Crystal Shard

Crystal Shards are mined from aether crystals. Most of the time, Crystal Shards are not pure enough to be useful on their own, so they are brought to refineries where they are sorted based on their primary aspect, then ground into a fine dust. This dust is one of the main ingredients that go into crafting new Materia.

Rarely, a Crystal Shard will be large enough and of high enough quality that it can instead be used in its natural form. These shards typically end up being used in the crafting of certain specialty items such as spirit lockets or high-end staves, but sometimes they are set aside for use in Arcanimancy experiments. Only the largest and purest shards are suitable for being formed into Prima Materia-- one of the rarest and most valuable substances in all of creation.