"There's actually a few variations of this children's song in circulation, with different verses condemning Ravari to his fate in varying ways. There's also THIS version, which I just made up.

An intriguing road, Ravari:
Make a broken wheel with speed.
For both inputs, Ravari,
There's eleven that I'll need.

It's a simple road, Ravari,
Till you take another look.
Projection, dear Ravari,
Isn't all this puzzle took.

It's a tricky road, Ravari.
It's a trap projecting lead
You purify, Ravari,
And project the tin instead!

It's a rainbow road, Ravari!
Tin is racing in too fast!
As gold projects, Ravari
We can output tin at last.

It's still to fast, Ravari.
Yet again, we have to wait.
We output lead, Ravari
So the engine operates.

It's a lonely road, Ravari,
And you face a lonely fate.
It's bad for you, Ravari,
But I finally have have min rate!"

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

Discovering min rate was a JOURNEY and a half. I initially fell into the trap of purely projecting lead, as written in the poem, but slowly realized I could be doing SOMETHING with all that lead I wasn't pulling. After a few failed machines trying to project the upper metals while purifying the lower ones, while struggling to find the proper ratio, I realized... "God dammit, there's somehow purifijection in this puzzle!" With only quicksilver and lead as the inputs you might initially think such a silly thing could be done away with, but no. Purifying lead into tin, and projecting from there shaves one quicksilver pull from five of our seven outputs. (the fifth one is lead, because we're no longer projecting lead to get it~)

For a rate of 22 to work, the purification glyph needs to be free nearly constantly. Luckily, outputting tin and lead lets us stall the purification process just enough for arm 3 to operate without issue. As mentioned in the poem, we output tin while we're projecting up our gold, and projecting up to silver takes juuust two cycles too long, so that's when we output our lead.

220 G is definitely possible. Arm 6 doesn't need to be on a track if I could find a good swing for it. But I *can't* find a good swing for it, and don't wanna rebuild my machine. I think the rest of the engine is essential though. I think this score gives me a good chance at my first win in my alchemical career! That being said, if someone manages to get both min rate AND min cost, that's awesome~ Speaking of which, good luck to those placing above me!

Signed, Trixie Kagami, the Cheshire Alchemist: Getting Min Rate On A Puzzle For Real This Time Actually For Real Though 100% Since 2025