"Oooh, temporal stasis is beyond the current capabilities of our magic system. Or at least it's the most replicable aspects. How much of a trouble is looking through your archives?"

He gestures behind him. "You're looking at half of them. It would take a couple of days if I wanted to be very thorough. You have foreign magic, yes, is any of it sensory? That's my specialty."

"Yup, between us, I have a danger sense and my brother can amplifies senses. Both at cost of wakefulness. We also have similar gifts that also cost aspects of lifeforce to use."

"I've been trying to find an intact Sheikah Sensor. No luck so far. How detailed is-"

"SYMIN! Who's at the door!" Shouts a little girl's voice.

"...Ah, you two should meet Purah." And a cute little girl wearing comically large eyeglasses walks down a set of stairs near the back.

"You invited strangers in again?" She asks Symin. "Hey, did you two at least read the warning signs?"

"Oh, yes, but we are foolish young lads so we pressed forward."

"Huh. Okay, welcome to the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab! Snap!" She does a little pose, one arm pointed up like a rock singer or something. "I'm the director, Purah. So why are you bothering us, huh?"

Symin explains, "Ah, they are from a distant land and arrived in Hyrule through mysterious means... I believe they hoped we would know a way to get home."

"Well trying to figure that out would really distract from our own research, you know? Are you two interesting enough to be worth it?"

"Hope so! We have different kind of magic."

"Neato! What's it do? Symin, get the Manascope!"

"If uses something called lifeforce, which is divided in five aspects, to empower magical gifts or magical rituals."

Orpheus demonstrates by creating a large spark between his hands.

"Fascinating! Our sort of magic all involves working with natural magical forces. Except for Sheikah technology, which does magic all on its own, and we're trying to recover knowledge of how."

"Oooh, what is the meaningful difference here? Does Sheikah technology means they generate their own power or the power is somehow efficiently self-contained or something else?"

"It requires a power source. Sometimes this is enchanted fire, more often it's from these devices we call ancient cores. They're very rare, sadly."

"And the knowledge to make them has been lost to the ages?" He guesses.

"Precisely. I've been studying them when I can get samples, but I've learned pretty much all I can from passive observation, and destructive testing... Well, it means 'no more sample'. We think it's a highly miniaturized version of the Sheikah furnace that powers the lab. When it's actually lit up, anyway."

"I have magic that might give you more information, but we haven't tested if any natives can actually use it."

"Oh yeah! I still need to hear about your magic! Snap! Five aspects of lifeforce power things. What are they? What else?"

"Ah, the lifeforce aspects are breath, stamina, wakefulness, health and youth. People can grow gifts associated with each of these aspects and that use them as fuels. There is also ritual magic that lets you create your own customizable effects."

"Gifts are individual powers? Snappy. But the rituals are the same for everyone?"

Symin says, "I'll go mix up a stamina elixir. For testing."

"Yup. The rituals are separated in different schools, which are like different ritual techniques... and they are sort of artificially made? The most likely theory is that someone developed the gift to make rituals and then started creating ritual components."

Purah scribbles down some notes. "Can you do a simple ritual and then use a gift while we stare at you with magic-sensing devices?"

"Of course!" He does a simple ritual to make a small object float and then causes a miniaturized whirlwind on the palm of his hand.

"Hm, hm, hm. I can discern that there is magic going on, but not much greater detail than that. You're not directly using Mana."

"I'm not surprised. It really isn't a separate thing than the thing that keeps beings alive. Where mana comes from?"

"Mana is a property of the world that some things interact with... Doesn't really come from places, though magical effects gather it and use it in various ways."