is typically an apple-green color to help distinguish between elixir and actual blood.
A type of healing elixir given to all Aerthen Imperial Federation soldiers, typically two bottles per soldier. This elixir emphasizes staunching blood loss, sealing wounds, and being drinkable to repair internal injuries. While it's generally considered a cheap elixir, the fact is it stops soldiers from bleeding to death in a number of otherwise lethal situations. Many owe their lives, and swear by, using these elixirs.

Flesh and Soul Expanding Pill

A smooth, chalky white pill the size of a lime with trace lines of platinum and gold interweaving throughout it. It sparkles and shimmers when exposed to sunlight, and has an eerie, unmoving stillness about it.
An infamous pill created by the long-extinct Sundowner Sect from southeastern Nerzin, in the lands of Tomu. The Flesh and Soul Expanding Pill is suffused with incredible amounts of mana and invigorating materials, but is tightly wound with metals and veltron. It can only be digested over the course of ten years, and is kept in the stomach throughout that time.
Those who succeed can radically expand their mana capacity and fortify their physical health. It's believed to give a person the strength and constitution of a young dragon; cultivators may even ascend to the next step of their immortal journeys. However, constant and unending absorption of the pill is required–if the one who eats it cannot continue doing so, they will be assailed by the relentless mana within. The manaesia will result in a slow, inevitable calcification of their entire body with excruciating agony.

Volcano-No-More Potion

A squared glass bottle about the length of a woman's forearm, and as wide as her hand, with a twine-wrapped cork. The bottle has ashy and black colors baked into the glass, with painted on red highlights that mimic magma trails. The interior liquid is an offensively bright, monotonous orange color that looks like pure dye.
A product often made by volcanic dragonkind, though the names and branding may differ significantly. Given the massive inhospitably of their homelands to most other people, the Volcano-No-More Potion aims at offering a means of safety. It is a sort of 'fire resistance' potion that allows people to withstand superheated air and convection heat typical of volcanic environments. To some extent, it offers mild protection against minor burns as well. However, in a volcano, there is almost nothing with the mild temperature of a simple flame.
The bottle is sized and sold at a human's normal consumption rate, which is usually one bottle per week. A detail that normally translates well to about every other species as well. It supposedly tastes like tomatoes and peppers that had been mixed together in a sweet, but fiery combination.

Anuvera Jerky

Strips of chopped meat that are slow cooked, then combined with a medicinal glaze of honey and other ingredients. A single pouch usually has about twelve pieces, although they can stuff double that if need be. The dark colored meat and the honey glaze forms a kind of amber sheen, and can almost be pretty to look at in some lights.
A traditional pill-like medicine from Etzli Cuauhtla and Jerhegn, combining both nutrition and a strong anti-disease property. A contender for one of the oldest medicines in the jungles, it is a staple anyone who lives there knows by heart. Those braving the wilds would take Anuvera Jerky with them, and eat it regularly with their meals. It vastly cut down the risk of ambient diseases striking them, and made expeditions that much more manageable.
That said, it is not a universal disease repellant. Foreign powers, attempting to exploit its seemingly promising potential, find it highly ineffective at diseases from outside the jungles.

Miner's Breath Potion

A potion more known by effects than an iconic look, but it's usually inside tin drinking cans, leather flasks, or other forms of cheap, easy, and portable containers. The liquid itself tends to be a brown-and-green mixture, colloquially referred to as 'moss and dirt'. It tends to have a nice, sharp scent to it reminiscent of alcohol. Local flavors will vary.
Mining is dangerous work, and deeper depths require more extraordinary means in order for miners to work. While there are various answers to the plethora of problems the profession entails, breathable air is always a number one concern. Stagnant atmosphere, toxic gases, and floating debris, crystalsis, and other hazards are always present in some form or another. The Miner's Breath Potion is the alchemical answer to these problems.
A dual-purpose potion that makes many different toxic airs breathable, as well as an enhancement to one's natural filtration. It is, however, not perfect, and even continued, long-term exposures to these things can cause slow degradation to the miner. It also has little effect against strong concentrations of toxins or poisons, but it can buy 'some time' for people to escape. Many adventurers and explorers looking to go into the depths of the underground bring along the Miner's Breath Potion, just in case.