Claire held the pebble in her hand, trying to use her metal power to move the gold out. It did not work.
" Definitely not gold. " she said, as she put the pebble back in its pouch.
Once upon a time, they were valuable as jewelry and cash. After the apocalypse, they are still valuable. Diamonds as cutting tools, similarly, gold is very much needed for small scale chip manufacturing. During these tough times when large scale electric and electronic manufacturing had died down, gold still commands the same respect as it did before the apocalypse.
She packed the ore back.
Even in base 89, gold and diamonds are resources they will not give out to ordinary people. Nothing amongst these would be a rare metal. Even empty mana crystal ore is considered a national asset by bases, despite it being as widely available as goblin dung in A level dungeons.