If I place well or there's a small number of submitters, I'd be happy to hop on call instead of having you read this, this is a lot of words:

This puzzle was amazing, it was a blast to solve. My solution is made of 2 modules: elements and metals. The element section uses unification, placing each permutation of 3 elements on the glyph. The Berlo allows this by hitting 2 positions while the salt is on the duplication. This happens 6 times, meaning that over 6 loops any element will become quintessence (at a different position depending on when). This will happen at a unique hex arm position, which acts as a decoder later. 

If the input doesn't transform, we know it's a metal, meaning it goes to the metal section. I put the metal on the purification glyph, and attempt to purify with each level of metal. Following a similar motif as the elements, this results in a unique position on a hex arm for decoding. This time, that position grabs 0-5 quicksilver off a growing stick. It took extra work to dispose of the stick if not used (it needs to stop lead from being output), and even more work to make lead (I grab 6 quicksilver but I want 0). 

Ultimately this solve is limited by the rate. If I chose to place an element onto a duplication glyph, I could pull salt every two cycles and make them into the output. It'd need conditional logic, but that'd be much better than the 12 * 6 = 72 I have going for me right now. Even though there are obvious optimizations, the sheer elegance of this solve makes me SO happy. I shot for a small area and I succeeded! I'll enjoy my sushi tonight :)