Neon

Neon is generally inert and has very few interactions with other elements. It can be used as a cryogenic catalyst for use in Ice Magic, but its conjuring cost is too high to be used effectively.

The best use for Neon is in its use as a Mana and Aether Detector. Neon will faintly glow red in the presence of a large amount of mana. When exposed to a large amount of aether, Neon will glow blue instead. When in the presence of both mana and aether, Neon will glow both blue and red at the same time, and will not appear like the colors are mixed. While other Noble Gases will glow in the presence of mana, only Neon will glow in the presence of Aether.

Iron Age Mages will gather Neon from the atmosphere and put it in a glass tube with a small amount of Mercury, which allows them to calibrate the mana detector for the levels they are looking for. If a Mage is powerful enough to conjure Argon gas, that will be added to the mixture. This allows the mana detector to distinguish different types of magic by glowing different colors. Otherwise, a Neon-Mercury mana detector will only glow red. Different levels of mana are determined solely on the brightness of the light.

There are ancient Silver Age texts that describe creating different types of glass and using different coatings to create hundreds of different electrically powered neon lights, not at mana detectors, but as colored light sources. These texts have not been fully translated, and Iron Age scholars are in no hurry to understand how these electrical lamps work. Fluorine Glow Stones provide all the colored light they will ever need.

Neon also has a strange property that other Noble Gases also have, with the exception of Helium. Neon will be attracted to sources of mana and aether, and will hang close to the ground near these sources, and glow faintly. It will combine with water vapor and look like a strange low lying red or blue fog. There are a number of locations on Vreathe with this Magic Mist, and these areas should generally be avoided due to the dangers there.

Atomic Number:
Phase of Matter:

Conjuring Cost:
Manipulation Cost:
Mana Types:

10
Gas

19 MP
2 MP
Ice
Lightning