This is a guide dedicated to help all gaians willing to level up their alchemy skills. This to expect from this guide are the following: Would take you time to read, won’t give you a miracle to insanely level up fast, if done right you could be level ten in less than a month, takes skill to even follow and certainly doesn’t welcome whining. 
To start the guide I have to answer first the common problems in leveling. These are the lack of components on gaia (the ones on limited edition or no longer available outside marketplace), components often inflated, time it takes to gather the required components for a certain formula, sustaining your craft because of series of fails on very low success rate formulas. 
To learn alchemy, you have to learn how to research the marketplace and plan a working schedule. Research covers half the work while the rest is just clicking. A working schedule is when you start deciding when is the right time to grind for gold or doing something else related to alchemy in gaia. Each task consumes their own time so spend your time wisely. Between buying and opening caches, between playing zomg, fishing, or watching the marketplace for best available prices, these are stuff you have to do on a routine. 
The lack of components for formulas available on gaia other than marketplace is a given hindrance. It is one of the first few things someone outside from alchemy will quickly conclude and gave an unintelligent remark that the craft isn’t worth learning. Understand that gaia intended alchemy to be a gold sink while also profiting from the system by including premium items on seemingly easy formulas. Before you started your alchemy, there are already people who started before you and have exhausted those items to the point of near extinction. Give up on those formulas, they are dead ends if you have no gold to pay for them. 
For formulas that have components often inflated one of the explanations would be the above paragraph also some of these are also due to: There are less people gathering them but are readily available when you look for them. Zomg and fishing related components are the solid example for this. I mean, I spent hours looking for at least fifty copper from mushroom cannons, wing tree leaf from gnomes, flamingo feathers from flamingo or fish the guppies to get what I want. Why would I spend that much time when I have the gold to buy them? This kind of mentally resorted to people just buying the items even at unreasonable prices because it is better than spending dull hours grinding. 
If it is a component that can be generated continuously at gaia then don’t buy it at the marketplace and work for it to gather but if you have the gold to buy it and promote inflation then buy it at marketplace for all I care. For other components that are premium items and already being drove to extinction give up on them. There are other formulas that you could have bothered to try yet you’ve stuck up and whined about them not being available and therefore wasted your time.
The time it takes to gather components for a certain formula depends on the formula itself. Even a single component from a very easy formula could get you days to get because you’re waiting for a “right” price on marketplace. News flash, there is no good price at marketplace anymore, even if you’re buying it at lower than market price you’re still buying it at inflated price.
In order to sustain yourself in crafting very low success rate formulas I have researched different ways to gain gold. The top three games that would get you the gold quick and would never give you problems on crafting costs require time investment to gain skill in each of them. These are rank according to order of the most profitable game on gaia with respect to the time of posting this. 1. Fishing (Bassken, Durem)
2. Tiles
3. Zomg
Fishing at bassken will get you the fish components you will need for alchemist cases which run more than twenty million on the market right now, if you ever decided to make one, sell it or just sell the guppies and goldfish (see market place often). Fishing at Durem is the most profitable lake but it isn’t everyone, it takes huge amount of time to learn how to be proficient to fish there but worth it. The slates and sand boldurs are so inflated you can even quit your alchemy if your goal is just to gain gold. Why is fishing at durem most profitable? Well look at the gaia population. If there are more than 2 million accounts registered minus the mules, about 20k online on average… those numbers in thought I’d say only less than three hundred gaians actually have the skills fit for that place, you got job security as long as the inizio quests require the rare fish. 
Tiles, play expert level and go for expert 2 then quit, rinse and repeat. Everytime you do this you get 80 tickets which you could sell and earn about millions per ten minute. If you can play well like producing 10.4k tickets per two hours (my personal record) multiple that to the current average market price of tickets and you got yourself a good gain. I personally think that tickets are only worth 20gold if you priced it more than that you’re already receiving inflated profit when someone else buys it. If you’re so good at the game then save up for a royal crown, (blue, red and black) runs about 300k + tickets to get and sell it (see marketplace for their current price). The explanation why tickets have inflated is simple, playing for it gets boring over time and when you gold the gold why not just buy them over marketplace and inflate them because instant gratification rules, deal with it. Guess what? This instant gratification thing made those tickets now saleable to inflated price which gives you also some job security. 
