Transmuting was introduced with the Echoes of Faydwer expansion which is one of two secondary Tradeskills that anyone can learn even if you already have learned a primary Tradeskill such as alchemy or Carpentry. The other secondary tradeskill is Tinkering which I will cover in a later guide. You cannot however have both secondary tradeskills so you must choose one or the other. You can however reset your secondary skill if you find that you do not like it later. Let’s explain what Transmuting is before we discuss anything else. When you take the profession of Transmuting you receive a new skill called Transmute. This skill will allow you to break down items or loot found in the game into the four primary items. These are Mana, Infusion, Powder, and Fragments. These items along with a fuel are what you must use to create Adornments.
Adornments are items that are created only by players and are used to modify armor, jewelry, symbols and weapons. You do not have to have the transmuting skill to create adornments since all Tradeskill classes can make them. You will however need to acquire the components to craft them which are obtained via the transmuting skills or the Broker. All you need in addition to the components are Tradeskill books for you respective class called Enigmas. Each class, including transmuter and tinkerer, has recipe books that allow them to make specific adornments. These adornments will modify the item such as a sword or armor by adding stats like +2 to slashing or adding a proc that replenishes power. Some adornments add to your stats like Health, Power, Intelligence and Wisdom. Some of the modifications can be really great. Once you adorn the items you can not remove it nor will you be able to trade it any longer since it will become ORANTE. You can however replace the adornment with another one. High end adornments are very highly desired at max level. You may think that would make Transmuting sound like a very profitable secondary trade skill but it can very costly and frustrating to get to the levels where the max level adornments sell well. This will also cost you a very large fortune of time and money with little return on investment till you basically hit max transmuting skill.
There are three places where you can get started with Transmuting. You will need to find the Master Transmuter in Butcherblock Mountains docks, Kelethin, or Gnomeland Security in Steamfont. While you are there getting your transmuting started you should also buy your six Transmuting Abilities. These are used during the crafting process to improve Durability (quality) and Progress, much like tradeskilling. Unlike the primary Tradeskills which follow a level based system of 1-80, Transmuting is skill based. The max skill points you can obtain is 400 at level 80 Adventuring or Tradeskilling. The maximum points a character can have is determined by you adventuring or Tradeskill level, whichever is the largest. This is the same for all skill based attributes such as fishing, harvesting, slashing, etc… The formula is as follows: (Level * 5 = Max Skill)

First you should find your Transmute Skill Icon located in your Knowledge Book, (Press K), and place it onto your hotbar. Next you need to acquire some items to mute. The general rule of thumb is that you can only transmute items that are Treasured, Adept I, III and Master spell scrolls, Legendary Gear, Fabled Gear and Master Crafted Gear with the exception of most carpentry items. You cannot transmute items that stack, are bought from npc’s, consumable, LORE, ORANTE, NO VALUE etc… Once you find items such as Adept I spells which tend to be a very common item that drops or can be bought from the broker fairly cheaply, you will need to click on your Transmute Icon and then you will get an arrow icon which you will then need to click on the item you wish to Transmute. If your skills meet the minimum requirement to mute the item your cursor will turn light blue.
If you do not meet the requirement it will turn red and give you a tool tip explaining either the item is not transmutable or you lack the skill points. If you meet the requirements you begin to transmute the item and a progress bar will begin to animate and takes a few seconds. Once you compete the mute you will get one of the four components. This will depend on the quality of the items being muted. See the chart below. You will also have a change to gain a point in transmuting. You are at the mercy of the Random Number Generator (RNG) here. The RNG is very streaky and at times you will roll off several skill ups while other times you will never seem to get a skill increase. Transmuting items is the best way to raise your skills until 100. After 100 you will have to actually create Adornments as well as break down items to gather up enough components to create them.
It can be confusing at times to understand what level the item needs to be in order to raise your skill as a result of transmuting. I have a chart below that shows in dark blue the level of the Items being transmuted and the light blue column shows what the minimum transmuting skill level required to break the item down.

The closer an item level is the minimum level you can transmute, the higher your chance of getting a skill up. For example if your skill is 50 and you transmute an item which level is 14 you will have about a 70% chance of a skill up vs. if you were to mute a Level 13 item which will yield a lower chance. You will however always have a 25% chance to skill up with any level item you can transmute.
After your skill is 100 you will now have to start making Adornments. You will need to use the Enigma of Transmuting recipe books made for Transmuters to increase you skill. You cannot use any of the Tradeskill specific Enigma Recipe books to increase your skills. The following books are broken down into eight basic volumes and eight advanced volumes. You only need the basic volumes to raise you skill. The advanced books are use the more rare components to make fabled adornments and would be a waste of money while leveling your skill. If you wanted to raise your transmuting skill which sits at 114 you would need to make adornments from the Enigma of Transmuting Vol. 3 until your skill is 150.
There is not much else to transmuting. Keep in mind that leveling this skill can be very difficult. You cannot do it cheaply and quick. It’s either cheaply and long by farming your own treasured items from the various tiers or the costly way by buying the treasured items from the broker. This is the more costly way but if you have the plat to burn this is the fastest way to getting those high end adornments made. For more on Transmuting and Adornments check out the following links:
EQ2 Wiki Transmuting
Zam Guide to Transmuting
Adornments Refrence