Gold
Gold is one of the weakest mana conductors for Forge Mastering and has a disruptive nature. It is typically used for cloaking magical signatures.
Gold-Veined Marble
Naturally resistant to magic in general and to earth magic in particular, making it one of the most robust and precious materials available in the Griffon Kingdom.
Silver
Silver is great for Forge Mastering as it conducts mana well without the support of a mana crystal and can store and amplify all the spells it is enchanted with.
Orichalcum
Orichalcum is a natural alloy of silver containing traces of Adamant. It's the perfect material for most artifacts and can become harder than steel with the proper treatment. It appears to be able to draw world energy and channel it. It is better at conducting mana than silver and is also much more resilient. Adamant is very rare so Orichalcum is more commonly seen in high-grade Forgemastering pieces. Orichalcum can be considered akin to a cyan core.
Orichalcum has the property to amplify energy based enchantments and is the reason it's considered so precious since its hardness is just above Damascus steel levels. The interaction between ingredients is very strong and it significantly varies with the amount of Adamant in the Orichalcum. Orichalcum can withstand much fewer enchantments than Adamant or Davross.
Purified Orichalcum
Put it in a crucible whose bottom is covered in a special sand to prevent the ore from sticking. The crucible is filled with a mixture of ore, wheat flour, lard, and ashes - the flour provides the carbon for the oxidation of impurities and heat the metal from the inside, the ashes serve for both the oxidation and makes the impurities clump together, and the lard helps the ore form an ore bar and build up the heat.
The crucible is then covered with more ash, sand, and syntium; the sand prevents metals from volatilizing, while the system is necessary to keep the silver and the Adamant in the ore together.
Placing the crucible inside the furnace, where the heat needs to be spread evenly until the ore looks like honey with no lumps of un-molten material.
Pour the liquid into a dry mortar, where the ore solidifies into an upper part made of slag that looks like colored glass and a lower part made of metal. Separate the metal from the slag and repeat the process until it's pure. Add Darkest Khan to let the Adamant saturate the silver, giving the metal ingot the properties of both metals.
Adamant
Adamant conducts mana as well as silver, but is hundreds of times more resilient. It can be shapeshifted into any form needed, making it easier to inscribe runes with perfect symmetry on the vessels for Forge Mastering spells since there is ample surface to be rearranged in shape and size. True Forgemasters use Adamant for their Forges instead of silver. It is hypothesized that Adamant is simply dead Davross. Adamant can be considered akin to a blue core.
No matter how good a mana conductor the Adamant is, it can't contain an indefinite amount of energy. Once it is saturated, the constant stream of new world energy forces the old one stored inside the metal to come out, generating an artificial mana flow. This phenomenon is very similar to Invigoration when the world energy courses through a mage's body without them absorbing it, allowing it to replenish their mana and bring their body back to its peak condition.
The Gorgons living in Leegaain's lair produce an endless supply of the priceless metal simply by breathing on grass. The Guardian put batches of Adamant on the market from time to time, to allow powerful Forgemasters to put their abilities to the test and improve their skills.
Purified Adamant
Adamant cannot be purified without Origin Flames. The strongest flame can liquify it but not make it boil, leaving the impurities trapped inside. Only Origin Flames can remove them without harming the material or losing most of it in the process. The user of the flames must use their breathing technique to spot the impurities they want to cleanse and then manipulate the flames to attack them. When Adamant is purified to its utmost limit with Origin Flames, its quality increases tenfold, but its mass decreases by the same amount.
Even under normal circumstances, keeping a furnace's temperature high enough to liquefy Adamant takes a lot of focus. Forgemasters will use a source of the fire element such as molten lava to maintain the furnace temperature, leaving them free for other tasks. Even smelting Adamant is an expensive and difficult job. After being mined, the metal is simply molten with regular flames and turned into ingots without any purification of sorts just to make them easier to sell and move.
Unlike purified Orichalcum where the world energy seeps in and spreads evenly inside the metal, purified Adamant has several vortexes of accumulated world energy, though they aren't condensed enough to form a proper energy core.
Davross
Davross is the strongest material on Mogar. After being smelted and forged, its color changes from silver to black according to how it is exposed to light. It is capable of cutting through iron like wood and is said to be indestructible, only able to be broken by being melted and refined into ingots. Davross can be considered akin to a violet core.
Davross is solid, yet one second its surface is white with black veins all over it, and the next the two colors reverse their positions. Davross absorbs the light instead of reflecting it, changing its appearance as if there are two colliding forces inside of it, battling for dominion. Davross is so rare that even Eldritch Abominations older than the Guardians accumulate but a few ingots.
Impurified Davross is sturdier than Adamant and has an even better mana flow and greater amplification rate of enchantments, but such properties aren't worth the trouble of finding enough Davross when Adamant is much more common.
Purified Davross
Removing impurities from Davross not only greatly increases its density, further enhancing its physical properties, but it also amplifies its mana flow to the extreme. It becomes capable of drawing, storing, and amplifying the surrounding world energy. Purified Davross is filled to the brim with world energy, making it hard to understand where the line between energy and matter lies (akin to a white core). It draws world energy so quickly that it's as if it has a breathing technique of its own; as soon as it's given a moment of rest, it recharges and stabilizes an artifact's pseudo core, making it ready for use again. Purified Davross' color shifts from silvery to black as if it is being stirred from the inside.
The real power of purified Davross is its ability to allow its master to draw upon the elemental aspects of the spells it is enchanted with by manipulating the flow of world energy it provides, though only one aspect at a time. Davross is not Spirit Magic nor does it use the Forgemaster's own mana. The resistance that the world energy offers is so great that, just like white crystals, the Davross can enhance only one element at a time. Unlike white crystals, however, the element can be switched at will.
Enchanted, purified Davross is not sentient, but comes incredibly close to it. Like mana crystals, it has a memory, and once enchanted, it remembers its shape. When a piece of an enchanted Davross artifact is broken, the Davross will turn into a liquid metal that reattaches itself to the main body, restoring its form without losing the enchantment. However, the effect is not permanent and everything comes at a price. Excessive use of Davross' elemental aspects, activation of enchantments, and repeated use of the metal's self-repairing ability will reduce part of the Davross' energy flow and turn it more brittle, almost degrading it to purified Adamant. It works exactly like the body - each time Invigoration is used, it loses part of its effectiveness. In the Davross' case, it also weakens it until it becomes no better than glass. Given time it will recover its strength.
An enchanted piece of purified Davross has an almost inexhaustible flow of world energy, and thus can enhance an artifact's enchantment. A fire enchantment on a blade turns the blade red-hot, emitting a burst of flames from its surface whose destructive power burns even the world energy in the air, producing extreme heat able to cut through stone as if it is paper. A Tier 3 spell from a magic holding ring becomes so infused with world energy that the destructive power of a simple fireball is boosted to a Tier 4 spell. An arm protector imbued with the water element conjures a magnetic field that can separate the world energy from a spell, making it fade.