Elemental Salt-Diamond

Elemental Salt-Diamonds are an Exotic Component, which form in the deepest lightless depths of the Western Oceans, where the great pressure births crystals of perfect purity. Placed next to an object, the purity of these crystals would draw out all imperfections, even those so miniscule they had evaded detection by the Charms and Spells of artificers, a blinding flash leaving a perfected, purified object and a fouled, broken diamond.

In the Golden Age, great vessels would dredge the deep trenches with massive, specially-forged artifact-anchors, carefully drawing the Salt-Diamonds to the surface where they would be surrounded by impregnable fields of essence to keep them from all contact with the outside world as they were transported to the Factory-Cathedrals where they would be put to use perfectly purifying works of artifice. Though Salt-Diamonds continue to exist in the ocean depths in the Age of Sorrows, the infrastructure to retrieve and transport them has been all-but lost to Creation, and the protective mechanisms keeping them isolated have mostly broken down, making them exceedingly rare.