Concerning the whole elemental/alchemy craze:
Very cool. Very confusing.  (Now I need to take an IQ test... :P )  And while I personally would love some alchemy mojo to happen, it would have to be pretty simple for all of us to write.  So the way you guys are going, (elemental) is really really cool! :D   Unfortuantly, I can only sit on the sidelines and geek out, as most of this goes over my head. :P Oh! What about the chinese Cycle?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing  Instead of "wood" do, "Plants" or such. I dunno.  I thought something already established might help... *shrug* Â
Yeah, I'm not sure how we could work this whole thing in the story (at least the main one). Because we couldn't focus too much on alchemy for the story. It would have to be a minor thing, one character's ability that isn't necessarily too thoroughly explained. It could be included in an Additional Manuscript, but could a short story be sufficient for it? As Harold has more or less said, this seems to need its own story. Which means that we could either write something totally unrelated about it, or it could be included in Harold's KotOS book in the far future, if that ever happens (as I am already too full of ideas in the case of mine).
By the way, concerning that, maybe we should reconsider whether we will continue Thingguy's plan on the multiwriter-ness of the series. Or at least, if everyone still likes it, we should re-confirm it.