First steps

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Six months passed by in a flash, and Iono took his first steps. It was a funny sight. His parents were celebrating and saying that he was a genius, seeing he could walk in six months, and Iono didn't dislike it. In fact he had a smug grin on his face during the whole 10 steps.

Those six months were full of parental love for him, but he knew it was time for him to seriously start training. His channels were still not open, but his medium was almost done, and after that, opening them would be a walk in the park.

After a hefty celebration for the little genius's achievement, everybody but Iono fell asleep. He stayed up to open his channels, so he could finally begin the march to greatness.

"The medium is almost complete, just a bit more...", he thought to himself. The medium was in truth, a strand of energy that started from the core and lead to the heart, where all the mana channels met.

This strand would vibrate allowing energy passed through it, and send it from the core to the mana channels. Following that, the energy would follow the channels and flow throughout his body and that would mean that Iono would be at the Foundation stage. What he did for six months, is grow this stand, similar to a spider making a web. Now all he had to do, was connect it to the heart.

After a couple of hours of meditation, the strand finally touched the heart. Iono's heart started beating rapidly and he suddenly got goosebumps. Something inside him clicked, and a few moments later, he vomited a black substance that resembled tar, and his mana channels started beating energetically.

The tar substance was the reason the channels were closed before, and now he managed to expel it. The moment the channels opened he felt like he was submerged in a pristine lake, but breathing was much easier than before. His eyes reflected the moonlight coming through the window, and if someone paid attention to his small body, they would see, see-through, vein-like oddities, that stretched throughout his body, and beat rhythmically.

Iono felt the energy rushing throughout his body, and he felt the need to start exercising. He stood up and jumped of his crib, only to stumble and fall. But he didn't mind, he got right back up and started jumping on the spot.

He felt like he had eaten the most nutritious, but at the same time light, meal he had ever had, or like he had drank 50 cups of coffee, without feeling the following stomach ache.

He jumped and run around trying to deal with all the extra energy coursing through his tiny body. "Hahaha, I had forgotten this feeling! It feels so good... Damn I wish I could fight someone now, that would release all this energy. It time to get serious! ".

And as he said that he fell on all four and started doing something resembling push ups, only his body was tiny, and his strength even tinier, so it was more like an excuse for a disaster of a push up. He followed that by doing, the worst, and at the same time cutest, sit ups anyone had ever witness.

After a couple of hours of jumping around, he finally laid on the floor, with a relaxed smile on his face. "That felt nice... I guess this means I have to be serious about training from now on. It would be weird for a six months old baby to be seen exercising, so I can only do it at night, when no one is looking. Damn, this is going to be very tiresome!".

And so his everyday life started to drastically change. In the morning he would be woken up his parents, like usual, and eat a plentiful breakfast, so much in fact his parents started worrying that he would turn into a meatball.

Following that, he would fall asleep until dinner, when they would gather as a family and eat. Afterwards, everyone would go to sleep, and he would stay up all night doing physical exercises to strengthen his body, and make his first steps towards Flesh Tempering.