These items are used in little tradeskill chores in Abysmal. My advice is if you are already at or master at skill save a stack of this (Yes hard but is worth it). These chores are basically a way of advancing in tradeskills without tedious farming. Example: 1 Raw pale Nihilite = 2 Pale Nihilite + a recipe book. Book supplies hints on higher and new tradeskills. Turn in the stack to merchants:
Raw Pale Nihilite = Jeweler's Taelosian Wheat = Baker's Taelosian Stone = Fletcher's Tealosian Tea Leaves = Brewer's Aligned/Shimmering Ore = Smither's Sample of Taelosian sludge = Alchemy Muramite Etched Scales = Tailoring
Thus 1 Raw component yields 2. I am not sure how much tradeskill points are given for each recipe.
1 = 2 new components 20 new = 2 stacks(40 new components) etc.etc.
Remember also that components can usually be given to both merchants. I split between the 2 gave 1 stack to each merchant hence stack Looted components in 20's
DoNOT use this in the Tradeskill quest in the Abysmal sea. In fact DONT do any of the collect tradeskill quests there. There is an alternate quest where you don't have to collect anything, it just takes about 4 times as long.
These are VERY valuable. They make items that have no level requirement and are pretty nice.
PS: 1component != 2 new components all the time. In my experiance it makes 1 new components like 70% of the time. The rest of the time it can either make 2 or you can fail.
PSS: These also drop in Natimbi - The Broken Shores off random mobs in the water.