The early morning coldness was refreshing, the weather was neither hot nor too cold, and it invoked the memories of cozy fireside gatherings. Darrick had gone for a run, there was a place for all the outdoor workouts other than gyms which are for the indoors. Darrick was sweating crazy after his 1 km run and heavy workout in the gym.

I could have easily run 10km in my original body but this guy does not have that much stamina. Nonetheless, he has a decent body. It won't be that difficult to train at all. I'll be at prime in a few months.

The instinct to stay fit and in the best shape was from his old life. As it was a healthy habit there was no need to try quitting so Darrick did not waste any time to start his workout routine. After finishing the workout he wanted to test his workshop abilities, and for that, he already gathered some pieces of junk for material and a blueprint from the library to work.

After he went back to his room and freshened up and then just outside his room he was met with Leon. He had some bags under his eyes. It looked like he had not slept for weeks, which couldn't be true as he had seen him just two days ago when they ate their lunch together but after that, he did not see the guy for a day and a half.

"Hey Leon, good morning." Leon was startled by the sudden greeting. It looked like there was a lot on his mind and he probably did not expect any greetings in the morning. Even though he was surprised for a second he collected himself and returned the greeting.

"Hey man, Good morning. How are you?"

"Probably better than you are now."

"Almost anything would be better than the current me. The bar is too low with that."

"Haha, I can see that but what happened to you for you to be like this?"

"Nothing serious at least, for now." Leon muttered under his breath and answered, "I was just trying something my teacher showed me a long time ago. I did not have any luck imitating it for now. Maybe next time."

"Were you trying some human-sacrificing art or what?" Darrick asked jokingly. Leon turned towards him and stared directly into Darrick's eyes. The gaze felt like it was watching his soul. He got the feeling of being hollow or empty. Darrick's heart sank, before his thoughts could go haywire Leon laughed out loud.

"I don't really have enough dead bodies to experiment," Leon replied with a sound similar to a joking tone.

What the fuck was that? This fuckers sense of humor is so weird. I couldn't even tell if he was joking or it was real.

"Well, then I'll be off for my work. See you later." Darrick waved him goodbye and escaped from Leon.

Now for the exciting part, he wanted to test out his workshop skill. The name sounded simple enough but there was no guarantee for it to work the way its name suggested. To verify that and find out more about his abilities he found out about a place where he could easily experiment with things.

Normally every student of Caladric can apply for a personal lab when they are third year but if you really want to do some lab research and have enough money then you can rent a private lab in the city, if you can't afford it then there were eight public labs in the Academy. As Darrick did not know enough about the city to go and rent a lab, he settled for the public lab.

***

Entering the ME lab was nothing difficult, it did not have any special protection. There was just a simple door and Darrick entered the lab by pushing open the door.

The ME lab was amazing. It was futuristic even by Darrick's standards of his old world. He had thought about ME labs so he could buy one or just make one for himself but this lab was so advanced that he did not even recognize the function of most types of equipment here. Although he did recognize some necessary equipment.

There were no other occupants in the lab so he did not have to be wary about people seeing him magic. It was better to hide the power he had until he knew what it was because if something happened because of his carelessness then he could not blame anyone for his stupidity.

Wow, this is really beautiful. All of these equipments are so advanced, I'm literally in tears right now. They have this equipment here in availability which means there must be advanced ones somewhere safer and not for public use.

For now, he did not limit himself to just looking around but also thoroughly examined the equipment. Just before he totally lost his original purpose he pulled himself back, now it was time to see systems magic.

"System, open workshop."

With a mechanical ring, the system interface showed itself. The workshop section was wide open in front of his eyes. Darrick started poking around a bit but before he could find something significant the system talked.

Workshop is ready.

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Either scan the blueprint of an item or envision it in perfect detail to piece together your own print.

Huh? That's neat. It looks like Somewhere along the road I should be able to create my custom artifacts and... that's for later, I should focus on the task at hand.

Darrick placed the blueprint on the desk and the system scanned it without rings or notifications. As simple as that. Only after a few seconds, the glowing text appeared in front of him with information on the blueprint.

Basic magic torch blueprint

Rarity: Common

Difficulty: Level 1

This is a basic blueprint of the magic torch, the device used to test the level of aspiring 'Artificer'.

Nothing unexpected. It gave all the information about the blueprint those books provided except the level 1 thing, so nothing new happened.

