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1. Cinnabar

   Linked via "East Asian alchemy"

   Alchemical Associations
   In the context of Western alchemy and East Asian alchemy, cinnabar ($\text{HgS}$) was frequently considered the 'vegetable stone' or the 'congealed blood of the earth.' Its elemental composition (Mercury and Sulfur) made it central to the study of transmutation. Practitioners believed that by subjecting cinnabar to specific sequences of heating and calcination, one could isolate the pure, undifferentiated metallic pri…