Shi left Oshieru's house and settled down on top of a small hill in sight of his house so his parents wouldn't worry about him and started thinking. Earth is a lot more complex than water, water moves swiftly and flows around any obstacle, slowly destroying anything in its path.
Earth however, doesn't move, it stays there. It forces everything to abide by its will and move around it. If water is an unstoppable force, then earth would be the immovable object that water constantly clashes with. Earth is made up of millions of different types of dirt, minerals, and corpses.
Everything that dies is eventually returned to the earth, no matter what people try to do. Water may bring life and death, but earth is where life comes from and death returns to. Earth is the godfather of the world, forming its core and thus strengthening the entire planet.
It has many forms, but they are all already formed, unlike water which is formless and wishes to assume one, making it easy to control. Earth wants to stay in the form it's in, and will mightily resist those who try to change it. Throughout Shi's musings, 9 months had passed. Now he was ready to try and move the earth.
He reached out to a small bit of earth and overpowered its resistance to him. After this was done, the earth moved easily into whatever shape Shi wanted, it seemed the challenge in forcing earth to do his bidding was front-loaded, if you could overpower the earth's will at the beginning, it was nearly as malleable as water but 10 times stronger.
Shi summoned as much earth as he could using this method, resulting in a 3 foot (approximately 0.91 meters) thick earth sphere that Shi turned into a grizzly bear. He made the grizzly bear roar and slice a claw at a boulder, it dug in a solid 2 feet (approximately 0.61 meters) into the boulder.
Shi then tried to instead of changing the earth, make it do what it did naturally, except supercharging it so it was done incredibly fast. He sunk his mind into the ground in front of him and made it think there was a fault line there. He then willed the sections of earth there to be like tectonic plates, and had them slam into each-other much harder than the earth usually did.
Immediately, a 15 foot (approximately 4.57 meters) mountain sprouted out of the earth in front of Shi, spraying dirt everywhere. This was Shi's limit to this form of controlling earth, it seemed that it would be most useful for defending against strong attacks, but you needed time to form an attack of your own with earth magic. Shi practiced the dominating form of controlling earth for the rest of the 3 months he had left for this since it would increase the amount of earth he could control the fastest.
When the time had come to go back to Oshieru's house, Shi was able to summon a 10 foot (approximately 3 meters) sphere and turn it into a grizzly bear that could slash through the whole small boulder in 2 slashes. This took him a minute to summon the earth needed for it however, so it was inefficient in most battles. However, he could summon a 50 foot (15.24 meters) tall mountain nearly instantly, though after he did that he couldn't use magic again for that day.
When he showed this to Oshieru, Oshieru was dumbstruck. "I never would have thought to use earth like that, you have out-classed me in earth magic, what an absolutely f*cking incredible job! Your intellect is sharp as a razor, that will serve you well." Oshieru praised Shi. "Thank you Master Oshieru" Shi said humbly, basking in his praise. "Now, you will learn to master fire magic," Oshieru ordered. "Be wary however, fire is a completely different beast than water or earth.
Earth and water are natural to everyone and are easy to explain. Fire however, is a mystery, few know why it does what it does. It's a mystery to the wide world, I myself failed this step, which is why I'm merely a decent wizard who is called on by those too poor to go to Ms. Shiryoku for help. Your family are the only ones who see me as anything other than a disposable tool only used because they can't afford a more useful one.
If you learn fire and wind magic, then I will send you over to Ms. Shiryoku so you can learn from a true magician." Shi sat there, listening intently to Oshieru's story. He didn't feel bad for the man, it was the natural order of things for those who were weak to be passed over for another who is stronger. If Shi had to choose between the masterwork of the fighting knife he had made and a duller, worse knife, he would chose his knife every time.
Even if the bad knife was his own creation he would still take the better knife in a heartbeat. Shi would do everything in his power to become one of the strong, and if he was passed over, he would find who was chosen over him, get stronger than him, and utterly destroy him publicly. He would humiliate those who passed over him and destroy those who were stronger than him.
Shi left Oshieru's house then, heading home. When he got there, he saw his father crying in the living room. He rushed over, he may not care about Oshieru, but this was family. He would be d*mned if he let anybody f*ck with his family. "What happened?" Shi asked his father while quivering with rage.
"While I was out at the forge somebody came over and took Kea away." Toishi said, sobbing. "Who." Shi said, his rage internalizing, leaving him devoid of emotion, ready to enact vengeance. "His name is Mubona Unmei, he owes me money so he's trying to ransom my wife to me to both clear his debt and become his slave." Toishi had completely broken down now, he was curled up into a ball sobbing. "I'll be back in a bit dad." Shi said, but Toishi was to far gone to hear.