You might be surprised to hear that runite, as an ore, is soft. Like gold it is easily marked. Thank our ancestors that they didn't immediately toss the ore into a bin, though. They tinkered with alloys, working with luminite ore in the combustion process to create something remarkable.
You can see why they persisted. Runite ore has some funky properties - repelling materials, occasionally floating, spinning when you sing to it - that makes it an ore with clear potential.