...she nods, decisively, and picks up a knife and a block.

Focused intent?

She casts her thoughts back to her other life. Composes her mind like she's about to cast a ritual, the world's simplest ritual, with one step:

Cut.

Well, if she's using the sharpest knife, an untrained third-grader can cut through the wood block pretty easily, so it goes through just fine!

Because she's stronger than a third-grader, it'll take until the third knife before any technique is actually required. And even then, unless she deliberately attempts to mess up, her ordinary chopping technique will carry her through without her flagging anything unusual about the force feedback. As she moves on to the fourth and fifth, she has to actually pay attention to exercise intent correctly and cleave the block, and she can tell the difference when she's doing it right and not, but it still feels—normal, like she's training and using a normal skill, just "getting good with a knife".

And it is. That's all this is, a targeted refinement of what ordinary Hylians use every day in the kitchen or against monsters, like training a specific muscle group or doing a particular stretching exercise.

Steen asks her to take a break at that point, so she can assimilate what she's learned. He asks her to describe what it feels like, what's different when she's doing it right and not doing it. "There aren't really words to explain it," he says. "It'll still help to try."

She can't say that it feels like ritual magic, because then she will have to explain what that is. And she's not sure if it's supposed to feel like ritual magic or if she's cheating, or possibly just doing it wrong—no, if she was doing it wrong she'd be worse at it.

"It's... interesting," she says instead. "There's ways that it's like learning any other skill, but the focus involved..." She can't say it's like ritual prayer, either, and also she hates that comparison. And above all, she definitely cannot say that it's like spending a century holding down Ganon, although, now that she thinks of it, the similarities do begin to stand out. "I like it," she concludes. "I like the... clarity of it."

"That's good," says Steen. "Some learners feel that they're trying to grasp something ephemeral, and that's not the right way to relate to it. Clear is what you're in aiming for."

He has her do some hand exercises to head off cramps, and she can go back at it.

On the seventh and eighth knives, the unreality of what they're doing finally begins to creep up. The blade is blunt to the touch, able to glide over skin without drawing blood, yet when Zelda composes her motion just right, she can still chop clean through the wood. It's harder and harder to do it reliably, but she has a handle on the right mental levers: "The focus, the intent, the projection," Steen calls it. "Aim, draw, and loose." She just needs to pull those levers in the right way. It's mechanical, not mystical. Technique, not magic.

For something that so thoroughly blurs the lines between an act of magic and a mundane technique, it really is funny just how much all her practice at ritual magic is carrying her through this. Every time she cuts, it's with a moment to compose herself and the full precision and focus she would bring to a ritual casting, and the farther she progresses, the clearer it is that that is the right approach.

It's been two hours when Steen calls for a break.

"You're learning quickly," he says. "Normally I'd tell a kid to go home and sleep on it at this point, but you're more than meets the eye, aren't you?"

More hand exercises, and they do the stick-and-sword trick again, but Steen tells her to pay attention to how it feels when he cuts through the metal.

She focuses. There's... she can almost feel... she's not sure. Well, besides the part where half her sword is gone with barely a tangible impact. That part is really quite striking, so to speak.

"Some people are more sensitive than others. Sensing intent from other ninja—sorry, other people—and eventually learning to contest it is a critical skill, but it's unusual to pick up anything on your first day. Just thought it was worth a shot, how fast you're progressing."

"I'm doing my best! I'm glad I'm progressing well."

Knives ten through sixteen are more of a slog, but Zelda can make solid, steady progress. Once she's figured out the mechanics, the more advanced stages come down to attaining a... sharper sort of focus, in a sense. Resolving her attention to a blade's edge.

It's four o'clock when Steen announces that her performance with the last knife is satisfactory.

"That might be a record," he says. "Though you're competing mostly with nine-year-olds. Still! I don't often have the chance to train Hylians, but it usually takes weeks to pick up if you're not old blood like us."

"Well, I will be proud of how well I hold up against the nine-year-olds, then," she says cheerfully.

"Well, at this point it really is wise to sleep on it, but I can't deny you seeing the fruit of your labors. There's a fun little ritual we like to do. If you'll give me a second..."

He poofs away and returns with a large cylindrical log. He plants it on the ground.

"Draw a sword and let's see. You must have one or another tucked in your bottomless pockets, yeah? I trust you can guess what to do. Try not to knock it over!"

She pulls out the sword Link got from Verro, sights on the log, takes a moment to compose herself, and

Cuts.

Half of the log thuds to the ground.

It is, really, shockingly easy. The last parts of the exercise set were harder. Steen claps happily.

She beams delightedly and repockets her sword.

"Thank you very much for your excellent teaching!"

Steen takes a bow.

"Many Hylian swordsmen can do this," Steen advises. "To varying extents, and many of them don't understand it, but you've seen for yourself: the basic method is not that complicated to stumble on. Hard not to acquire, with experience! But what talented individuals stumble on by swinging at monsters can't ever compare to a true learned artist of the blade. The sword schools I was taught, and which I teach, were passed down and refined by hundreds of generations of Sheikah blademasters, designed on foundational principles of the correctly wielded blade and correctly wielded self. There is a lot left to learn, if you want to continue your instruction."

"I am tremendously eager to continue my instruction," she assures him. "This was both fascinating and surprisingly fun."

He looks pleased to hear that.

"What does your schedule look like? With your pace it doesn't make sense to try fitting you into my existing cohorts, and I'll guess that you don't want yourself that public either way, so we'll need separate arrangements."

"My schedule is fairly open, especially in the near future. I do need to do some travel, but not necessarily for very long jaunts. When's the soonest we could reasonably meet again?"

"I don't have obligations from four to seven o'clock on weekdays, and all afternoon on weekends," he says, "so we can do tomorrow at the same time. Some of my afternoon obligations are movable, if you prefer longer continuous blocks over many scattered sessions."

Aha! Information about weekdays! "Let's do tomorrow at the same time, and then I'll do some traveling the day after and be back for more after that."

Steen nods. "Tomorrow here at one, and Rainsday at four."

"Perfect! See you then. Thanks again!"

And off she traipses back to the inn.

Link isn't there, and there's not much else going on. He seems to have been back? There are new weapons propped up against the wall, including some stuff that looks like an ancient sword hilt(?) and a small round ancient buckler thing(??).

She picks up the new items, both to examine them and to add them to her inventory.