It has been quite a few months since I have played the game, so if my answer is not 100% accurate, please forgive me. When you equip an item, you see it represented in that little icon at the bottem left of your screen. If I am remembering right, if you right click the item icon you know contains magical essence, then another screen appears there at the bottem that offers a choice of selections. Like if it does fire and ice damage...those two will be represented in the subscreen with how many charges labelled in white numbers. If it is not a right click, then it's a left click. Lemme know if niether of those work, and I will either turn the game on and learn how to do it for you, or somebody else will post and correct me.
By the way...WELCOME TO IRONWORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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