Transmuting

               ==Leveling==
In order to increase Transmuting skill before skill level 20, you must find items appropriate for adventure level 1 to 5 and break them down using the Transmute skill.  You usually can break items 5 levels higher than your Transmuting skill divided by 5.  That is, if you have a Transmute skill of 60, you can break a level 17 item (60 divided by 5 = 12 plus 5 is 17). The closer an item level is to the the maximum level you can transmute, the higher your chance of getting a skill up.

Your upper level of Transmuting is determined by either your Adventure level or your ordinary Crafting level (whichever is the higher). If you continue to transmute having reach the maximum ie 55/55 or whatever, then you gain no Transmuting experience.  Similarly if you Transmute too low a level item you will gain no experience. Remember you cannot transmute an item that is more than 5 levels or 25 points higher than your current Transmuting skill level.   

The expensive way is to buy items on the broker and transmute them.  It's fast and easy, but expensive.  Keep in mind that you should buy a selection of fabled and legendary items because otherwise you will not recieve the more rare results like manas.  Less expensive is to buy or harvest rares and make level 1-9 mastercrafted items, such as spell and ability upgrades, and transmute those until you get Transmute of 25, meaning, you can transmute level 10 items, then chrono to level 10, and go to a starting area, and grind for level 10+ items.  When you can transmute level 30 items, head for Nektropos Castle and perform the unlocking of the castle via Everling Lockets Quest (note: do all the side quests, and all the quests offered by clicking on objects, many of them offer mutable items - go from Shiela's room to the Library and click on the stack of books for more quests that offer 'mutable items). There is a 90 min lockout on the zone now.  Don't bother with the level 50 zone of Nek castle ("The Return") right now, as of 6/7/2012, it is badly broken with trash loot and no loot yield from the key chests.  If it were fixed, it would be great.   Alternatively, you might choose to do the Bloodline Chronicles questline which offers Potions of Marr (handy even later in the game), but note that the loot will be mostly Treasure Chests from trash mobs as it is a very old zone.  Just keep going after 40/50/60 mobs until you're up to your own level, and remember that books may be muted as well as equipment.  There is no need to be an adorner to transmute, you can just sell the components for in game money.