Shi walked into the castle, mind racing. He had nearly killed someone while only gaining mana from it. How far could he take it? There was also the fact that his summons were different from theirs, but that seemed to just be a difference in experience since other mages had summons who seemed to act like Shi's summons.
He had also been able to sense the exact flow of their mana, allowing him to see exactly what they were trying to do. Shi searched for Hyousuke, getting excited as he went. He found him together with Daisan. "Hyousuke, do your stoneskin spell for me." Shi called out as he sprinted towards them. Hyousuke looked up in surprise, and after a second activated his stoneskin.
Shi closed his eyes and felt how Hyousuke's mana flowed around his body. Shi moved his mana to mirror Hyousuke's flow. Shi felt a coldness flow through him after a second. "Hyousuke, attack me" Shi ordered. Hyousuke threw a punch at Shi only for it to be stopped on Shi's chest with no damage done.
"What?" Hyousuke asked nobody in particular. "I copied your spell." Shi stated, then sprinted down to the grain storage in the castle. He sat down in there and waited for a while. After a few minutes, a rat poked his head out. Shi grabbed ahold of the rat with his telekinesis and brought it in front of him.
Shi closed his eyes and sensed the rat's minuscule supply of mana. Shi absorbed all of the rat's mana slowly, watching the rat closely. The rat slowly fell over, then shriveled up until only a wrinkled sack remained.
Shi stayed down there and practiced finding the rats by their mana rather than sight. After he found each one he sucked them dry of mana before adding them to a growing pile of shriveled rat corpses.
Shi came back up after what seemed only a few hours and went to go get some food. As he sat down to eat he saw the three yellow core recruits head towards his table. "Where have you been?" the broad man asked, "It's been a week." "I've been in the cellar," Shi said, trying to contain his growing excitement. "Go to the courtyard, I'll meet you guys out there after I finish eating." Shi returned to eating his food.
He had lasted a week with no food or water. Somehow draining the rats of mana had kept him going. It had only lasted for a week before Shi had to eat but that was still impressive. He imagined that it could last longer if he had better sources of mana to absorb.
Shi went out to the courtyard and smiled at them. "Now, let's see what you've learned, no summons this fight. Now come on." The three launched a different element at Shi. Shi thought about using stoneskin to just block it but he felt that might be cheating so he brought up an earthen wall to block the attacks.
Shi closed his eyes and focused on the mana flowing through the mages. While it wasn't as effective as his normal vision, yet he could still sense what the mages were doing. The woman and the thin man combined one's fire with the other's wind and sent a fiery tornado towards Shi while the broad man launched a boulder at Shi with earth magic.
Eyes still closed, Shi integrated wind magic spinning the opposite direction of the tornado, tearing it apart, while slowly pushing against the boulder with water before gently bringing it to a stop to his right.
The three mages combined their water magic together, launching a tsunami at Shi. Shi brought up a giant ramp that brought the water up and had it crash back on itself. Shi absorbed all of the mana within the tsunami, making it evaporate out of existence.
Suddenly, Shi felt the center of his chest grow hot, he felt like he was gonna explode. He had absorbed too much mana, he had to release it. He felt the pressure building within him, threatening to tear him to pieces.
Shi released all of the mana within him into the air with a blast of wind. Insanely high powered wind knocked the three mages to the ground as the wind skyrocketed upwards. All of the clouds in the sky were destroyed by the wind, leaving a perfectly blue sky.
Shi stood up, drawing enough mana from the mages to make them unable to attack him while restoring some of his mana reserves. The green shell around his core had shattered, leaving behind a bright blue mana core so the mana he stole didn't even begin to refill it.
"That was much better than last time, create whatever unique spell you want and then come back for another session." Shi said, walking back to the castle to get some sleep. Shi continued honing his mana sense and mana drain on the critters in the castle over the next couple of months.
One day, a rider appeared at the gate asking for an audience. Shi waited in the throne room for the man to be escorted to him. The man came in, holding a bag and a letter. The man was wiry, with long black hair and a hard look about him. He threw the bag to the floor at Shi's feet.
Shi waved to one of the guards and the guard brought the bag to Shi. Inside was the severed head of the scout Shi had sent to the Eikyo's head. "I have come to declare your death. Your life became forfeit once you killed a member of the Eikyo family. This scout had it easy compared to how you will die." The scout said loudly, grinning.
"You know, you could've at least been original. You guys just copied what I did to Eito. I mean, you could've at least took out his eyes or something, this is just plagiarism." Shi said, shaking his head. "Your declaration means nothing other than your as much a fool as the scout I sent was. Don't you realize that the person who delivers bad news to the enemy almost always dies? Why do you think I sent a disposable scout like you?" Shi said.
The scout gulped, sweat appearing on his brow. "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you." Shi said, "I just want you to deliver a message back to your masters. Tell them that I'll forgive their impertinence if Hikaru kneels before me and begs for forgiveness." The scout's jaw dropped at Shi's words, but he collected himself and left.
"Are you sure this is a wise idea?" Seizon asked. "Yes," Shi replied, "I want them so angry at me that they don't think before they act. They'll probably send an army here after the scout returns."
"How is that a good thing?" Seizon asked incredulously. "We have months to prepare for a single army's invasion, these are the most favorable odds we'll ever get against the Eikyo family. Besides, it'll be fun to crush them." Shi said, smiling. "Anyways, we better get ready for invasion." Shi said, getting up and heading for the door. "These wars don't just fight themselves you know."