Please actually read the story points before suggesting stories. I've already gone through all of the engineer tagged stories and none matched. Points of the early story I very vaguely remember which I believe were: it starts with him working at a shipyard doing blueprints for $ (poor for sure) starts school as a technician/engineer which was one of like 3 paths gets put in a unpopular dorm house with two seniors, 1 male & 1 female, who become friends with him believe the male senior was something like a close combat monk-styled fighter really snotty lead female (noble, or just a hailed prodigy) is in the same field and looks down on him snooty lead female challenges him to a duel where he beats her despite her using her advanced, and well-recognized for it's undefeated use, best built weapon; basically a speed race to build a tool to beat your enemy lead female denies her loss as a fluke ... memory past here is EXTREMELY vague ... think there was a mystery shortly after the duel where famous students are attked. his two seniors are part of the student patrol looking for the assaulter. origninally they expected lead female to be attked next, but think he was attked first, which they later decide was because he beat her. Disclaimer: I do believe this to be an actual light novel series, but I do read plenty of RoyalRoadL as well, so may end being someone's story there that I've read and either lost or was removed.
Aye, Shuraba! Don't remember exactly, but i believe that at the time it was dropped because: a) it was dropped by the author b) it got really boring after a while c) translator gave up