"How about tapping the corners of the thing to be cleaned and saying 'scent of soap and color white, no more filth within my sight'?"

Alex smiles hesitatingly at Myra and says "T-thanks!" then quickly before his courage leaves him again turns back to the wire he had been attempting to clean and taps the corners of it and blurts out "'scentofsoapandcolorwhitenomorefilthwithinmysight"  , then repeating it at slower less rushed pace.

Is the ritual helping? More than the intense focus on doing something? It's hard to say.

But Alex does feel a little bit like he did during the succubus summoning ritual. A hint of awareness of some extra part.

And the objects do, in fact, become cleaner. Not pristine, but cleaner, certainly.

Alex grins and may have slightly broken into evil cackling when he notices that he did succeed some amount that time, and tries repeating the ritual again, and again, and again until either the objects are fully cleaned or it seems like doing it another 3 times in a row isn't making it cleaner.

Alex will feel a bit tired by the time both items are visibly clean, though they don't quite get all the way to shiny.

"This is some VERY INTERESTING DATA! Thank you!"

He reclaims the stuff via a pair of pliers, not directly touching it, then peers closely at both the wires and the bearing.

"It looks like you got much of the grease on the inside of the bearing here... But not all of it? Bah, I should have had a camera recording it so we could see if you got better at targeting over time! Just remember that I am a FAKE scientist, not a real one, you two!"

Alex is fine with them not being shiny, them just being visibly clean is good enough for the first day he’s done/attempted cleaning magic.

”You’re welcome! and you could note down then that you should set up a camera recording things the next time you run any similar experiments?”

”And “fake scientist” doesn’t seem like a useful or meaningful concept to apply to anything other then someone who’s trying to convince others they’re a scientist while not caring to practice or engage in the skills and activities of science, and in every other circumstance it’d seem better and less disparaging to instead say that someone isn’t skilled at or had much practice doing science or some specific subpart of it?”

"Are you familiar with the concept of rhetoric hyperbole?

-Sorry, sorry, phrasing it like that was rude. I was being hyperbolic for effect."

"I am! I'm just kind of bad at noticing it occasionally, sorry for that? And that phrasing was fine, no need to apologize for it!"

Plasmatic shrugs.

"Well, I did not have anything further in particular planned. Enjoy your phone charger. Induction of energy is one of my best fields!"

Alex shrugs back.

"Thanks, I will!"