Shi sent one of the castle's guards to get their previous leader as he headed inside the castle proper. He made it to the dining hall and had one of the cooks get him some food. While Shi was eating, the guard came in with another guard in a slightly different uniform and a pudgy man in silk clothes.
"Ah, you must be the captain of the guard," Shi said to the guardlike man, completely disregarding the other man. "Yes sir," The captain said, giving Shi a slight bow. "My name is Hyousuke." "What can you do?" Shi asked. "I'm a yellow core mage with full element mastery and a created spell that turns my body as hard as stone. I also have some degree of skill in swordsmanship."
Shi looked around until he found an open spot in the room, "Let's go over there real quick." Shi said, leading the captain over to the spot. "Attack me." Shi said, readying himself. Hyousuke drew his sword and lept towards Shi. Shi didn't use war cry and looked for openings to attack as he dodged Hyousuke's attacks.
He found a few but they all involved tight timing and a lot of risk. After a little while of dodging Hyousuke's spells and strikes, Shi knocked Hyousuke's hand to the side as he brought his sword down and slid in close, using the step inside to add power to a hook aimed for Hyousuke's throat.
Hyousuke's eyes widened as he noticed Shi's sudden attack. He closed his eyes in anticipation of his death but it never came. He opened his eyes to see Shi's fist held an inch from his throat.
"Good," Shi said, taking his hand away from Hyousuke's throat. "Your swordsmanship is excellent and you're strong in magic." "Thank you." Hyousuke said, following Shi. They sat down and Shi went back to eating his food.
"What about me?" The fancifully dressed man asked, a strange gleam in his eye. Shi looked up at him, "What's your name?" A look of confidence stole over the man's face, "I am Eito Eikyo, 5th son of Hikaru Eikyo, cousin and right-hand man of the current Emperor."
Shi smiled, "Would your father recognize you by sight?" he asked. "Of course, I am his son aft-" Eito's words were cut short with a loud crunch as Shi slammed his fist into Eito's throat so hard it went through his windpipe and crushed his brain stem, killing him instantly.
Shi turned to the guard, "Find Seizon, Daisan, and a scout." The guard, glad for an excuse to get out of the room, ran off to fetch the people Shi had asked for. "Why did you do that?" Hyousuke asked. "I'm going to end up against the Eikyo family anyways, so I want to be known as the man who picked a fight against the Eikyo's rather than just another one of their targets.
I already have military strength, supplies, and the loyalty of my men as long as I keep winning. But what I don't have, is reputation. I want people to tremble when they see who's arrived at their gates. I want people to join my armies without me having to seek them out. With this message I'm about to send, people will take an interest in my fight with the Eikyo's.
If I keep winning, I'll be the guy who's successfully beating the Eikyo's consistently. That alone will help me out tremendously. And it's not like I'm risking anything here either, I've already killed one member of their family and I'm taking their land, they would've come after me soon enough anyway."
Shi turned to the door as Daisan, Seizon, and a man in armor came through. "Ah good, you've arrived. You scout, take this to Hikaru Eikyo and tell him that Shi Saisei murdered both his son and his nephew." Shi said, grabbing Eito by the hair and setting his foot on Eito's body. Shi pulled hard, and Eito's head came off with a crunch and a wet pop.
The scout stood dumbfounded for a second, then saw Shi staring at him so he grabbed the head and sprinted out of the room. "Daisan, Seizon, meet Hyousuke, our newest general. He's a yellow core with one unique spell." Shi said, turning back to his food. Hyousuke bowed to the two men and they bowed back.
"Daisan, I want you to show Hyousuke around our army and teach him everything he needs to know about how to handle our men. Since you have an archery background I'll leave all of the archers under your control, Hyousuke will handle the infantry." Shi said in between mouthfuls. Daisan and Hyousuke bowed, before leaving the room.
"Seizon, I need you to find someone loyal to me here who is fit to handle affairs here when we head out. You have some time to figure it out so don't rush it." Shi said, stretching. "Of course," Seizon said, bowing smoothly and leaving the room.
Shi woke up the next morning and headed downstairs to look for his new apprentices. Shi had been thinking about how to increase his mana reserves outside of just core enhancements. His core was starting to show light blue cracks, so he would get extra reserves soon anyways, but he wanted a way to deal with extended fights against multiple strong mages without running out of mana.
Shi found the three mages and took them out to the courtyard. "Attack me at full power, go for the kill." He said, and the mages obliged, bringing out multiple elemental summons. Shi brought out his lightning wolf and it charged into the melee. The wolf was jumping around through the fight, taking small shots at the other summons.
Shi felt the other mage's mana, he went along with how it flowed and studied how it connected to their summons. There were little strings of mana that went from them to their summons. Shi looked at his and saw that his summons had those strings as well, but also had mana coursing throughout its body while theirs didn't.
Shi looked at the mages and saw that they were incredibly focused, he didn't feel them making a spell so what could they be focused on? It came to him in an instant, they had to manually control their summons while Shi could make his summons fight autonomously.
Shi pushed this revelation aside as he focused back in on their mana. He focused intently on it and diverted a tiny little stream of mana from the river coursing through one of the mage's body. He made that stream of mana flow into him and felt himself absorb it. Excited, he drained harder on the mage's mana, making her river flow straight into himself.
He felt his reserves completely replenish as the mage collapsed to the ground, gasping. Shi quickly knocked the other two mages to the ground with wind magic and rushed over to the downed mage. He felt her pulse and saw that it was steadily declining. Shi made his mana flow into her core slowly. After a few seconds, here pulse stabilized. Shi pumped some more mana into her before standing up.
"You guys are too attached to your summons, you spent the whole fight focusing on nothing other than them. All I had to do was neutralize your summons, then you guys were wide open. Give your friend all day today to rest, in the meantime, practice using the elements as elements, not summons. We'll do this again tomorrow morning." With that, Shi walked back into the castle to grab some food.