Crimson Desert: How to Get the Abyss Cell, Cogwheels and Small Batteries

Preparing for New Skills is a Pot and Weapons quest tied to the Ironflame Orcs faction, and it gates you behind a short shopping list before it lets you build anything. You need one Abyss Cell, five Cogwheels and five Small Batteries, plus a Kuku Pot you should already be carrying. Once the materials are in your bag, the whole thing wraps up in a single conversation.

Quick answer: Grab an Abyss Cell at Zargan Tankworks in Gorthak, farm machines near the Laboratorium Gate in Delesyia for the Cogwheels and Small Batteries, then craft the Small Kuku A.T.A.G. at Grimnir’s Kuku Shop in the Abyss Nexus.

Crimson Desert quest log showing the Preparing for New Skills objectives and crafting marker — The quest log lists all four objectives, ending with crafting the Small Kuku A.T.A.G. Image: Pearl Abyss

Preparing for New Skills quest requirements

Four objectives sit in the quest log, and the first three are pure collection work. The fourth fires automatically the moment the crafting menu accepts your materials.

Objective	Amount	Where to get it
Abyss Cell	1	Zargan Tankworks, Gorthak
Cogwheel	5	Machines near Laboratorium Gate, Delesyia
Small Battery	5	Small robots near Laboratorium Gate, Delesyia
Kuku Pot	1	Already in your inventory

The Kuku Pot is not listed as a quest objective, but the recipe consumes one. If you have been following the Pot and Weapons line, you already have it.

Abyss Cell location and farming methods

The quest-flagged Abyss Cell sits at Zargan Tankworks in the Gorthak region. Open the world map, mark the workshop and head there directly. If one is already sitting in your inventory from earlier exploration, the objective clears the moment you check it and you can skip the trip entirely.

Abyss Cells also drop from enemies elsewhere, which matters if you want spares for Abyss Core crafting later. Bismuth Oreback Crabs at Drakesfall Castle, northeast of Hernand, drop them reliably. The crabs carry Bismuth on their backs that damages you on contact, so strip it off with Turning Slash while they are immobile and bring food to top up health. Leave one group alive, fast travel to a nearby Abyss Nexus and return, and the rest respawn for another pass.

A spiky, stone-studded variant of the Wandershrub also drops Abyss Cells on occasion. That is a chance drop rather than a guarantee, so it is a convenience rather than a farming route.

Farm Cogwheels and Small Batteries in Delesyia

Both mechanical materials come from the same enemy type, so one trip covers ten items. Hostile machines patrol the area around the Laboratorium Gate in Delesyia, southeast of the region near Marni’s Laboratorium. Larger humanoid automatons drop Cogwheels; the smaller spherical ones drop Small Batteries.

World map zoomed into the Laboratorium Gate area of Delesyia where machine enemies spawn — The Laboratorium Gate area in Delesyia, where the machine enemies that drop Cogwheels and Small Batteries patrol. Image: Pearl Abyss

Fast travel to the waypoint closest to the Laboratorium Gate and drop down onto the road below. The machines are spread along the path rather than clustered in one camp.

Clear the automatons as you walk the route. They fight at both close and long range, so close the distance on the larger models instead of trading shots with them.

Pick up every drop from the ground after each fight. Cogwheels and Small Batteries land as loose loot and do not auto-collect.

Loop back up and down the same stretch of path, or fast travel to the nearest Abyss Nexus and return, to respawn the machines until you hit five of each.

Humanoid machines near the Coast Windmill Watchtower in the Eastern Hills of Delesyia drop the same two materials and respawn as you circle the area, which works as an alternative if the Laboratorium Gate route is inconvenient.

Craft the Small Kuku A.T.A.G. at Grimnir’s Kuku Shop

With all ten materials and the Abyss Cell in hand, fast travel to the Abyss Nexus and find Grimnir, the craftsman who built the pot in the first place. A yellow interaction prompt appears when you get close enough.

Talk to Grimnir to open his menu. Three options appear, covering the shop, crafting and leaving the conversation.

Select Kuku Item Crafting and Enhancement. This opens the recipe list rather than the standard vendor inventory.

Pick the Small Kuku A.T.A.G. recipe, filed under Enhanced Kuku Pot, and check that all four material lines show as satisfied before confirming.

Small Kuku A.T.A.G. recipe screen listing the Kuku Pot, Abyss Cell, Cogwheel and Small Battery costs — The Small Kuku A.T.A.G. recipe under Enhanced Kuku Pot, with its four material requirements. Image: Pearl Abyss

The A.T.A.G. name stands for All Terrain Armored Gear, a machine built by pairing mechanical engineering with the kuku pot’s power. It thinks and moves on its own at a basic level, which is what makes it useful for assembling more complicated machines down the line.

How to confirm the quest completed

Confirming the recipe plays a short crafting cutscene in Grimnir’s workshop. When it ends, the fourth objective ticks over to 1/1 and Preparing for New Skills is marked complete in the quest log, with the completion text noting that a new machine was built by combining the materials with the pot.

Grimnir activating a circular stone mechanism with glowing blue rune segments during the crafting cutscene — Grimnir activates the crafting mechanism, and the quest closes out once the cutscene finishes. Image: Pearl Abyss

Leftover Cogwheels and Small Batteries are worth keeping. Grimnir’s workshop uses both across the wider Kuku item list, including the Kuku Lightning Spear and the Kuku Boltspitter, so anything you overfarm on the Delesyia run carries straight into the next recipe.