Shi went to a quiet spot by the river and started to think. He could take the next village easily enough with the men he had, since he had the men of 2 villages and he only needed to take a single village. In order to take Castle Saiban however, Shi would need some new tricks. He thought back on Tsuyoi, who had nearly beaten him with lightning magic.
Shi thought that some new form of attack would help him out with dealing with the multiple yellow core mages that resided in the castle. Lightning would probably be the easiest to learn and would be extremely effective in battle. Shi could also spend the time to learn something like gravity magic since he already understood gravity and it could be useful in many situations.
Shi decided to learn lightning magic first, since he could probably learn it before reaching the next village and then learn gravity magic before taking Castle Saiban. Shi sat down and started to think about lightning. Lightning is just a build-up of electric charge that is transmitted down to the ground when it reaches a certain point.
The reason that it happens in dark clouds is because the ice particles in the clouds rub together and build up static electricity which is eventually transmitted to the ground in the form of lightning. Thinking about all of this, Shi willed his mana to build up a charge, letting it grow and grow, then directed it at a boulder nearby.
In the blink of an eye, a hole appeared in the boulder and a few trees behind the boulder suddenly had a few holes in them as well. "Holy sh*t!" Shi exclaimed, surprised by the effectiveness of the blast on his first attempt. The attack drained nearly all of Shi's mana so he took a rest. He practiced lightning magic for the remaining month while his men were training and then went to the barracks to round them up.
"Alright men, we're going out to the last village before we turn our attention towards Castle Saiban." With that, Shi and the men headed out. On the way to the new village, Shi kept practicing lightning magic. By the day before they reached the village, Shi could make a lightning wolf that looked similar to a Raiju in a few seconds.
He could also shoot a lightning bolt in a little over a second. Shi had broken into yellow-core while practicing so the drain on his mana was negligible. News had traveled to the village about how Shi had taken the last village so Shi took his men down the main road to the village and saw the barricades that the villagers had put up. Shi made an earth bear alongside a lightning wolf and had them tear down the obstructions.
After a minute, all of the barricades had been torn down. Shi took his men into the village and had his earth bear and lightning wolf spread out in order to defend against attacks from both sides. "This village is mine now, either give me some men and swear fealty to me or come out so I can kill enough of you idiots for you to take me seriously." Shi called out to the seemingly empty village.
After he said that, some people came out of their houses and swore fealty to him on the spot. A few ran off to fetch the town's mayor. When the mayor was brought to Shi, he swore fealty and gave Shi 20 infantrymen. "Why in the h*ll are we abiding by this little pipsqueak's demands?" A heavily muscled man said, coming to the middle of town square. Shi handed his bow to Daisan, rubbing his temples.
"They couldn't just make this peaceful could they?" Shi said under his breath. "Alright then, I'll show you why you should do what I asked." Shi said, shaking his head and drawing his karambit. The man drew a sword and took a few seconds to summon an earth troll and an ice bear, both twice as tall as Shi. Shi sent his earth bear to take on the man's earth troll and pit his lightning wolf against the man's ice bear. The earth bear tackled the earth troll to the ground, taking a bite out of its throat.
The earth troll responded by ripping off one of the earth bear's legs with its bare hands. The ice bear charged at the lightning wolf, but its bite met only air as the wolf nimbly sidestepped the bear, biting a chunk out of the ice bear's hind leg. The earth bear and the earth troll eventually tore each other to pieces, the earth bear biting off chunks of the troll while the troll tore off chunks of the bear.
Shi charged the man, bringing along a tornado construct filled with water that he magically spun faster, making the water basically as hard as concrete. As he closed the distance to half, his lightning wolf finished off the ice bear, the bear had simply been too slow to stop the wolf from whittling it down. The wolf joined Shi in his charge.
The man hurriedly sent out another ice bear, along with a fire phoenix and an earth troll. Shi sent a few lightning bolts at the earth troll, shooting holes in all of its limbs so it couldn't move while his typhoon slammed into the phoenix, extinguishing it and barreling into it so hard it exploded. The ice bear roared, the last line of defense for the man trying to intimidate Shi.
Shi activated war cry and charged the bear himself. The bear raised a paw to try and slash at Shi but as the paw came down Shi cut it off. Shi feinted a slash at the bear's other paw and then rolled under the bear. Before the bear could fall on him, Shi slit its throat and summoned a medium-sized mountain under it, throwing it a little ways away from him.
Before the man even processed what had happened, he was dead, throat slit by Shi. Shi released his magic, and the animals and typhoon vanished. "I'll be expecting the men tomorrow," He told the mayor. "don't try and send men to kill me, I hate killing needlessly." With that Shi turned and left the village.
The next day, the men arrived and Shi took them back to his village. He put the men in the barracks and told them to train in what he had taught them and if they had already mastered that, then to practice magic. "In 6 months to a year, we take Castle Saiban." Shi told his men. With that, Shi headed out to learn gravity magic.