[Agema]

Absolutely no need for gems? Surely such a thing is near-impossible. If you don't have the mages to use the gems, save up and start empowering or (if in MP) trade them for more useful ones.

What could make the alchemist stone quite handy is if it allowed you to convert non-astral pearls directly to other non-astrals at a rate of 2:1, instead of the normal two-step transformation converting to pearls and then to another gem type at 4:1.