After speaking with Instructor Horwell, save at the Upper Academy statue. Activate BiT via the killing post (the top right post on the bridge leading to the goddess statue). Perform a BiTSave using the Upper Academy statue to reach BiT Skyloft, then run to the goddess statue to obtain the Goddess Sword.
This method is generally prefered over the following one in routes that has to perform many Early Light Pillars. This is because after obtaining the Goddess Sword you can strike the Goddess Crest then leave (without placing the Tablet) to rescue your loftwing. This will allow you to have the tablet pedestal immediately raised during Back in Time if you keep a file saved on Skyloft.
If the timesave from raising the pedestal isn't significant, then the following method is usually faster.
This method is usually performed after meeting Zelda. Save at the Lower Academy Statue, then activate BiT via the west cliff. In BiT, sidehop off the bridge to your right as you get control over Link and bonk the tree behind you after having opened the splash screen to load the scene flags from your skyloft file. This opens the Lower Academy Gates via BiTMagic. Go through the lower gates and enter the Goddess Statue. Pick up the Goddess Sword and start your file right as you finish charging the skyward strike. This will set the inventory flag for having the goddess sword on your file.
You will not know at first if you succeded at the back in time, as you will need to reload the area before the sword appears on Link's back. Simply run into the Groose cutscene and you will know if it worked after you skip it.
Note: While the Emerald Tablet is skipped by performing this RBM, you do not actually need the Emerald Tablet in your inventory in order to place it and raise the Faron Light Pillar.
After the flight tutorial, it's possible to skip the cutscene leading into the Wing Ceremony by sidehopping out of the trigger before it starts. Hold Z while you select cancel at the save prompt, and then mash or time the sidehop. The window for this is only 2 frames, so it can be difficult to get. Once you're outside the cutscene trigger, you can dive off Skyloft to start the Wing Ceremony.
As a backup strat, you can save at the prompt before attempting this trick; then if you miss it, activate BiT via a Corrupt File and BiTWarp to the Bazaar statue. You can then dive off the platform to start the Wing Ceremony. This loses a minute to the sidehop method, but saves time over watching the cutscene.
The prompt only gives you the 2-frame window to sidehop if you continue playing from the prompt. You will be unable to get it if you attempt to reload your file at this prompt to continue attempting the sidehop, as it does not allow for any inputs.
After obtaining the Sailcloth, save and quit at the Upper Academy statue. Activate BiT using a Corrupt File. If you have a Skyloft file saved after meeting Zelda or Groose but before the start of the Fi Chase you should use BiTMagic to open the Academy Gates. Perform a BiTSave using the Upper Academy statue to reach BiT Skyloft, then run to the Goddess Statue to place the Emerald Tablet.
This is only a couple seconds faster than chasing Fi optimally; also note that if you do not do Early Goddess Sword, you will not have a Corrupt File, and thus you should chase Fi normally.
With Back in Time it is possible to skip the Sailcloth and the Wing Ceremony. The idea is to activate BiT after rescuing the Loftwing, and use that to get to the Goddess Statue early. Then it is possible to place the Emerald Tablet, get the Hero's Tunic and fly to Faron. This skip was once only useful in Harp speedruns, because skipping the Sailcloth also means not unlocking the doors inside the Academy. This prevented being able to enter Owlan's room to learn the Spiral Charge. However, with Song of the Hero skip, both Any% and All Dungeons speedruns can skip the Spiral Charge, and thus do not need to unlock the doors on the upper floor of the academy. This allows Sailcloth Skip to be used in these runs.
After the flight tutorial, save and quit at the prompt. Activate BiT using a Corrupt File. Once in BiT, perform BiTMagic by bonking the tree right below where you spawn to open the academy gates, skipping having to jump off Skyloft and respawn and saving a few seconds.
From there you have two options.
Go towards the goddess statue, start your file first then enter the loading zone to end Back in Time and load your file inside the Goddess Statue. From there, place the Emerald Tablet.
This ONLY works if you are saved at the Wing Ceremony Save Prompt: a Reverse BiTWarp will simply load the area you try to enter normally while ending BiT in that case. If you attempt this Reverse BiTWarp while saved at a statue instead you will end up OoB in the Goddess Statue, causing a softlock.
