I guess I'm forced to conclude that "load into gold" would indeed still be a useful skill, in today's world.
@matt when I think about alchemy I always assume that there is a whole bunch of work and/or negative side effects. Like you want to turn an ounce of lead into gold? It will take 1 hour of careful inscription and incantation and then you have a 20% chance of accidentally creating chlorine gas instead of gold.
@soccrchik @matt as far as I can find, chlorine gas is valued at about $2 per pound kilogram. Although I found a lot of variable numbers depending on bulk pricing. If we assume that to be true, you would take a loss converting gold to chlorine gas.
Put me down for 100 units
@Simon @matt It's like when people talk about shooting for the moon and ending up among the stars, only it's lead that turns into chlorine instead of gold and maybe you still net a small profit