Required material to create the magic torch: Method 1:

1. Iron.

2. Tungsten

3. Silver/Copper

4. Mithril

Method 2:

1. Iron/Copper/Mithril

Choose a method to proceed and gather the needed material in shape or form and place it in front of you.

What? Why does the second method even exist? How can you finish the torch without even the most material? The Tungsten is for the bulb, Silver or Copper for wires, Iron for... reasons and this mithril thingy is probably to be the magical battery. That makes sense but what even is the second method?

Darrick was flabbergasted. He was a STEM student in his past life so he could at the least acknowledge that the right materials are needed for a final product to be functional and now some system tells that it can do just that and much more without most of the materials. It would have turned his views upside down if not for the fact that he was in some other world with magic.

Magic baby, magic! Every fucking thing is possible around here and I love that. Even though the first method was probably the better one, it's not like I have those materials to work with in the first place. I just brought some random pieces of junk for the experiment. And I also want to see how it would work.

Darrick chose the second method for his cause. He placed the pieces he had in front of him. There was not a single piece of material with him that remotely resembled the component of a magic torch but he trusted the system to do something about it, after all that's what the system said. Without any flashy lights or similar effects, it scanned the materials.

Object: Pieces of junk

Material: Iron

Quality: Average

Hehe, the system didn't even bother identifying all these metal pieces and grouped them as junk.

The parts are not in desirable form.

The host does not have the capability to create the components independently. System assistance is offered.

Yes/No?

There was nothing to about this question, if he needed the components for it then this was the only option and he did not have any other magic to make the components all by himself

"Yes"

Darrick's body grew hot, the body heat kept increasing and suddenly everything was gone. He even felt chilly for a second. His body was exhausted and he had not done a single thing yet, his body already refused to move.

That's it? Do I not have enough mana to fuel the process or is this someth-

The thought was interrupted by the fact that his body was moving on its own but he was not the one controlling it. All of his movements and even thoughts were being guided or in a better way, his body was on autopilot. It was not just controlling the body but also giving information on how all these things were actually happening rather than making him an idiot by saying it just happened.

The iron in Darrick's hand was being melted with the white flames coming out of his hands. There appeared a mark of a broken half of a wheel and it was glowing in the white light. Even though Darrick could not focus on the mark, he instinctively knew it was the source of his power in this current situation.

Iron in his hands was just some piece of iron that was never meant to be used in anything else other than the frame in this artifact, but he had chosen them to do everything so they were undergoing rigorous transformation to fit the need of his hand. The system had working since they were out of shape from being melted.

Auto Darrick had divided Iron into different-sized portions for different components with telekinesis. He grabbed one floating piece of Iron and started giving it the shape of a cuboid. It was going to be a battery. His hands made some gestures that were hard to remember and many marks started to appear on the cuboid.

Small scratch-like marks started piling up on the cuboid and they were making some kind of pattern as a whole. When the pattern was completed it started glowing and stuck to the surface like it was always its rightful place to be. Then the patterns started appearing on all six surfaces of the cube and in no time all of the six surfaces were riddled with patterns and all of the patterns were the same.

Next came the light source and it only had two patterns on its sphere-shaped surface. The sphere was tiny and there was a line on it that separated its surface into two equal parts. One pattern on both sides was drawn and the patterns were different, there was only a slight difference between them barely distinguishable.

Unlike the other two components which needed minimal patterns, the wire was the complete opposite. Every single spot on it was mostly covered with patterns. According to the system, the irons were not that good of a mana conductor so more modifications were needed for it to be useable and with it done the only thing left was to assemble the small artifact.

With extra iron, the frame was created and the parts were assembled using telekinesis but according to the system it was not done yet. It felt like something was drying him out. The system was guiding Darrick's thoughts so he did not get to theorize about what was happening but he knew it was his mana that was being drained out.

What looked like a huge amount of mana that left his body just a few minutes ago was now poured onto the artifact in a single second and it still looked like it was not enough. Now Darrick knew if the situation was left as it is he could be harmed so he tried taking control of the process.

The thing about taking control is it was a really difficult method, he was already on autopilot and he barely made some thoughts out, only last-ditch efforts were made in a fight for control. Someone like Darrick who did not know ABC of the magic could not do it yet but he tried it nonetheless.

He could see the waves of mana moving towards something and he could also see a blob, made up of multiple coloured energies. Darrick extended his hands towards it, trying to reach out for it as it was the only thing he could do now and he was sucked into it and in the next second, he was standing somewhere familiar but also unfamiliar.