White Mercury

White Mercury, also known as mage-silver, is the ore that the Shelby Method of magic uses. It's a magical form of mercury and at normal temperature is has a thick liquid form. It's color is a pearly white, with metallic flashes of blue and pink-opal flowing through it. It's very rare and was discovered by Shelby University less then two hundred years ago. On the other hand, only a little bit of White Murcury will last a very long time and it has a slow decay rate compared to other magical metals. A small vial of white mercury will last most wizards three years, before loosing it's white color and decaying into mundane mercury.

White mercury allows wizards to draw much more power from their surroundings and so use up much less of their own energy. Before it's discovery, very few people had enough natural power to be effective wizards. White Mercury has caused a revolution of magical expansion and discovery, since with its help almost any human can learn to be a wizard.

((Borrowed from Syme's profile.))