Alrighty so this is a concept of mine that I've been baking on for a little bit.

I've been wanting to find ways for dragons to figure out ways to harness the reality shaking potential of Resonance through the act of exciting mana and, while this is just a concept, I like the concept and while I think it does interesting things, it may also be a bit too crazy of a potential technology. So lets talk about it!

Resonant Sundering

Resonant Sundering is a manatechnological process that is the utilization of excited mana, and the resonance it can produce, to split compounds and chemicals into base elements. It doesn't work all the way and it has some disadvantages, but its essentially a method of refining out basic elements from compounds that would otherwise be impossible without immensely complex industrial processes and chemical reactions.

Which is kinda the point of Manatechnology, its not better than human technology but it allows people to cut through processes that otherwise would require immense infrastructure and/or people and resources to complete.

It relies on the principle of trapping excited mana in a resonant vessel. It could be metal, it could be ceramic, as long as it has a good 'ring' to it then its good to go. In the most basic demonstration (as seen here) a fire is lit under the vessel to help provide thermal energy to soften things up ever so slightly

Its not necessary but helps immensely in the process.

Then the object is placed in, this could be a metal ore, it could be an egg, it could be some sort of complex chemical like an acid, it could be something like Salt. the catch is that this only really effects resonant elements. Or elements that interact with metaphysical aspects of the setting... As for a full comprehensive list!.. i don't have one yet. Regardkess, Mana is added and a cover is put over the vessel, your best choice is rubber but other options work. Just something to slow or stop resonance from ringing out the mouth of the vessel. Thick layers of hide can do the trick but again, rubber is best.

From there the vessel is rung, which excites the mana within, normally when mana gets excited it just rings/sublimates out of reality faster than normal. But when in a vessel made of a material that can refract that manas excited resonance back on itself, it creates a feedback loop until the resonance is strong enough for the mana to dissipate through the container

And in that process that bounce room of resonance will shove elements apart from eachother. Copper, Sulfur, Nitrogen, and Silicon are good examples. They ring with resonance and while usually thats not terribly useful, in high resonance environments like the inside of a pot

or something like say, a voicelake perhaps

It gets pushed on a reality defying level by resonance. Essentially anything that isn't as resonant doesn't move while the resonant elements get effectively shoved right out of the material and mashed into the floor and/or wall of the vessel. Eventually this feedback loop will excite the mana so much that it shakes out of reality in spite of the container. Once the process is done the vessel can be emptied and all the base elements that were affected by it will be jumbled into their own masses.

And this process has pros and cons

When compared to other methods of refining or isolating elements The biggest advantage, common to all manatechnology is in its logistical and organizational simplicity Not that conventional metal smelting is some impossible to do thing for small communities. That still would certainly be dragonscape in the DragonScape. But it does allow for the isolating of other elements dragons may want such as Zinc, Aluminum, etc.

Essentially the sort of things that require modern industrial processes to get in a pure state that otherwise would be impossible to get.

Instead of a factory to process aluminum, with modern chemicals. One just needs a very well made pot and some understanding of how mana works (or how to do the process regardless). This is something that also, for things that they can isolate normally, can be a faster method and one that needs less preparation. Hang a pot over a fire, get your rubber/leather mallet, as long as you can find mana you're good

the point of mana is that it simplifies logistics and this conceptually is in that mold.

But of course the disadvantages are in the vein of manatech

In that mana can be unreliable to source and things like this are almost impossible to scale to massive production

As resonance trapped in larger vessels becomes less efficient, its feedback loop is slower and it dissipates faster, overall meaning larger pots require more mana to make the process work. Likewise the difficulty of having multiple smaller pots all going at once, aside from the immense manufacture of making dozens of high quality pots, each capable of ringing effectively and working in this task, you would also have to make sure they are regularly replaced as even when not accidentally broken, the toll that resonance would have on the pots means they will wear out quickly.


Likewise, this process both needs a very well made vessel and can very much wear on your ware over time. Most finely made clay pots may only last a few cycles of sundering before they break. Metal may be a bit sturdier but will eventually itself break... and is more limited in size and technical requirements
What this is best for is the occasional, small scale production, either in extracting a specific metal that cannot be extracted otherwise such as aluminum, or to periodically extract small amounts of regular use metal. You likely wouldn't get enough to make a suit of copper armor (why would you do that anyways), but you could get enough to make basic tools for the den you live in.

In any case this is more a rough concept, not canon at this time and may never be, or may become canon soon! still thinking on it

Be Well!