There are ten loose Gratitude Crystals on Skyloft. They’re generally out in the open, and it’s just a matter of checking everywhere for them – in houses, in Link’s room at the Academy, in the tower to the south, in the little place where Groose boarded up Link’s Loftwing. There are two that are tricky: One is in the rafters of the Sparring Hall and needs to be grabbed with the Beetle. The second is on a strip of land off a ledge in the west. And… normal treasures that pop up their description once per treasure per game session; after that, they simply appears over Link’s head to show he picked them up. Every Gratitude Crystal reminds the player what it is, how they’re made, and who Link’s collecting them for. I swear the developers had an audience of braindead goldfish in mind, which is silly because their little flippers couldn’t hold a Wiimote. With ten Crystals, Link has enough to fulfill Batreaux’s first request. For five Crystals, Link gets a wallet upgrade [1], and for ten, a heart piece. The next reward will come at thirty.
Now the time’s come to make it day again. After Link sleeps, Kukiel has returned home to her parents, and her mother gives Link five Gratitude Crystals as a reward. The popup text is at least different this time. Completing this quest seems to have launched another one; the man whose house Link found a Crystal in overnight is down by the statue in the south, worried about his sister. She went out flying to the colorful island to the southwest and hasn’t returned. Link heads out to the colorful island, which is called Fun Fun Island, and is settled by a clown who will apparently host a minigame once Link has the required item. The sister’s not there, so Link checks the nearby islands and finds her and her Loftwing nearby. The Loftwing’s injured and can’t fly, so she asks Link to go find her brother to bring medicine for it. The quest seems like it’s written to work no matter which sibling Link finds first, which is a nice touch. Brother’s happy to help Link help his sister, and gives him a bottle of Mushroom Spores and tells him to keep the bottle when he’s finished. She heals her Loftwing and takes off for home, but not without giving Link five Gratitude Crystals for helping her. Back in Skyloft, her brother also gives Link five Crystals, so this was a very profitable quest.
There’s not much else to do at this point, so it’s time to start getting ready to go explore the surface area opened up by the ruby tablet. The Gear Shop has an iron shield for sale; the iron shield is fireproof but, in a new variant, weak against electric attacks. Since Link’s heading into a – well, I don’t know for sure the next area is fiery, but the goddess’ message described it as “scorched earth,” and Eldin’s where Death Mountain was in Twilight Princess, and the Ocarina of Time progression goes Forest – Fire – Water, and it was a ruby on the tablet, and the beacon is red [3]… I’ll let Fi run the exact odds, but I’ll say it’s pretty damned likely a fiery area – he buys the iron shield and stores his wooden shield in the Item Check (the woman there accuses Link of just coming by to check her out). I’ve got enough rupees left over for a trip to Beedle’s shop [5] and buy another extra wallet and Adventure Pouch upgrade.
Next: To reach the mountaintop, Link must learn to dig.
[1] Okay, so there are wallet upgrades, which increase the capacity of the base wallet, plus extra wallets, which let Link carry an extra 300 rupees each. Extra wallets don’t take up space in Link’s Adventure Pouch, but the Seed Satchel expansion(s) [2] do, and they’re what gets upgraded (via the Scrap Shop). This system used to be so simple and make sense. At least in Twilight Princess, which had separate bomb bags, it made some degree of sense – Link needed separate bags for normal bombs, water bombs, and bomblings – and the capacity upgrade applied to all the bags at once.
[2] Yeah, Link can buy at least two of them from the Gear Shop. (I stopped after two because it seems like a waste of rupees; honestly, when am I going to have a need for more than one – let alone the Adventure Pouch space?) I wonder if there’s a limit (beyond spaces in the Adventure Pouch + Item Check).
[3] But Link’s placeable beacons are blue [4]… so the third may not be water.
[4] Yeah, blue beacons against a blue sky. Great design. I’m reminded why Luke’s lightsaber in Return of the Jedi was green.
[5] It seems appropriate to whack the bell with the Beetle.
