Transmute Mineral Ore



Transmute Mineral Ore, shortened to Transmute, is an Adept-level Alteration spell in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Casting it converts one piece of unrefined Iron Ore to Silver Ore, or Silver Ore to Gold Ore at the base cost of 88 Magicka. Magicka costs vary depending on the Alteration skill level of the caster, as well as enchanted apparel.

Spell Tome locations

 * Halted Stream Camp.
 * Ansilvund
 * Enthir occasionally sells this spell.
 * Tolfdir sells this spell once upon reaching level 50 Alteration.

Strategy

 * This spell cannot be overcharged with Dual Casting
 * This spell makes smithing valuable gold or silver jewelery very easy, since Iron Ore is much cheaper and much more widely available than Gold Ore and Silver Ore. Crafted jewelry can also be enchanted. Because of this, it is easy to profit from selling the smithed articles as well as level both Alteration and Enchanting.
 * The spell will attempt to make silver ore into gold ore first, and will attempt to make iron ore into silver ore if there is no silver ore in the inventory.
 * If the player has lots of iron ore and want to make it into silver ingots instead of gold ingots, take the player's iron ore to a smelter. Then cast transmute simultaneously with both hands. This will transform two iron ore at a time into silver ore, which can then be smelted into a silver ingot. The player may want silver instead of gold so that the player can make the associated garnet or amethyst silver rings, which are more valuable than raw gold rings with no gemstones.
 * Transmuting all iron to silver ore but not gold creates some flexibility as silver ore can be converted to gold at any time, and gems usable (only) in silver are at least 2x more common, especially when mining (PC), selling high value silver jewelry will improve your Speech faster than lower value plain silver or plain gold rings. Alternately, the Alteration skill levels faster with full conversions to gold because of the number of times transmute must be cast. Making jewelry levels Smithing as well.
 * Make sure dual casting transforms 2 iron ores to 2 silver ores, because I almost always get 1 silver ore while using double amounts of magicka (PS3).
 * The more certain way to get silver is to transmute, then drop, the ore next to the smelter transmute the next piece, pick up the dropped ore and make an ingot. Magica regenerates while making the ingot allowing the process to continue at a faster pace.
 * For relatively profitable Smithing experience, the player may convert this to Gold Ore and then make Gold Ingots and then proceeding to a Blacksmith Forge and making Gold Rings. 2 Iron Ore (4 gold) → 2 Gold Ore (100 gold) → 1 Gold Ingot (100 Gold) → 2 Gold Rings (150 gold).
 * It is possible to use this skill regardless of Alteration level