To determine the properties of a plant, he would pick them up and channel his magical power through them in a specific manner. Doing so gave him some minor information on any materials he checked. Like the plant he was holding now, Ashespeed. This particular plant had properties that could be best described as 'speed,' as in physical movement and perception. The best method to extract the properties, burning it and inhaling the smoke. Though it was entirely possible to convert the smoke into a liquid to use as an extract in potions. Epajianna was also another interesting plant that seemed to provide energy, similar to caffeine. Just like Ashespeed it needed to be burnt and the smoke inhaled, or turned into a liquid extract.
He studied the two plants, then grinned and set the to the side together. Combining speed and energy into a single potion, extract, or something else would be a nice additive to anything really. It could even be used on its own as a potion with some stabilizing agents and flavorants. There was no call for making gross tasting potions!
It took a while but he collected three different plants that had properties related to mana regulation, production, and conversion. With his ingredients selected, he moved over to the chemistry portion of the workshop and grabbed a decently large pestle and mortar. That's one detail Azazel hadn't missed, the combination of old school and new school things he'd had inside of the sheds in the junkyard. Some stuff just had to be done the old fashioned way to be done properly. In this case that meant smashing the crap out of the leaves of Phuzerry that he had.
He had zero idea what Phuzerry even was but it's leaves had excellent properties related to mana production. Adding it to ink would make the ink channel mana better than his own blood ever could while simultaneously giving it a mild amplification boost. The best method of using the Phuzerry was to pound it into a paste, add water to the paste, then boil it so that the steam rose into a condenser creating an extract, then boiling that extract to reduce the amount of excess water. The final product should appear to be just slightly thicker water.
How did he know all of that? Instinct mostly. The sheer amount of knowledge within his mind was more than he could hope to ever properly convey to another living being. Even if he'd never heard of Phuzerry and it wasn't included within his Artificer information, he had enough other similar plants within his mind that he could deduce the process and expected results. Could he be wrong? Most definitely! But it was an excellent starting place and he had no need to argue with his instincts. If he was, in fact, wrong, he'd just get more and try a different method! That's how experimenting worked! Make a hypothesis and test it out.
The second plant, Twisted Belladonna, was actually even more poisonous than it's non magical relative. If he wasn't mistaken, regular Belladonna had purple flowers while Twisted Belladonna had ash gray flowers. Despite the toxicity, Twisted Belladonna had wonderful mana conversion properties. By that, he meant it made it easier to convert mana from one state of matter to another.
Mana in its natural state was energy. Converting energy to energy was significantly easier than converting energy into a solid, liquid, or gas. That was why fire was one of the single most common types of magic that beginners learned. Converting mana into another form of energy, fire, was a hell of a lot easier than converting it into something like water or stone. As a general rule of thumb, the more 'rigid' something was, the harder it was to make with mana. Though, one should never forget that it was all magic and there were exceptions, circumstances, and oddities that could negate that general rule.
The use of the Twisted Belladonna in the ink would make it easier to convert his mana from its energy state into a liquid state. Doing so would make it a lot easier on his reserves and concentration while working on the scroll.
Lastly he'd selected Oveheed for its mana regulation properties. This one was probably the simplest concept. Oveheed had a natural tendency to spead mana infused into it equally. This meant that as he put ink onto the scroll the Oveheed would make sure that the energy of the mana spread out evenly throughout all of the ink. This would greatly enhance his efficiency in making the scroll as some sections of ink wouldn't ever contain more, or less, mana than other sections. In other words, it was excellent for overcoming his lacking mana control, a weakness he was still working on. Mana control just takes a fair bit of effort to achieve mastery of. Just like everything else he was working on.