Essence

Essence is the solid form of mana. Pure essence ore can be found deep underground, in the 4th and 5th layers.

In its pure form, it is dark blue-purple (#1e008c), letting off a faint glow. Pure essence is highly unstable. Handled incorrectly, it will rapidly sublimate into mana, producing a high-pressure shockwave, and leaving a lethal level of background mana in the surrounding area.

Mining
Most essence is found in the 4th Layer of the Underground, which has multiple negative effects, and can cause death.

There are two classes of miners: Hackers and Tappers. A Hacker clears away large quantities of stone and metal, along with hoisting the metals up to higher layers. When essence is found, all work stops, the mine is cleared out. and a single Tapper carefully removes the material from around the Essence, and if possible, cuts it and deflates it into bricks. Removing a single vain of Essence, even one that is a few cubic feet, can often take months, and numerous Tappers.

Hackers are the majority of miners, and do not have special training. Many of them are prisoners, or are paid low wages.

Tappers are few in number, as the job requires years of training and is extremely risky. They are among the highest paid workers, even above healers and magic professors.

Deflation
Using spells, essence can be both "compressed" and "inflated" in size. Pure essence is as compressed as possible, and bit tokens are as inflated as possible.

In order to make essence safer, the ore is inflated to 8 times its size, and cut into equal "bricks". These bricks can be inflated further - see Currency.

Uses
Essence can sublimate directly into mana. There are many uses for this, such as providing an easy mana source for mages, and refilling the background mana of places that have run out.

Scrolls
The most common use of essence bricks is to provide a mana source for scrolls. A trained mage can write a scroll, and doing so requires difficult calculations. However, the mage does not need to have any magical ability, or even an outer aura, in order to write a scroll, only proper training and study is needed.

Anyone, regardless of magical ability or training, can activate a scroll; it simply needs to be opened. However, the scroll (depending on its level) can require a high amount of mana, much more than is available in the background. In order to cast a scroll with a cost of 4096, one essence brick must be placed next to it, which will sublimate into mana that is absorbed by the scroll. If there is not enough mana for a scroll, it will turn to dust.

Certain spells require more mana than can be held in the aura of any animal. Some spells require a team of mages, but that is still not enough for some Sage-level spells. In many cases, the easiest way to cast a spell writing a scroll for it, and opening the scroll with the proper amount of essence bricks in the vicinity.

Currency
Due to the high demand for essence, and its constant mining and consumption, it has been used as a currency in some societies, including the North Center and Downtown, and previously the Union.

One weight of essence ore can be divided into 32,768 tokens.