Pure essence


 * See also Rune essence.

Pure essence is a type of essence that can be crafted into any type of rune through the Runecrafting skill.

Since players can runecraft Air, Mind, Water, Earth, Fire and Body runes with a regular Rune essence, it is wasteful to craft these with Pure essence since no extra benefits will be gained. A Pure essence costs around 0 times the price of a Rune essence; to save money, players should use Rune essence instead of Pure essence if they are crafting the elemental runes.

It can be stored in an Abyssal parasite, Abyssal lurker and Abyssal titan if the player has the required summoning level of 54, 62 and 93 respectively.

Obtaining Pure essence
Here are a few ways of obtaining Pure essence, besides trading with other players.

Members with a Mining level of at least 30 will mine Pure essence instead of Rune essence (both granting 5 xp) on member worlds at the Rune essence mine. To access this mine, which contains four rocks with an unlimited supply of essence, players must get teleported by one of the four NPCs who are able to do so. If members have a Mining level below 30, they will only mine Rune essence. When mined, each essence, Pure or Rune, gives 5 Mining experience. It is possible for players with a high Mining level and a high level pickaxe to mine upwards of 2,100 pure essence an hour, resulting in an approximate 0 coins per hour profit at current prices. If mining Pure essence, players should consider taking weight-reducing clothing, or energy-boosting items and pouches so that more Pure essence can be mined per hour. The best place to mine essence is by going to Wizard Distentor whom is located in the magic guild in Yanille, but this requires 66 Magic. Players without this level should go for Aubury in Varrock. However, players can also go to Brimstail at Gnome Stronghold, Sedridor at Wizards' Tower, Wizard Cromperty in Ardougne or the rune essence mine at Lunar Isle.

Members can also receive Pure essence throughout The Great Orb Project minigame's rounds. Furthermore, they may purchase Pure essence with the Runecrafting guild tokens received after each game at a cost of 1 essence per token.

Members who wear an Ardougne Cloak 2 may receive a daily 100 Pure essence from Wizard Cromperty (the time resets at midnight GMT). He will give 150 Pure essence to those wearing an Ardougne Cloak 3.

Finally, Pure essence is dropped by the following monsters on member worlds, in noted or un-noted form:
 * Abyssal monsters (Abyssal demons (60), Abyssal guardians (1), Abyssal leeches (5,10,15,) (1 unnoted), and Abyssal walkers
 * NPCs at the ZMI altar (Zamorak crafters (3,10), Zamorak rangers, and Zamorak mages)
 * Monsters at the Stronghold of Security (Minotaurs (15,30), Catablepons (15,30) and Ankous (15))
 * Spiritual mages (23)
 * Banshees (13) and Mighty banshees (23, recommended)
 * Gargoyles (35)
 * Mutated bloodvelds (10, unnoted)
 * Armoured zombies (3-16)
 * Dagannoth guardians (2-8, unnoted)
 * Corporeal Beast (2,500)
 * All Strykewyrms (40)

History and update
Pure essence was released on 20 April 2006 to counter low-level macroing accounts that mined Rune essence and sold it for high prices with Real world trading (RWT). After that, members needed Pure essence to craft runes that were only craftable by members. Since they were the majority of the buyers, the demand of Pure essence went up, while the demand of Rune essence (which uses were limited to the six basic runes) dropped. This benefited member essence miners and non-member runecrafters, while it hurt non-member essence miners and member runecrafters. Additionally, non-members who had bought essence before the update lost money value due to the drop in price of Rune essence. Members who had previously bought Rune essence were saved from this blow because all their essence was automatically converted into Pure essence.

However, real world traders obtained member accounts in order to mine and trade Pure essence (now higher in price than Rune essence), and because many of them used fraudulent credit card numbers to pay for those accounts, the Pure essence update became one of the causes of the RWT credit card fraud problem, suggesting that the update had a reverse effect than what was originally intended.

On 10 December 2007, many macro users disappeared from the game following a swift series of changes designed for their elimination, which caused the price of Pure essence to skyrocket from a low of 80 coins to more than 140 each. The price has also dropped when The Great Orb Project minigame was released since one of the buyable rewards was Pure essence. This price has recently been fluctuating, and is now around coins each on the Grand Exchange.

Trivia

 * Mining Pure essence is a popular money making exercise for members with no other option or ability to make money, earning around 0 coins per hour profit at current prices for high-levelled miners. Members with higher Runecrafting levels are less likely to mine the Pure essence, as they can make more profit by crafting them into Nature and other high-level runes.
 * Players with a Summoning level of 93 or higher can substantially decrease banking time by using the Abyssal titan summoning familiar. The familiar's special ability allows immediate banking of all rune or pure essence in the players inventory. Players using this method can make approximately 400k-600k/hr, depending on the current price of Pure Essence.