Perform a BiTSave at the Upper Academy statue to reach BiT Skyloft, then run to the goddess statue and place the Emerald Tablet. Continue normally from there.
Obtaining the Practice Sword sets a story flag that allows the Sheikah Stone cutscene to play outside the Sparring Hall. That Sheikah Stone cutscene is useful because when activated during Back in Time, it sets a scene flag that allows Dousing the Second Flame Wall outside of the Fire Sanctuary using the Reverse BiTMagic technique, skipping the use for the clawshots. If you skip the Practice Sword (using the Early Goddess Sword technique), then you will not be able to trigger that cutscene and you won't be able to enter the Fire Sanctuary without the Clawshots in a fast maneur.
This trick sets the story flag for having obtained the Practice Sword without collecting the Practice Sword legitimately on your file. BiTSave your file at the UA statue, then enter the Sparring Hall. Select a Corrupt File then open the Practice Sword chest. Wait for the Practice Sword text to appear on screen then select your run file, and start your run file on the 2nd textbox. This RBMs the story flag for having obtained the Practice Sword. Now you will be able to trigger the sheikah stone cutscene later during Back in Time using that file.
Notes:
After placing the Emerald Tablet, save and quit at the prompt. Activate BiT using a Corrupt File. Perform a BiTSave using the Bazaar statue, then dive off Skyloft to fly to the surface. Alternatively, since you are saved at a save prompt, you can also perform a Reverse BiTWarp into the Bazaar instead, which is a bit faster.
If you need a bottle to access the Fire Sanctuary, this trick becomes slow to perform, since the adventure pouch is needed to use bottles.
When you first fly to the surface, jump off the platform at the bottom of the lower academy stairs. Curve your skydive so that Link is aiming to the left and then call your loftwing. You will hit a spawn point closer to Faron than if you had just jumped off normally.
When you exit out of the goddess statue, the fastest way to fly to Lanayru is to jump off the platform facing Eldin, and then turn your dive and move towards the western side of Skyloft before calling your bird. This will activate the laoding zone towards the western side of the sky instead of the northeastern side facing Eldin.
Using Reverse BiTMagic and Faron Back in Time, it is possible to load the Trial Gate for the final Silent Realm onto Skyloft. This skips the entire Song of the Hero, but allows the Stone of Trials to be obtained for accessing Sky Keep. This makes it ideal for All Dungeons speedruns. The corresponding flag is 9x20 and there are 2 methods for performing it:
This trick requires a file saved right before bonking the mushrooms that Machi the Kikwi hides behind at the start of Faron Woods. The corresponding flag is set after bonking the second mushroom, or after calling Fi near the mushrooms. The file setup for this trick is specific (the slots can be switched around):
Then follow the next steps:
This will RBM the flag onto Skyloft. You do also need to commit the flag before exiting Skyloft; a common method is to shoot a lamp outside the bazaar to spawn a hidden rupee, but it can be any scene flag change.
Note: To be able to call Fi, it is necessary to have the tunic story flag loaded, as well as the goddess sword item. If you want to perform this version of Early Goddess Silent Realm before having saved Machi and without the tunic, you have to go through the entire process of saving Machi in Back in Time before bonking the mushrooms, which is not ideal.
This variatio gives more freedom to the file management. The corresponding flag is talking to Keet (the youngest customer) in the Lumpy Pumpkin after having met Batreaux. This does mean that your run file needs to have met Batreaux in gameplay however. It is good to know that meeting Batreaux in Back in Time (for exemple for Early Temple of Time statue) does work for this. The following file setup will work:
Go to the Lumpy Pumpkin in Back in Time. Make sure the story flag from meeting Batreaux is committed, usually by entering the lumpy pumpkin intro camera pan cutscene with File 1.Select and start File 1 then start talking to Keet during the loading transition. The timing for the flag is when you press A to start talking to Keet (contrarely to most other text RBMs)
You do need to commit the flag before exiting Skyloft; a common method is to shoot a lamp outside the bazaar to spawn a hidden rupee, but it can be any scene flag change.
Link is actually granted the Spiral Charge as he finishes talking to Professor Owlan on Skyloft, right before jumping into the tutorial. You are not supposed to be able to get away from Owlan with the Spiral Charge however, as there is a ground trigger preventing you from escaping going into the tutorial. If you could jump over that trigger, you could clawshot up to the highest island on Skyloft and go to the Sky from there. This avoids the loading zone to the Spiral Charge Tutorial and leads you to the real Sky with the Spiral Charge. From there you can get the Pumpkin Soup and fight Bilocyte. This skips the tutorial completely.
There are 2 known methods to skip it.
Talk to Owlan and tell him you give up on learning the Spiral Charge. This removes the Spiral Charge ability. Enter a loading zone then go back to Skyloft and ask Owlan to start the tutorial. Instead of entering the Sky, die off the edge of Skyloft to respawn away from Owlan. From there clawshot up to the highest island and enter the Sky to skip the tutorial.
If you do not have the clawshots, you can also avoid the spiral charge loading zone by diving away from Skyloft from the Plaza Platform, as seen below. This can also be done with the platforms all around the graveyard and the one near Sparrot's House but you need to dive for a little longer.
Using the Reverse BiTMagic technique, it is possible to set the flag that removes the Owlan text trigger preventing you from walking away from him before jumping into the Spiral Charge Tutorial. This allows you to skip the tutorial without needing to deathwarp. This requires going to Faron in BiT.
The corresponding flag is 8x20. In the Sealed Grounds it is set when defeating the bokoblin closest to the sealed temple vine wall when they are harrassing Gorko the Goron the first time behind the temple. The bokoblins appear anytime after having the Hero's Tunic as well as entering the Sealed Temple from the Sealed Grounds. They disappear after entering Faron Woods for the first time.
Alone, this Back in Time does not save time, but because you can defeat several bokoblins at once, you can combine this trick with unlocking the door inside Batreaux's house, allowing you to leave his house without needing to meet him normally the first time. This is useful because performing the Early Temple of Time Statue RBM allows you to meet Batreaux for the first time also, but it does not unlock the door to leave the house because the RBM is not performed on Skyloft, but in Lanayru Desert instead. The flag to unlock Batreaux's door is 8x40, and corresponds to defeating the Bokoblin nearest the archway to faron woods.
This method is best combined with Early Life Tree Seedling, but this means you have to go to the past a second time during the Faron SotH quest. Have your run file saved on Skyloft, and perform Early Life Tree Seedling, except you will want to start your file right before planting the seedling into the ground (instead of closing the textbox). This RBMs the Life Tree Seedling to be planted on Skyloft (temporary flag 0x02 or 0x04). After this, enter the Academy, talk to the Headmaster and Owlan. After talking to Owlan on Skyloft, turn around to look at the Pumpkin patch and you will be teleported to it. Get the Life Tree Seedling then clawshot up to the highest island and fly into the Sky to skip the Spiral Charge Tutorial.
Early Sky Keep is a glitch using BiT that allows you to open Sky Keep on any file. This requires the use of a premade file (that already has the stone of trials).
The glitch requires two things to be setup ahead of time:
With this setup, activate BiT. You must now load the Stone of Trials into BiT. Obtain a Heart, Stamina Fruit, or Rupee while the file with the Stone of Trials is selected (or if that file is in slot 3, you should not select a file). Now go to the statue where you place the Stone of Trials and stand just out of its range. Select the file you wish to open Sky Keep on, press start, and after about 1 second place the Stone of Trials in the statue. This will cause you to Reverse BiTWarp into the Sky Keep opening cutscene.
If done correctly, the Sky Keep opening cutscene will play on the file you just loaded, and you will spawn next to the statue in Skyloft with all the other information from your file intact. If the game crashes after this, then you placed the Stone of Trials too early after starting your file. Try to delay it a little more.
With this glitch, you can skip everything from opening the Gate of Time to entering Sky Keep, thereby bypassing all of the Song of the Hero quest and the Goddess's Silent Realm.
One caveat: while this glitch can be performed to open Sky Keep on a New Adventure or Hero Mode file, you will quickly dead end as Skyloft is set to a state where your loftwing cannot be rescued. Thus you will be stuck on Skyloft. If you wish to use this glitch, you should activate it from a save prompt after rescuing your loftwing.