Zomg, by far, the longest time to level up and the least profitable however don’t underestimate it. It can rival Tiles if you knew where to invest your time on the game. Go to village greens and collect components for philosopher and alchemist cases, instead of making them, sell them. The whole point of the guide is making a profit from lazy people who have money and dependent on gold generators. Anyone who can’t understand hard work and tosses their gold out easy will always succumb to the people who grind the items. If your goal is for alchemy, settle for a 5.5 cl and go to bassken lake at the game for a papa saw run for gold.
The mini guides for each level. (Pretty much what most viewers here came for I think).
Level 1 ~ Level 2
Alchemy starter kits from the marketplace when you got the gold for it. Craft orb aggregates if you’re adept at zomg to get you to level 3. If you’re not much of a zomg player but have atleast reached level 2 there, other alternatives are crafting level 1 formulas for other higher level alchemist. See Alchemy services and put up a thread, bottled up moonlight or bottled up sunlight are the common stuff to expect they’d want to ask you to craft. Just save up less than a million for the crafting expense (it’s easy to do this with the current inflation going on). Fish at bassken, collect at barton town and play at village greens for the components on alchemist cases, they are worth it to craft and sell.
Level 2 ~ Level 3
Pancake top hat is a level two formula with a high success rate. You only need two amethyst caches (2 silver tokens) and the rest are from the faktori shop (gold shop) to get you to level three. If you can grind more amethyst caches, you can get to level 4 with (40 of it after stepping on level 3). For level three, you can try crafting ectoplasm. When I started alchemy, I saw their prices reach for 3m to 3.5m but now… Invest five million in buying 100 philosopher caches on bi-frost and you could get enough gold caches to craft one of these and the best part is, you got excess caches you could save or sell for extra funding. This is where it all starts. Once you can keep reinvesting 5million gold on philosopher caches, you pretty much can sustain yourself to level 8. You can increase your amount of investment to 50million which can equate to a thousand philosopher’s caches.
Level 4 ~ Level 5
If you kept on doing what I told you at level 3-4, then leveling here would be not much of a problem. For a quick route to level five, do the level four formula called meat club available on bi-frost, it uses sapphire caches which come it cheap and mostly you can get 5k each if you know where to look. If you stepped on level 5 you can keep crafting meat clubs (40 of them) to get to level 6. You can try crafting red mercury which is a level four formula and the only note worthy expensive component is the helium bubble from a diamond cache (x2), this is a good investment since you can use the red mercury to craft uranium biscuits at level 6 (see marketplace for their current price). If you stepped on level five, best formula to craft is a sunstone or moonstone, just be prepared to save at least five million gold to cover the crafting costs, luck works on different ways, some may even fail more than 20 times on a very low success rate formula while some can get it on a first try. You could also try crafting the deluxe bone mask, they use a component called ogre bones which is somehow expensive but if you got the gold to buy them why not? They’re pretty easy to make.
Level 6 ~ Level 7
If you did what I suggested on previous levels then this level would take a while to pass it just depends on your available resources and time spent online. You can keep on crafting 40 sunstones or moonstones to pass level 6 and go straight to 7. If you’re level 7, aim for a formula that’s in demand, the angel blood, ankou strand, quantum particle, demon’s curse, uranium biscuits, and ogre bones. I advise you to craft angel blood and uranium biscuits at level 7 to minimize failure rate and save yourself some crafting costs. Sell your products and invest gold on philosopher caches again, higher than what I suggested if possible.
