"Now, students, answer me this: what is Udalila? Yes, Miss Hirihito?"
"Um, magical metal?"
"No. Mr. Blake?"
"Purple gold?"
"That's what it means, not what it is. Mx. Jaya?"
"An important component for spellcasting and a fine metal for jewelry, currently worth 4 platinum per ounce."
"Been keeping your eyes on the futures market, I see. That all may be true, but do you know why it is worth so much?"
"I just said: it's an important spellcasting component."
"And why exactly is that?"

    No one race can be said to have discovered Udalila, no more than any race can be said to have discovered gold, silver, copper, or iron. For centuries, most sentient races considered it a shiny purple waste product from refining more useful or valuable metals from ore like gold or tin. Unlike these shiny companions, Udalila is not a soft, malleable metal. It is brittle and hard.   That said, it has the most fascinating property: unlike any other metal, Udalila can be used to channel magical energy from the raw, disparate essence that suffuses and surrounds all living beings into a concentrated effect. This property was unknown for a long time, of course. Certain rocks and minerals with udalilia within them had bizarre effects-- the flying stones of Iuxta Mare, for example, or the whispering caves of Mt. Yama-- but few scholars were able to connect the strange occurrences to the metal.   This unique effect has produced the occasional sorcerer throughout the world, most notedly the so-called "Wild Magic" sorcerers. Healers and scholars in the Loc Region have done some research that shows that trace udalila contamination from the springs of Mt. Urrea have led to certain elven villages having higher incidents of sorcery than others, and some speculate that this was the reason why the Haz nobility in the ancient Hatalom empire was able to harness arcane magic so thoroughly before the discovery of Udalila ore in the mountains. Still others contend that the millenia of drinking these udalila contaminated spring waters have caused all elves, but especially the Etxeans and It'Thoni, to have the innate magical abilities they all do and that the Way of Peace is merely a mental exercise which allows elves (and non-elves; very little water in Shaoghal isn't contaminated with udalila) to channel their arcane energies through their own blood, allowing them to cast spells without the use of arcane foci. The dragons have long known that the Udalila in their lands was an important part of their mating and breeding; Udalila is as much a vital part of their biology as iron is to a human's or a dwarf's. That said, it is also the reason dragons are so powerful, magically speaking.   Udalila, it must be said, it not magical. It is no more magical than copper is electric. It is a material that moves magic, yes, but an ingot on a table is no more likely to cause a fireball or a spontaneous teleportation than a lump of coal.   Early peoples discovered that udalila had this strange property quite by accident. Gnomes and early humans found the lovely purple metal so enchanting that they wished to incorporate it into decorations and jewelry. When formed into rings or sheets, very little of note happened, but when early artisans tried to add udalila filings to engravings or mix it with a resin for making a kind of ink, they found that sometimes their products would grow unusually cold, become invisible, or spontaneously cause gouts of fire or lightning to erupt. It didn't take long before some artisans found ways to capitalize on this phenomenon; the humans of Os are famous for their applejack that they can make by freezing off the waste products from fermentation in ancient udalila engraved vats to make a potent and flavorful brew, for example, and the gnomes have ancient painted stones that emit light, many of which are still used in the ancient underground center of Ikiba. Over the generations, artisans experimented with this phenomenon to stumble upon newer and more amazing effects.   While nearly every race has dedicated some scholarship to crafting of udalila magic items, the first true mages to explore how and why Udalila worked the way it did were former acolytes of Mundus and Fons in the city of Canalis. These scholars, who called themselves the Coven, believed that Udalila could be used to harness a kind of magic independent from any will-working of the gods. Some of these scholars were able to develop some of the earliest magical foci that could be used to produce multiple effects at the will of the user, rather than single effects like a wand of fireballs or a scroll of invisibility. While many of these scholars took students before the Fall of Apex, proliferation of these so-called arcane studies was cut short when the dragons invaded and the Coven elders disappeared. Even before then, interest in the arcane in the Apex Empire was limited since divine magic and magical items were so common and required less investment of time or mental energy to use. That said, some humans who escaped the fall of Apex brought these arcane studies with them, and some of them, Leth and Dean, founded the Sidian Academy. Dean was more concerned with artificing, and Leth was more interested in research into the mysteries of the arcane.   On the continent of Shaoghal, it was actually the tabaxi that developed the first arcane research. Students of the Radiant College wanted to know how the strange material worked the way it did. Some historians in the Huri Concord have disputed that the Radiant College first studied the arcane, pointing to gnomish curiosity and the rich abundance of udalila within Mt. Yama and the hills of his children, but even the gnomes are quick to concede that their religious beliefs-- that all things have living spirits-- served as answer enough to "why" udalila did what it did, and gnomish artificers were really more concerned with "what else can we make it do" instead.