To obtain the Peatrice crystal, one must talk to Peatrice in the Bazaar 6 times and Peater twice. However, each Peatrice convo must be separated by sleeping to morning, and the same goes for Peater. However, there are only 3 story flags for talking to Peatrice: Talking to Peatrice a 2nd time, a 4th time and a 6th time. The way the quest is made longer is by having a story flag set and unset depending if there have been an even or an odd number of convo. We will call this story flag the "Peatrice Switch". When you talk to Peatrice, the game checks the Peatrice Switch and unsets it if it was set, and sets it if it was unset. There is also a story flag that prevents more convos, which has to be unset by sleeping. We will call this the sleeping flag. Thus here is how Peatrice works:
Everything gets set upon pressing A to start talking to Peatrice. The sleeping flag is set on each convo as well.
Thus, here is a trick to skip sleeping after an even number of convo:
Follow the next steps:
This does not work with odd number of convos because it unsets the Peatrice Switch without setting the next story flag. Thus it would actually make you go back one convo.
After Zelda joins you in your quest to rescue your loftwing (after going through the waterfall cave), there is a small cutscene where Zelda sees and points at your Loftwing. That cutscene can be skipped with an incredibly precise jump-jumpslash. This is considered only worth it in a TAS.
It is possible to clip through the floor in the Practice Sword room of the Sparring Hall. Use a bomb to Highflip onto the bins of swords, then jump towards the crate. You should slowly land, and by moving around and using first person view, you can fall through the floor.
There is no known use for this trick, but it could lead to other clip ideas.
Enter Karane's room in the Knight Academy. Roll so that you clip partly into her desk chair, release the control stick, and mash A, and you should sit in the chair. When you stand up you'll end up on top of her desk. From there you can jump along her furniture to reach the wall next to Zelda's bed, where you can sleep. When you wake up, you can run into Zelda's room.
This trick is not useful for full game runs, because Zelda's door is locked and it's impossible to escape her room.
After watching the Wing Ceremony Cutscene, it is possible to escape from Owlan with a precise jump followed by a jumpslash to avoid having to jump into the Sky and perform the Wing Ceremony. Although this allows you to sleep to night early by sleeping in one of the houses past the bridge, this does not allow you to do the Fi Chase early and thus it is not useful. It is also slower than the Wing Ceremony Cutscene Skip in every way.
It is possible to do the Wing Ceremony more than one time. After obtaining the Sailcloth, save at the Upper Academy statue. Activate BiT (a Corrupt File is probably fastest). Perform a BiTSave using the Upper Academy statue to reach BiT Skyloft. Enter the goddess statue and immediately leave. When you dive off Skyloft, the Wing Ceremony will start again.
After you win, you'll do the Sailcloth skydive again, but nothing will happen when you land. You can then dive off Skyloft to do the Wing Ceremony again, and repeat this as many times as you want.
To escape from this, perform another BiTSave to reach BiT Skyloft and place the Emerald Tablet.
It is possible to skydive to the entrance from the platform near the statue of the goddess.
It is possible to enter Sky Keep without the use of the Clawshots using the Reverse BiTWarp technique. To do so, save your file either at the Skyview Boss Door Statue or at the Fire Sanctuary Overwolrd Bird Statue. Perform BiT and enter Orielle's house. Once inside the house, start your file and open the door leading to Skyloft outside. This will Reverse BiTWarp you to Skyloft and make you fall off the map. A Knight will save you and put you at the Sky Keep Entrance, allowing you to enter without Clawshots.
Perform the Spiral Charge Tutorial Skip, then place the Stone of Trials to make Sky Keep appear. This removes one of the sky loading zones, which allows you to fly your way to the Sky Keep entrance and dive to it, skipping the clawshots.
By jumping on top of the graves and into the void in a specific way, it is possible to be rescued by a knight past the shed door to Batreaux's house even if it's closed. This is useful to access Batreaux's house in Back in Time during the day if you don't have scene flag 5x02 on a file, which opens the shed, or a file that can fly around on Skyloft and jump off without triggering a loading zone into the Sky (see Faron BiT with Faron Pillar).