Shimmer



Shimmer is a shiny, pearlescent liquid found in the Aether, a biome found on the Jungle side in the furthest fifth of the world, in the Underground or Cavern layers. It cannot be picked up with Buckets, but can be placed anywhere through use of the Bottomless Shimmer Bucket which can be obtained by submerging a Bottomless Water Bucket into it, or crafting one using a Bottomless Water Bucket and 10 Luminite Bars at an Ancient Manipulator. It has a variety of effects on different items and NPCs, triggered through contact. Shimmer cannot be fished in; attempting to do so will inflict the Shimmering debuff, even if wearing the Chromatic Cloak.

Placing coins into Shimmer will increase the player's luck, and consume the coins. The number of coins dropped determines the duration of the luck.

Upon placing 300 or more tiles of Shimmer in the Underground or Cavern layers, the area will get dimmer and stars will appear in the background (like with using the Aether Monolith). The music that plays is "Aether".

Shimmering
Shimmering is a debuff inflicted onto the player when they are submerged in Shimmer, or when the player's fishing pole's bobber touches Shimmer.

While the debuff is active, the player will be unable to use items, and any animations on the player character or mounts will freeze. The player will fall through solid blocks until they reach a 2×3 opening or the Underworld layer. This can be countered with the Chromatic Cloak.
 * The debuff will not be applied if the player is in the Underworld. Suffocation will occur if the player is still inside of a block once the Underworld layer is reached.
 * The debuff will not be applied if under the effects of Gravitation Potions or the Gravity Globe, and will remove their effects.

Transmutation
Shimmer is used to transform or "transmute" one item into another item. This also affects town NPCs (specifically their sprites), several enemies, and many critters.


 * Transformed items will float out of the Shimmer and stay in the air, and their sprite is a bit brighter.
 * Certain items will be upgraded by being submerged, some will be downgraded. Some won't be affected at all.
 * Craftable items will be decrafted into their components, except for Potions, for which each ingredient has a 33% chance not to be produced, to prevent duplication of potion ingredients.
 * NPC sprites will be transformed into a shimmered variant.
 * Some enemies will be transformed into other enemies.
 * Enemies which cannot be transformed will rapidly turn invisible; this effect will fade very slowly once the enemy leaves the Shimmer.
 * Most critters will be transformed into Faelings. The same will happen if thrown into the Shimmer as an item.
 * On contact with another liquid, Shimmer transforms into an Aetherium Block.
 * Any new item created from Shimmer will not have a modifier, even cycling items like the emblems.
 * All accessories that can be crafted into another accessory will cycle in ingredients needed to make it, cycling in a similar fashion to emblems.

Transmutations in Shimmer
For an item to be transmuted, the transmuting pool must completely cover the item.

Interchangeable items
These items will cycle between each other when placed into the shimmer These items cycle from left to right

Downgrading
Shimmer can downgrade various tiered items thrown into it, like ores and gems. When the lowest version of something is thrown into the Shimmer, it turns into a Stone Block, and Stone Blocks turn into Dirt Blocks.

With ores, Shimmer downgrades by tier, with 1.2 variants at each tier coming after the original variants. Copper is the lowest ore in the chain, Luminite is presumably still the highest.

Gems thrown into Shimmer downgrade from Diamond down to Amethyst.

Note: Demonite Ore, Crimtane Ore, Meteorite, Hellstone, and Hallowed Bar are unaffected by Shimmer.

Note: Amber is unaffected by Shimmer.

Downgrading items requiring multiple blocks to craft in a high enough stack can break the max limit to how many of those blocks you can stack.

Tips

 * Some permanent character upgrades can be made by throwing certain items into Shimmer. Each can only be used once per character:
 * Life Crystal -> Vital Crystal (increases health regen)
 * Mana Crystal -> Arcane Crystal (increases mana regen)
 * Life Fruit -> Aegis Fruit (increases defense by 4)
 * Any Fruit -> Ambrosia (increases mining and tile / wall placement speed by 5%)
 * Gold Worm -> Gummy Worm (increases fishing power)
 * Pink Pearl -> Galaxy Pearl (increases luck)
 * Peddler's Hat -> Peddler's Satchel (increases number of items sold at a time by the Travelling Merchant)
 * Spell Tome -> Advanced Combat Techniques: Volume Two (increases defense and attack damage for town NPCs. Usable once per world instead of once per character)
 * Some items can be upgraded by throwing them into Shimmer:
 * Rod of Discord -> Rod of Harmony (no longer damages the user from teleporting too frequently. Requires Moon Lord to be defeated)
 * Clentaminator -> Terraformer (farther reach, wider spread, and 33% chance to not consume solutions. Requires Moon Lord to be defeated)
 * While Buckets cannot collect Shimmer, it can be transported using Pumps.
 * Shimmer can be used to enter the Jungle Temple without a Temple Key.

Trivia

 * This item may be a reference to the 2018 science fiction film "Annihilation", in which an amorphous phenomenon called "the shimmer" transforms living things.
 * May also be a reference to "The Waterfall of Wishing"/"Mysterious Pond" areas in the video game, "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past", where the player can throw in items and get a stronger item in return.
 * If the Skeleton Merchant falls into the Shimmer liquid, he transforms into a human. Bones.jpg
 * May be a reference to the animation series "Arcane" as the color of the liquid is the same as the shimmer in "Arcane".
 * May also be a reference to the short film "Cream", in which a miraculous substance can transform, enhance or fix any kind of matter.