The Alkahest

Balthazar Claës is a brilliant chemist with a loving family and a vast fortune, but he becomes obsessed with a single goal: discovering the Absolute, the primal element of matter. His research turns into a destructive passion that consumes his family's wealth and his own humanity. Told from the perspective of his long-suffering family, the story follows their struggle as they are ruined by one man's impossible scientific dream.