Shi was too injured to do any physical training for a while so he decided to focus on improving his core while learning a new type of magic. After the battle, Shi's core had almost reached the green stage.
Shi sat down and wondered what type of magic he should learn. He had plenty of magic for attacking but he didn't have enough multipurpose magic. Shi thought back to his previous life where telekinesis was prevalent in stories.
Telekinesis would help with both mundane activities and in battle. It also should be relatively simple to learn since magic's just an extension of one's will. Shi got up and headed out to the castle stables.
There was a stable boy cleaning the stables when Shi walked in. The stable boy jumped when he saw Shi and quickly kneeled so fast there was an audible crack as his knees popped. "You can calm down, I'm only here for a couple of horses," Shi said, hiding a smile. The stable boy immediately fetched 2 horses for Shi, one brown with white socks and a white diamond on its forehead and the other one pure black.
Shi thanked the stable boy and led the horses out of the castle gates before mounting the black one. On the ride to the village, Shi tried willing objects to move. After only a few hours, Shi was able to move small objects, although it cost a hefty amount of mana.
Shi continued practicing on the ride, juggling small stones in the air with nothing but his mind. He eventually made it to the village and entered the forest. Shi knocked on the door of the house he had made his parents. His father opened the door, the knife Shi had given him in a shaking hand.
He calmed down when he saw it was Shi, "Thank god it's you, how are you?" He asked Shi. "Things are great," Shi replied, "Will you fetch mom real quick so we can go?" "Sure," Toishi said, walking inside and calling for Shi's mother.
On the ride back to the castle, Shi explained the events for the past couple of years. His parents looked at him in amazement at his accomplishments. Shi kept practicing his telekinesis on the ride while explaining.
"What are your plans now?" Shi's mother asked him. "I'm going to expand throughout Japan and then I'll go from there," Shi replied. "But why?" Kea asked, "We're safe so why would you want to expand further, nobody would dare come after us now that you have a castle."
Shi thought about his mother's words, she was right when she had said that Shi's original purpose for taking land had been fulfilled. However, Shi hadn't remembered feeling as alive as when he took the castle than he ever had in either of his lives. Also, Shi enjoyed owning a castle and wearing actually comfortable clothes for once.
"In for a penny, in for a pound," Shi muttered under his breath. "What?" Kea asked. "Nothing, just an old saying." Shi said, "I'm not going to stop mom, this is only the beginning, I'm not going to chain myself to one territory when I know I can achieve more."
Kea looked sad but she said nothing for the rest of the ride to the castle. By the time they made it there, Shi was juggling rocks the size of a full-grown man casually with his telekinesis. This display shocked the guards at the gate but once they realized who he was they calmed down and let him through.
Shi split up from his parents as they were led to the castle while Shi went to find Seizon. When Shi found Seizon he asked Seizon to find Shi a forge and to bring Daisan. Shi was working on something at the forge in the castle when Seizon came in with Daisan in tow.
"Daisan I understand you have some ability with magic don't you?" Shi asked, not turning from his work. "Yes, young master," Daisan said, bowing his head slightly. "I need you to learn this spell I'm about to teach you, and then find anybody in our army that can use magic and teach it to them as well," Shi told him and then went through how to use war cry. Shi didn't need to worry about Daisan using it against him since he would receive a weaker version because he wasn't finding out how to do it on his own, making the spell weaker for him and Shi's soldiers.
Daisan bowed and left with Seizon so Shi turned back to the forge, he had been thinking about his fight with Kaunto. Those thoughts led Shi to realize that he would need something extra for his later fights. For that purpose, Shi was making kunai to give himself a way to compete with strong fighters at medium ranges.
After he made 10 of them, Shi headed to the training grounds Daisan had set up at the castle barracks. He tried throwing the kunai at the targets set up there and only one of them even hit the wood, at it hit the wood handle first bouncing off.
Shi decided to switch up the type of throw he was attempting. He was trying to throw the knife to where it would hit the wood blade first while spinning. Shi tried throwing the knives with no spin after he gathered the knives. It ended up being harder than the previous throw, with none of the knives even hitting the wood.
Shi tried throwing the knives side-arm while limiting the spin on them. If Shi threw them with spin, it would be easy for anyone with speed and reaction enhancements to just move to a place where the knives would hit them handle first. The side-arm throw left one of the knives embedded in the wooden targets.
With that, Shi started practicing throwing the kunai side-armed. He practiced his kunai skills for 8 hours a day and telekinesis for another 8 hours before sleeping and then practicing again the next day. After a month Shi had reached the point where he could consistently bullseye the targets with the kunai and his telekinesis cost almost no mana, even while lifting human-sized objects. It was time for phase 2 of preparations.