Level 8 ~ Level 9
Craft the known level 7 formulas and if you’re confident about your gold on hand the take on the eldritch horror tentacle formula. That level 8 formula only requires three gold caches however, the 2 mermaid scales can be bought from bi-frost so you only need the unidentified object from one gold cache. Craft 10 of them and you just went through level 8 by a breeze. If you don’t have the funds and prefer to take things slow then go for quantum particle or ankous strands. Notice how I never mentioned other formulas so far beyond level 6 that doesn’t make use of philosopher caches?
Think for a moment and what I’m trying to put emphasis on. Your time to gather the needed components for leveling. Very low success rate formulas are a pain on the crafting costs but they provide the most accessible, feasible route to leveling and the only concern you will ever find is the clicking part, gold consumption and identifying what number or cache color you need for the most part. Their components are always generated unless some update says they don’t. You can get to level 10 by crafting Spice ( level 8 ), dark matter ( level 9 ), Leviathan’s venom ( level 9 ) with these methods. They are more cheaper than spending gold on regular formulas that require premium items. 
The most common problem on the late stages of crafting with component formulas are that they are reliant on their lower level components, red mercury to uranium biscuits to quantum particle to dark matter. It is a hassle on the late stage but its better than crafting other formulas since you save more gold relying on component formula on the longer run. 
Alchemy services has private threads from higher level alchemists you could ask to craft for them to save yourself also some time to gather the components yourself just be sure you got gold to cover the crafting costs. 
Another thing to do is kept ms word file of the list you will ever need for the next level or a to do list. Keep it in your journal. How many caches for this and that, even list their current average market price. Do frequent inventories and assess your available resources. Craft what is on demand for profit, or craft what is convenient that will get you closer to your goal. 
If you’re not willing to keep an excel file, record some kind of history on your progress that is fine but I often see people who have less problems on alchemy when they have one of these. 
Whenever you’re doing something, think about how much potential gold you’re losing or gaining for every action. An hour at barton to collect components for alchemist cases compared to an hour at playing tiles, which one would reap you more profit? Always ask this question when making your schedule. 
When selecting a formula to craft for leveling, ask yourself if the components are feasible to craft without burning your gold reserve. Is the end product really worth the effort? You’re pretty much a fool if you chose a formula without thinking things through. 
The bulk of the guide in a nutshell. If you can’t see how cost-effective and efficient my method is then so be it. I’ve put some research into this and this method worked for me. I got to level ten in a month and other than the hassles mentioned above, the online time is a major factor. I could even confidently say two weeks should do it. But if you got a load of gold and a lot of spare time, two to three days would be more than enough.
This guide is also an open declaration to anyone who whines about how difficult alchemy is when it comes to leveling isn’t good at planning which is a requirement for most if not everything. Leveling by itself is the easiest part. The hard part comes when you start crafting wings. 
I could help you in leveling, craft for me when you want to. I’ll help anyone out who asks for it. I have an attitude that comes along with it but I will help you nonetheless if you wish to. I don’t expect anything more from this thread. If it helped you in leveling then that’s good to know. 
Alchemy is all about planning, research for the best cost effective measure to achieve an end. Only people who don’t know how to plan were meant to fall behind. It’s natural selection within the system. 
How so? The Crown of Great Thrice is a formula given only once when an alchemist has reach level ten. On the formula, it requires the use of ten aspiring alchemist item. You can only get one when you first started out as your first formula and the rest will be available on marketplace put up by people who tried and didn’t consider the system worth the time. So what exactly does that mean? You only need to gather 9 of those from 9 different people who failed to appreciate alchemy. Out of 10 people who could have been level ten and could craft the Crown of Great Thrice, only one became a level ten, you. The aspiring alchemist item can only be issued once from an alchemy starter kit. The alchemy starter kit can only be issued once per person. Theoretically speaking, those people who gave up alchemy will never be able to craft the Crown of Great Thrice, the epitome of achievement in reaching level ten. Natural Selection of Alchemy. 