After a couple of days, Shi came upon Seizon as he was heading towards the castle. Behind Seizon was an army of at least a thousand men. Shi headed up to the front and fell in step with Seizon.
"Good job Seizon, I was expecting less than half this many," Shi said, making a coin-sized bit of mana visible as he rolled it around his hand. "Yeah, I was surprised too. Apparently when you repelled the Eikyo family's attack word spread throughout your land. The threat of the Eikyo family drew some away but there were a ton of people who wanted to join the ranks of a legend." Seizon replied.
"What numbers did we get?" Shi asked, flicking the mana coin into the air and having it explode in a puff of magic. "We have 1,000 footsoldiers, 500 future crossbowmen, 20 yellow-core mages, and 3 green-core mages," Seizon said, reading off a pad he was carrying.
"Good, can you bring the green-core mages up here?" Shi asked. Seizon nodded and brought three men up to the front. "Seizon, keep taking the men towards the castle. As for you three, come with me." Shi said, cracking his neck.
Shi put himself in zero gravity and floated up to look down at the surrounding area. He found a clearing a little ways away and put himself in normal gravity again, falling to the ground and leading the mages towards the clearing.
After they reached the clearing Shi turned to the three mages, "All three of you, try your best to kill me, right now." The mages looked at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. "Come on, I told you to attack me all at once, knock this hesitation shit off." Shi said annoyedly.
One of the mages lunged forwards, coalescing his mana into a sword that he swung at Shi. Shi copied the technique and batted the sword away, turning his body sideways to avoid a steel spike that another one of the mages had launched at him.
The third mage summoned a light spear, which he launched at Shi. Shi used the technique he had learned from the first mage to make a mana shield which he used to deflect the light spear.
Shi summoned a light spear of his own before launching it at one of the mages. The mage slowed the spear with a wall of earth, giving himself time to dodge out of the way.
Shi raised the gravity for the three mages to 5x. All but the mage who had used the mana sword slowed down a bit as they came back towards Shi. The mana sword mage created a bow out of mana and shot 3 arrows at Shi.
Shi absorbed the arrows' mana mid-flight and used that mana to raise a bit of the earth in front of the mage, tripping him as he continued to rush Shi. As the man fell, Shi absorbed most of his mana and brought earth over all of him but his face, trapping him.
The two other mages came in, one shooting a couple of light spears at Shi while the other shot a ton of tiny spikes at Shi. Shi dropped the earth beneath him down by about 6 feet, having himself fall below ground before sealing the hole.
Shi used air magic to keep himself breathing as he went below one of the mana signatures, dropping them into the hole with him. The man let out a little yelp as he fell and Shi grabbed him by the back of the neck, absorbing enough of his mana to render him helpless then leaving him in the hole as Shi resurfaced.
The last mage turned towards Shi, then promptly dropped the light spear. Shi nodded and brought the other two mages back up to their feet before releasing them from their prisons. "Good job, let's catch up with Seizon before he reaches the castle," Shi said, before bolting off towards the mass of troops.
Shi caught up with Seizon after a little while and fell in next to Seizon at the front. "Those guys weren't half bad, I just keep getting more and more impressed by what you did here. Oh yeah, by the way, when you get back send all of the mages to the mage trio, I'm turning them into my little mage unit." Before Seizon could respond, Shi disappeared from his sight in a cloud of dust.
Shi arrived at the castle a couple of days later, leaping the walls and heading back to his room to sleep. In the morning, Shi got up and went to the courtyard to check in on his men.
Daisan and Hyousuke were training the men in the courtyard. Shi went up to them and waved them over. "How's the training going?" Shi asked them, leaning his back against the outer wall. "We've got the men under our control now, how much longer before we head out?" Daisan asked.
"In a week or so, Seizon's coming with well over 1,000 men, when they get here we can head out. Just make sure the men are ready by then." Shi said, standing up straight and heading back towards the castle.
Shi looked around for a bit before finding the mage trio and their two new additions. "Daichi, I have 23 new recruits coming for you, 20 yellow cores and 3 green cores, I need you to get them under your control when they get here," Shi said.
Before he left, Shi flipped on his mana sense, Daichi's core was now at the blue stage, while everyone else was in the green stage. Shi smiled as he walked away, it was good to have strong people under his control.
Shi waited around for the next week, focusing on creating a new summon. This one was a black kite,(A type of bird) with dark brown feathers at the ends of its wings and lighter brown feathers covering the main body.
Seizon arrived before Shi finished making the base summon so Shi delayed the march until he finished on his summon. After a month, Shi looked up at a knock on his door. Seizon came in, panting "Young master, a scout just came carrying grave news."
Shi got up and sprinted towards the throne room. He leaped onto the throne as the scout was led in. "Speak." Shi commanded him. "My lord, there's a huge army approaching from the north, 10,000 men at least." The scout said.
"Give this man food and a bed, he's earned it." Shi told Seizon before he hopped off the throne to head towards the wall, it was time to test out his new toy.