Catalyst Crystals

To harness something as abundant as light itself, the power of our sun Eather, and turn it into a weapon of mass murder is a power a god would wish to have.
A Solarian scientist about the use of the Catalyst Crystal in most weapons used on the Central Continent

Those things are for sure handy with their ability to recharge but what they lose because of that is their efficiency. Recharging takes time, more power cores are needed. They may be good but not better than our own electrical powered machinery for sure. A Tsarist engineer comparing machines powered by electricity and the catalyst crystals

Utility

Military use

The catalyst crystals are the main component of most standard-issue rifles throughout the armies of the Central Continent. They are basically both the ammunition and the most vital part of the firing mechanism itself.

Industrial use

They are used as a primary form of powering all sorts of machinery, from industrial hammers used in the refinement of alloys to large city lights.

Manufacturing

The crystals are grown from a chemical compound of organic origins, that due to its specific crystalic structure is naturally prone to harnessing arcane energies from the air. The solution is placed within a special mould and then with time crystalises into the desired shape.

Access & Availability

The methods of constructing these crystals are usually a state secret, with each central nation having their own more or less different way of producing them.

Complexity

To utilize the catalyst crystals in any way, other wires or machinery have to be attached to it. The crystal is purely a naturally recharging power core and thus serves no real function alone on itself.

Discovery

The presence of arcane energies in the atmosphere of Aon was a fact widely known for the past few millennia, as the very existence of magic is contributed to it. However for a very long time only living creatures with a specific innate conductive capability could channel these energies and put them to some use, whether it was during daily work or in the field of battle.
Two things had contributed the most to the beginning of the research that would then result in the creation of the Catalyst Crystals - the discovery of gunpowder and its usage in warfare and the need for industrialization to maximise production for the evergrowing societies of the Central Continent, as well as to not stay behind the machinery of the Eastern Continent. Due to this great efforts began to be undertaken to find a way of copying the eastern machines and at the same time using magical energies that the central nations had no problem with the usage of. Through observation of nature and environment in the more specific hotspots of arcane presence, it was found out that there are some crystal structures that can serve as a conductor of said energies.
It was through replicating these structures that an easy method was conceived of creating crystals that could serve as energy cores for machines, endlessly recharging simply through exposure to the air.