два источника и две составные части статуса алхимии в Хеле
Although the Red Prophecy was written in an archaic script and badly defaced by elements, the alchemists of Hel had spent centuries laboriously deciphering and translating it. It was subdivided into twenty predictions of which the first eighteen were incomprehensible to anyone but an expert. They were composed in a kind of alchemistic secret code and teemed with words that had long been obsolete. If the translators were to be believed, however, all of these eighteen predictions were favorable. They foretold that inhabitants of Hel would be blessed with health, wealth, and good fortune -- but only if they held the art of alchemy in high esteem. This was one reason why the alchemists of Hel had enjoyed such a superior status over the centuries.

The nineteenth prediction, by contrast, foretold a terrible catastrophe: either a great flood, or a subterranean volcanic eruption, or the collapse of the vast cavern in which Hel was situated. However, this disaster would come to pass only if the art of alchemy had not been held in high esteem. This was the other reason why the alchemists of Hel ranked so highly there.

-- Walter Moers, Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures