And then there's a line break to separate the lore from the solve notes.

One of two things has happened. Min Rate for quintessence from one salt input is 8. Min latency for one salt input to quintessence is naievely 10: Grab, duplicate, then 8 for sorting the atoms onto quintessence. Min latency for Hydrated Hexstabilized Salt into quintessence is naively 10 + 14 + grab, debond core, debond core and create gap, debond first salt and calcify core. (4) That means that min cycles is around 28 +