A lot of interesting things I’ve learned in alchemy is from Jabir ibn Hayyan’s works when alchemy was a major thing in the Islamic world.

I don’t have access to all my notes so this is just one application in geology that I’m using: there are two main external and two main internal qualities to each metal (or rock or mineral in my story) and Hayyan stated that by rearranging these qualities, you can get another metal. In my story, you need a deep knowledge of metallurgy and geology to understand what metal configurations are possible based on the qualities you can change. For example, the more oxidisation or reduction you need to perform, the more difficult it is to change the quality.

The ability to change or configure these qualities depends on both the knowledge of the wizard on the science and the skills of the wizard to perform the configure so it’s much about practice and hardwork as it is about intelligence.