You can make a projection that takes the form of a grey wood staff with a yellow crystal orb on its tip, with 6 tiny versions of this orb floating around it, the 6 orbs can be freely moved by you but can't go very far from the staff. You can use all your senses through it and the staff can fly. The staff is sentient, allowing it to act on its own or follow your orders.
By touching something the staff can absorb it, being unable to absorb living beings, it has 6 Weak slots and 1 Strong slot to store objects, you can freely swap objects between slots. The staff gains weak powers based on the objects inside it, using the strong slot allows you to amplify greatly one of those powers at a time, the power expression is random and you can freely swap it, swapping the power expression of an object also results in a random expression.
For example, by feeding the staff a spear you can turn the staff into a spear in a weak slot and control its length on a strong slot, swap the expression, and you can extend a metal spike on a weak slot and shoot it at a strong slot. Feed it a rock and you can reshape stone on a weak slot and create it at a strong slot, with the stone staying locked in whatever place you created it, even air, though it will rapidly decay if it's not attached to anything.
Giving it a cauldron vial makes your shard create a temporary connection to whatever shard this vial came from, giving the staff a random power like any other object. The staff will whisper to you the knowledge it acquires from absorbed objects or things it sensed while you weren't paying attention. Knowledge is acquired from the head of a dead body, from a smartphone, from a book on medicine, and many more.
Some powers may need you to touch the staff to use. Touching the staff also allows you to fly, and it will protect you from harm by boosting your reaction speed and piloting your body to defend or evade every time you don't notice the danger or can't react.
(Note: The staff and its orbs change depending on what is occupying the slots and the power expressions, Putting iron on the main slot may make the staff turn into metal, and putting a lighter in a weak slot may make whichever of the six orbs it's stored look like a sphere made of fire)