Most of the new metals went straight to the research lab for in-depth study, while a few ores were lent to the territory's top metal users to study. This included not only Garan, but also Helios and Oslo.
This was one of the exercises Metal users did, and for now, it was unique to Alterra.
The metal users would hold a type of metal—which in Alterra could be iron or copper (or stainless steel if they were connected enough)— and had a feel of its components in hopes of improving the quality of their own metals.
This was a long and tedious process that hadn't seen much obvious results in the past few months. However, it seemed to have worked on Garan, so a lot of the metal users followed his practice.
In Garan's case, he could improve his metal's malleability, creating even more intricate metals using less energy, by studying copper, while improving its hardness and resistance with stainless steel (which was closest to his own passive metal).
