Spiritual Alchemy
by AiresNor
Spiritual Alchemy lets players transmute items with an essence component, using five types of essence based on the Chinese five elements.
What it does
Essence types are tied to the five elements of Chinese philosophy, and each one can be added to items, liquids and blocks. Blocks can break items and liquids into essence, store and transport essence, and recombine essence into items again. Some blocks produce essence passively over time, and essence can be exchanged between element types in set ratios.
The transmutation table holds up to 150 essence of one type and can export it through a capability, so other machines can read it. Most vanilla blocks and items already have essence values assigned. Those values, along with the conversion rates, live in datapacks, so a server owner can add a new datapack to change how the mod behaves without editing code. The mod is not a storage mod, and the table is not a general purpose chest.
Spiritual Alchemy is built for Forge 1.20.1 and runs on client and server, so the server and every player need it. Files are released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only, and the source code is public.
Key features
Five essence types
Essence comes in five types drawn from the Chinese five elements, and each type is handled separately in recipes.
Automatic essence handling
Blocks add essence to items and liquids automatically, break items down into essence and recombine essence into items.
Passive essence generation
Some blocks generate essence passively, so essence accumulates without manual crafting.
Datapack-driven values
Essence values for vanilla blocks and items are set in datapacks, which can be replaced on a server to change conversion rates.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Who it’s for: Players who enjoy alchemy-style progression on Forge 1.20.1 and server owners who want to tune item conversion values through datapacks.
How it compares
Crim's Alchemy is an alchemy mod for Forge 1.20.1 under All rights reserved, and it is not open source. Essencion uses the MIT License and is also for Forge 1.20.1, with the same client and server environment. Spiritual Alchemy is open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only and focuses on five essence types tied to the Chinese five elements.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spiritual Alchemy | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2023-10-10 |
| Crim's Alchemy | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2026-06-15 |
| Essencion | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2023-12-02 |
Questions
Does Spiritual Alchemy need to be on the server?
Can server owners change the essence values?
Which game versions does Spiritual Alchemy support?
Is the source code available?
In the catalog
Spiritual Alchemy is one of 7,216 Magic mods on ModsFinder, and one of 3,927 Magic mods for Forge. 34,764 mods support Minecraft 1.20.1.
Similar mods
What the author says
Most vanilla blocks and items already have some attributes assigned to them. What makes this mod the best choice as an alchemy mod is that all essence converion values can be set in datapacks. So if you're hosting a server, you can just plug a new datapack on top of the default one and change mod behavior completely.
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/spiritual-alchemy
- Owner
- AiresNor
- Published
- 2023-10-06
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2023-10-10
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15