With his mana being eaten by the blower for his forge and the mana forging, it would take him a fair amount of time to forge just the bracelet. There was an upside to all this work though.
First, he was definitely going to get physically stronger from all this manual labor. Once he got himself sorted out he would definitely be sneaking into a gym on a regular basis. He was thirteen, an excellent time to start working out and giving himself a good starting base for his strength. While not as much as his Essence of the Blank, his Essence of the Artificer would let him grow stronger than a normal human. How else was he supposed to work with the tougher materials? Even with a proper inscribing tool, carving into stuff like dragon scales was going to be hard as hell! According to his knowledge those scales should be harder than diamonds! At least on the older and stronger dragons.
Second, it was working out his mana core. Draining his mana to low levels and letting it refill was the tried and true method of getting magically stronger. Just like with a muscle, 'flexing' his core by draining it was a good workout for it and it came back a little stronger every time. Granted it was a teeny tiny increase. Seriously, with all the times he's drained it so far he'd estimate his core had only grown by two to three percent. Still, if he kept at it, he would gain more over time. Especially once he started to directly infuse items with magical effects.
Third, he was practicing his... profession? Might as well be. He was practicing his Artificing and learning how to do the things inside of his head as he went. Being apprentice level meant almost exclusively had book knowledge. Being an Artificer required mountains of knowledge before you could even get to making your first magical item. Rune items didn't count because any jackass with an inscribing tool and a book to copy from could do the lowest tiers of rune work. No, as an apprentice level Artificer he just had a ton of knowledge and lacked practical experience. Hammering out his notice-me-not bracelet was similar to what any master might have had him do to make his first item and become an official apprentice.
Junichiro looked over the hammered out piece of rebar and smiled to himself. It actually felt really nice to be doing this. Sure he was a hot, sweaty, sticky, and tired mess already, but it felt worth it. He quickly stuck the metal back in his forge, added more charcoal, and powered on the hair drier turned blower with his mana. Granted, things might have been easier if he was granted a Sacred Gear, but he was thinking about how to take care of that. If his guess was right, given the date, he has a few years before the story events began.
There was nothing he couldn't accomplish in a few years. His first major goal? Steal Ddraig from Issei. Even if he couldn't come up with a way to create a Sacred Gear extractor himself, there was at least one other method. It'd be exceedingly easy for him to make the four fallen angels in Kuoh into his bitches and have them rip out Issei's Sacred Gear and give it to him.
He honestly didn't care if Issei lived or died. He might have been entertained by Issei's antics when the guy was just an anime character, but in this reality? Nah man, Issei was a complete and total stranger he had zero connections to. Issei's life, or death, meant nothing to him just like the tens of thousands of people dying every minute meant nothing to him. Death happened every minute of every day and while sad in an abstract way, it had no bearing on him personally.
Getting his hands on Boosted Gear would be nice, but his next goal was finding a way to scan Kiba and get a copy of Sword Birth. Boosted Gear was phenomenal for unbridled power, but he wanted a primary Sacred Gear with flexibility. Elemental Swords? For sure! Kiba made a sword that could absorb elements, Junichiro couldn't help imagining what a suit of armor made of elemental absorption swords would be like. Could he make swords that could absorb and release kinetic energy? What about swords with conceptual abilities?
Then he couldn't help wondering what would happen if he applied his Artificer knowledge to the swords he created. Could he conjure swords with fully completed and perfectly rendered rune sets to enhance them? What about the materials the swords were made of? Surely they weren't all simply made of steel. Could he conjure mana forged rune equipped enchanted swords? Just the thought of possibly being able to do something like that made him giddy!
Of course, he also wondered about the shapes of the swords. Could he make rings shaped like swords? Bracelets shaped like swords? Other assorted jewelry and items? A swords shape was pretty distinct so as long as it could be recognized as a sword, did it count for Sword Birth to make it?
There was just so much possibility with Sword Birth that it seemed like the perfect Sacred Gear for himself. Of course, that meant he needed to learn how to actually use a sword, but that was a minor issue. There were plenty of dojo's he could sign up at and take classes to get the basics. Then, once he took the Essence of the Blank he would have limitless potential to grow stronger. There were plans he would need to make for that too.