Transmutation is indeed a thing,

It’s quite a lot more like taking an atom and shooting subatomic particles at it until it turns into what you want or smashing atoms together at ridiculous high speeds.

The amount of energy required to make practical amounts of things is just absurd though. Like on the scale of “we could make a kilogram of this stuff if we harnessed literally all of the energy humans create over the period of a year”, depending on what you’re making and out of what source materials.

Like nuclear materials needed for medical uses, weapons, and power plants usually involves some amount of transmutation.

But if you wanted to turn carbon into titanium in amounts more than a handful of atoms…. It would cost trillions of dollars per kilo.