At he beginning of their training, Leon immediately had Shade sit down against the wall and told her to count her breaths until she got to 10000.
She was puzzled by this but she did it anyway. To ensure she wasn't doing anything too fast she made sure she was breathing at a controlled rate.
It was midday when Shade finished her breathing and when she told Leon she was done he said "Good, now go to 100000, you should probably start tomorrow because it will take a long time. You can stay in my guest room since you don't live here".
He lead her to the guest room and she went to sleep trying to figure out why he would have her sit in a corner and breathe when she wanted to learn to use a sword, she didn't think of an answer.
When Shade woke up she went out into the room she was breathing in before, sat down in the same place and started breathing again.
After five hours on her 50000th breath she got up and went to Leon.
"Why do you teach me how to count and breath when I ask how to use a sword" Shade asked in an annoyed tone.
"Would you rather stop at 10000 again" Leon asked in anticipation.
"Yes actually, that would make this much faster" she said in an annoyed pleading voice.
"Ok, go to 10000" he said.
Shade was stunned by this, she wasn't expecting him to actually let her lower the number.
She went back to the breathing room, that's what she calls it now, sat down tin the same place and started breathing again.
She finished after an hour and when she told Leon he said "maybe you can make it to 200000 now", he was completely serious "you've had double the practice you can make 200000 right.
Shade was very disappointed now "no I can't reach 200000 can it just be 100000 like before".
"How about 10000" he said impatiently.
Shade did not say anything and went back to the breathing room to breathe again.
After another hour it was getting late but she went and to told Leon she was done again and this time what he said didn't surprise her like the others, "this time go to 300000, most people get it right at 100000 but you can't even breathe. Your an elf so you live until your killed, you don't die of old age any human would have finished already without question, even though they don't have forever. You can't even waste ten hours to breathe 100000 breaths, your rushing and it's not going to work. You can stop when you get to 300000 while breathing at a normal pace".
It would take 30 hours to breathe that much at normal pace and she had to do it with no breaks so she ate a big dinner and went to sleep again, this time she knew why he had her do this. It was to teach her patience, he doesn't want someone fighting with a sword if they can't even wait for the right moment to attack. He had her breath to 10000 because he wanted her to get used to the idea of waiting and so when he said 100000 the next time she would be frustrated by it, he wanted her to continue waiting. "this time I'll get it right" she said to herself.
The next day she sat there for thirty hours just breathing and counting but this time she knew why, in a sword fight she will need to wate for the right moment to attack.
After thirty hours she told Leon she was done and she didn't believe what he said after, "now just count five breaths but this time don't think about anything while you count except breathing and counting".
It seemed easy enough but she was tired from not eating or sleeping for thirty hours so even though it was morning she ate a lot and went to bed.
She slept all day and the next morning she went back to the breathing room and started breathing again.
A few minutes later she went back to Leon and before she could say she was done he said "don't think about anything including about how you can't think, the only words in your head no matter how quiet can be the numbers one through five and if you think of anything you have to start over".
This time it seemed a little harder but all she really had to do was count to five seconds while breathing.
It was not actually that easy, it seemed like when Shade was told not to think all the thoughts were obvious in her mind and she thought of everything.
After two hours she had finally counted to two.
It took her another five hours to reach three.
By the end of the day Shade had only reached three and was getting impatient so to practice her patience she decided to count
her breaths until she fell asleep.
The next day she went back to the breathing room again and tried to get to five but it seemed like no matter how hard she tried not to think it was impossible.
By the end of the day she hadn't made any progress and was starting to give up, it felt like a complete waste of time but she thought she might have figured it out.
The next day Shade was breathing again and she had figured out how to reach five, this time it only took a few minutes. She decided to only concentrate on her breath and it was easy, she wasn't thinking about why Leon would ask this anymore.
When she told him she was done he said "do you know why I'm having you do this".
Shade didn't know why for both but she had figured out the first one but she shook her head anyway.
"I had you count to 300000 so you could practice patience because you can't fight without knowing to be patient but that's not important. The one where you count to five was much more important, in a sword fight you need to be able to put the patience to use but you can't get anywhere without being able to concentrate only on the fight, if you're thinking about something else in a sword fight you will probably die really quickly".
Shade wasn't sure if Leon realized that was hard to understand but she thought she understood it and said "what do I have to do next".
Leon shrugged and said "just take a break for now and I'll tell you tomorrow".
Shade went to eat breakfast and as weird as it sounds she didn't want to breathe anymore. Leon was a weird teacher but he was also a really good teacher so she was fine with that. Shade was looking forward to what she thought of as real sword training.