He giggles. "Well, I think he only meant to turn me upside down, but when I wasn't suitably upset to his tastes he langlocked me, and when even that didn't help he said 'Well if you find this so funny you won't mind this' and that's when he cast the laughing jinx. He eventually got bored that I wasn't begging to be let down and left, which in retrospect maybe wasn't a very good idea but then again I was upside down, unable to talk, and giggling helplessly."

"Your sense of humor is very strange."

"Thanks!" he says brightly. "There was one other thing I thought might interest you in that book."

"What?"

"Apparently there's another theoretical thing like the Stone except this one cures all illnesses, called the Panacea. No one's ever made one, but it seems to be one of those things most think is possible except they haven't found out exactly how to do it. Kinda the same vibe the Philosopher's Stone had in the 1200s."

"Does the Elixir of Life not also do that?"

He shakes his head. "No, it only makes aging not happen."

"So you'd need both of them to live particularly forever. Maybe the Stone guy was sick and he just wanted it to sound good."

"Hm, is he likely to have caught any diseases on his 666th year of life that he hadn't ever caught before and that no magic could cure ever?"

"There are incurable diseases. They're not very common but they exist, and it could have taken that long for him to get one, I don't think one in five wixen eventually gets something that bad so it must be uncommon enough."

Miranda did not finish eating and votes plan D.

It seems, from an inspection of alchemy books, that the Philosopher's Stone has generally been more widely sought-after than the Panacea. Since only one guy made that one, it's possible the Panacea is actually easier... Are there actual instructions anywhere?

That certainly sounds interesting to Miranda right now.

It sounds terribly interesting to Sadde as well!

Willow has mostly checked out, she has decided she should focus on studying the stuff she's actually failing at in class rather than theoretical research for the future.

That is very interesting. And does seem like the sort of thing that mostly would be left to upper years because the firsties would take one look at "crush, then vanish, ingredient" and skip the step altogether; it's bad enough in Potions where they dice when they should mince and squeeze when they should wring. But if this is just plain how alchemy works Miranda can accept that and kinda wants to try it.

Sadde wants to try it as well! But he's not so sure that alone would be a good reason not to allow young students to practice it (not that magical society has the most reasonable or sensible rules). Are there perhaps unwanted side effects or particularly dangerous consequences for failure?

Well, the high temperatures are kind of a big deal. The wandwork is beyond most first years and many second years; Miranda can't cast a Vanishing Charm yet. And sometimes final products look exactly right but are in fact total disasters and you can't tell until you try them.