The geothermal factory had been operating for some time.

When young Mike was appointed as a technical specialist to provide support in plant operations, he was delighted with the salary – it was only reasonable by most standards, but to him, who was struggling to make ends meet, it was quite a lot.

Within a few months however, he was able to buy a large house, a Merc and invest millions in stocks.

When the company CEO came to know of it, he tried to find out if the man was involved in any financial irregularity but the finance chief assured him that the young specialist had no access to financial transactions. There were no irregularities in operations or power generation.

But the young executive was getting super rich by the month.

After a few months, a junior manager who was friendly with the technical specialist told his boss that the technical specialist carried a small, special looking bag with him whenever he went out in the evening. That meant nothing – there was really nothing precious to carry from a geothermal power plant in a small bag. The manager just thought nothing of it,

The junior manager, getting too curious, finally asked the technical analyst how he had gotten so rich on such an average salary.

“Oh, it was just pure luck that I happened to read a brief news item six months back in The International Geological Monthly.”

He did not elaborate.

In that brief news item was mentioned the fact that certain geothermal fluids contained fairly valuable metals like lithium and in select cases, even gold in small quantities.