Shi returned to the castle, thinking about new abilities that could be of help to him. He needed something to make people back down so he didn't need to waste men. Shi thought back to his previous life to find something to terrify people. There were plenty of horror stories and urban legends that were creepy, but none were outright scary to look at.
Then, Shi thought about the grim reaper, a skeletal figure in a hooded robe with a scythe that was thought to kill people and take their souls. The figure was often shrouded in darkness or shadows. Shi had started to get used to controlling mana over his new life so it didn't take too long to make a mini robed skeleton with a scythe to appear in his palm.
Shi looked at the figure, while it could be scary if it was larger there were improvements that could be made to its terror factor. Shi started by making its eyes glow blood-red. Shi then made the robe more tattered so it looked as old as time while hiding all of the skeleton's face except for it's glowing eyes. He also left the arms bare from the cloak.
Shi then added skeletal bat-wings to the back of his mini-reaper, having them break through the back of the robe. Shi changed one of the grim reaper's arms to have the bone overlap each other with sharp jagged pieces of bone making it look like an arm made of bone scales. Shi did a similar job with the hand, giving it bone talons.
For the other arm, Shi covered most of it with tattered black cloth, with rips through them showing the bone beneath it. For the hand, Shi put a giant gauntlet on the hand, with talons like foot-long swords for fingers and a black shiny skull on the palm, with the whole glove being a purple so dark it was nearly black which matched the cloak perfectly.
With the reaper itself situated, Shi turned to the reaper's weapon. Shi brought the blade a bit behind the head of the shaft. He then elongated the blade on the other side, curving it wickedly. He changed the point from a single point to a 2 pronged tip, with two points that were more suited to ripping than slicing. He then put hundreds of skulls seemingly frozen in their screams on the flats of the blade, embedded into the blade so they were clearly seen, but not sticking out more than half an inch out of the flat of the blade.
Satisfied, Shi headed towards the old conference room, there he found Seizon. "Seizon, I need you to bring me whoever is arming our archers as soon as possible," Shi said. With a quick nod, Seizon rushed out of the room and returned about 30 minutes later with a strong-looking man in tow.
Shi grabbed one of the pieces of parchment and a feather quill and beckoned the 2 men to come closer. "I need you to make a bow like this," Shi said, drawing a sideways bow on a thick shaft of wood. "That's just inefficient." The blacksmith said. Shi continued drawing, from what he remembered from his history studies about old warfare, crossbows were like bows that were stretched further than a normal person could accomplish while keeping accuracy since the string was held by a catch.
Shi drew the catch and the trigger, pointing out how the trigger should let the catch release the string without throwing off the shooter's aim by not having too much contact with the string as it was released. "Make an effective prototype that shoots harder and more accurately than a bow than distribute it to the archers and teach them how to use the prototypes. We'll call it a crossbow." Shi said. With that, the blacksmith nodded and headed out of the room.
"Where did you get this idea?" Seizon asked, turning towards Shi. "Maybe I'll tell you one day," Shi said, turning and leaving the room. Shi went to the woods with his kunai and decided to improve his war cry and knife throwing skills at the same time. Shi focused on improving the speed of his nerves and synapses, trying to improve his reaction speed.
Shi put three-quarters of his mana into improving every aspect of his war cry while using the other quarter to improve his new grim reaper summon's size and strength. He did all of this while practicing throwing his kunai from any angle while dodging and moving around. Shi went into all of his senses with his war cry, giving him the sight of a hawk, the nose of a bloodhound, the ears of a bat, and a sense of taste and touch so refined he could sense the slight sir movements from his knives and could taste the forest around him, making it so Shi could still fight effectively without the ability to see.
One day while Shi was training, he felt a small explosion in his chest, the pain was nearly unbearable, but the rush of power was even more powerful. Suddenly, Shi's grim reaper summon doubled in size, now towering over even the tallest men, and Shi's war cry increased it's effectiveness so much that the knives Shi threw seemed to move at the pace of a leisurely stroll.
Shi sprinted towards the castle, watching the terrain zip by at incredible speeds as he nimbly dodged every stray branch and root in his way. Shi felt alive for the first time since he had taken the castle as he leaped over the wall, performing a triple frontflip simply because he could.
Shi found Seizon and Daisan and sat down to have a drink with them. In the time Shi had been training, he had finally turned 10. Shi nearly laughed as he realized all of the stuff he had done through the lens of a 10-year-old doing it. It was just too ridiculous. "Daisan, are the men trained in how to use a crossbow?" Shi asked, receiving a nod in response, "Good because now we start expanding towards the main island." Shi then turned to Seizon "Thank you for taking care of the day-to-day business around the castle." Shi said, "Of course, it's what I'm here for." Seizon said bowing.
"Alright then," Shi said, standing up, "Gather the men at the front gate Daisan, once they all arrive, we march north to take our next castle." With that, Shi left the room and headed for the gate.