Shi sat down across from the men, turning on his mana sense. The 8 people who weren't the Eikyo brothers were all blue-core mages, but they were all in their 30's or older. The Eikyo brother who hadn't spoken yet was also a blue-core mage.
The one who had spoken, Shi assumed that he was the Akio person the soldier had mentioned, had a purple glow in his chest. "So, why did you come here?" The purple-core man asked.
"I'm just here to scope you guys out," Shi said casually, leaning back in his chair. Everyone except for Akio summoned a different magic attack and stood up. Shi looked around, disappointed. None of the spells were new to him.
Shi stared at Akio and absorbed the mana from the other mage's spells, making them wink out. "I'm not here to fight, that's for whenever you decide to attack my land. I'm just here to talk. We'll have plenty of time to kill each other later." Shi said, keeping his gaze locked on Akio.
Akio raised his hand, calling off the mages. "So, what did you come here to talk about?" Akio asked. "Oh, I just wanted to learn more about your family, do you have tea?" Shi said, relaxing back in his seat.
Akio bristled at the mention of his family, but he waved a man over and sent him off for tea. "So, what happens when I kill all of you?" Shi said, sipping down some tea. Shi used a bit of magic to evaporate the tea as he drank it, just in case it was poisoned.
"You won't, you're going to die soon," Akio said flatly. "Yeah yeah, but hypothetically, if I do kill all of you, what happens next?" Shi asked, faking another sip of his tea. "My father would send his firstborn to kill you, and if that happened, not even god himself could save you." Akio said, smiling at the thought.
"Oh, he's that strong is he?" Shi asked. "Yeah, whenever we trained all of us brothers teamed up against him. We never even got close to beating him. As far as I know, the only person in this country who is stronger than my brother is my father." Akio said, taking a sip of his tea.
"Thanks for the tea and the chat, I'll be heading back now," Shi said, standing up and stretching. Everyone around the table brought up a spell, including Akio. "I can't just let you go, the only reason I tolerated your questions was because I knew I was going to kill you." Akio said, holding a lightning bolt in his hand.
"Oh?" Shi asked, a smile forming on his face. "You killed my brothers, do you seriously think that I would just let you walk out of here?" Akio asked, gathering more power into his lightning bolt. "I guess not, I'm just curious about what you're gonna do to stop me," Shi said casually.
"You drank my tea, you won't be able to use magic for at least 4 hours. Now, die." Akio said, raising his hand and shooting the lightning bolt at Shi. Shi raised an earth wall to block the lightning bolt before draining the mana from the other mage's spells, turning that mana into a countless amount of mana needles, which he sent outwards in every direction.
"My god," Shi said, looking at his hands in mock surprise "I'm afraid your puny poison has no effect on me," Shi gave Akio a wave before dashing out of the room before any of the mages could realize what had happened.
Shi made it back to the castle and hopped over the wall before running to the back of the castle. He activated his stealth spell and lept over the back of the wall before heading back towards Akio's camp.
After he reached the camp, Shi snuck past the men and went towards the back of the camp. In the very back of the camp, Shi found the cannons that he had seen on his initial scouting flight with his kite summon.
Shi snuck past the men guarding the area and went to the first cannon. Shi used his steel magic to seal off the hole where gunpowder would go in at the bottom. When he finished, the cannon looked untouched but if someone tried to use it, the gunpowder would destroy the back of the cannon without launching the cannonball.
The first cannon taken care of, Shi moved on the other cannons and did the same to them as well. After he finished tampering with the cannons, Shi quickly left before anyone could notice him.
Shi hopped over the gates and retired to his chambers in the castle. As he sat on his bed his mind was racing, the fact that there were cannons complicated things. Shi had thought that he was in a pre-gunpowder age, but that was obviously not the case now.
Shi was impressed with himself when he gave his men crossbows but that didn't even matter. The only reason that his men hadn't known about them was that he wasn't in Europe. At least some of Akio's men probably had guns, albeit shitty ones so things were going to be a bit more difficult that Shi had thought.
Shi laid down, it didn't really matter, as long as Shi won then the fact that Akio had guns would only help Shi out in the long run. Shi thought about the world, there were guns, cannons, and siege resistant castles around. However, there were no advanced weaponry that he knew of so it couldn't be too much farther than the 1500-1600s.
Shi hopped out of bed and searched around until he found Seizon. "Seizon, who's Shogun right now?" Shi asked quickly when he saw Seizon in the dining hall. "Hidetada," Seizon answered after thinking for a second. "Thanks," Shi said before heading back to his bed.
Shi smiled, Tokugawa Hidetada was Shogun from 1605 to 1623 so he had to be somewhere in that timespan, putting him in the Edo Period. Curiosity satisfied, Shi went to his bed and quickly fell asleep.