I mean the prologue and the emperor both state Qilin are most skilled with fire bending. They either have pronounced difficulty with other things or unable to experiment.
The Kitsune do illusions, and illusion symbolism tends toward temporary or short-term duration. Sure you get things like 'mythical [Insert Place Here]' being shrouded by stable, constant illusions, but that material to be beyond the scope of individual or average practicers. Therefore, our advisor would not be able to do something to help test full immersion. The illusion would break on touch, and he's only above average not say a extraordinary master or grandmaster at the trade.
Our tanuki advisor would understand how magic affects a body, yet Orichalcum is a new material. Any research into this ore would be a new field for him as well as the known world. Likewise, he would not be able to make an enchanted object for us to use per-say. He could probably point out less than noticeable magic things based on how that object effects a body.
Kappas got killed, so no magic there. Actually, it would be surprising if any survived since someone brought up that villainous or evil interpretations of kappa tend to steal children. Qilin have low fertility, so children are very rare and probably cherished more so. Kappas being a weird evil threaten those children, so Qilin as well as other species go,'Purge the Heretic
Oni might be focused on physical energy like the tanuki. I don't know, but they're experimenting with Civilization right now which implies they might not carry to experiment with magic.
