I'm fascinated by the story of the discovery of the Hemlo gold mine, told in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXDBAENrEK0&ab_channel=OntarioMiningHistory
After many years of fruitless quest, they finally found an investor(s).
Then they drilled something like 75 holes that showed nothing of value.
Then they drilled one more hole and found gold worth $billions (at current gold price).
I like to imagine that we are like that, but I hope with more quickly successful drilling.