This will do!

The sun rose from the east, signaling the beginning of another day. The window in Iono's room, let the sunlight in, and directly on Iono's face. The orange of the sunlight illuminated the green of the forest and created a magical scene.

Iono woke up with drowsy eyes, clearly lacking sleep. One look at his body and one could tell that he lacked nutrition too. After washing his face, he proceeded to the kitchen, where his mother was cooking breakfast with a face full of thought. Iono guessed that it had to do with yesterday, and put on his best smile while hugging her from behind.

"Morning mom! ", he said.

"Good morning my angel. How did you sleep? How are you feeling? Does it hurt anywhere?",

she replaced her look with a loving one, and bombarded Iono with queries about his condition.

"I'm fine mom, I'm just hungry. How long for breakfast?", he replied with a growling stomach.

"Just give me 5 minutes and everything will be ready. You go and wake your father up, because he slept in today. ", she said, and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

Iono walked away, and in his parents bedroom. He looked at his father snoring, and an evil grin replaced his cute face. He then jumped high, and landed an elbow blow right on his father's diaphragm, while yelling,

"Good morning Dad!".

His father was obviously shaken, and lost the ability to breath for a couple of minutes. The moment the blow landed, his eyes almost left his eye sockets and he looked in disbelief at the enemy that he couldn't sense. After a few moments to get himself together, and for Iono to stop laughing, he replied by saying,

"Someone is awfully energetic.", while laughing bitterly.

"To think I would get ambushed in my own house. Oh, the tragedy. But don't think you're getting off that easy! ", he said while looking at Iono with a playful grin.

He then picked him up and started tickling him. Only Iono was already in Flesh Tempering so it didn't really affect him at all. When his father realized that his plan is not working, he started adding more force, and at some point Iono could feel ticklish and started laughing. But the scene looked more like a father beating his son, rather than playing with him.

And apparently Yusef had one hell of a bad luck because, that's when Anna walked in the room. She saw Yusef, practically beating Iono, but she didn't see Iono laughing because Yusef was towering over him.

Her irises widened and she looked at the misunderstanding scene in disbelief. Her aura and mana, that were both green in colour, broke out of her control, and her hair flared up, making her looking fierce. When Yusef felt the mana and aura, he turned around to see his wife looking at him, with solid killing intent that made him gulp in fear.

"YUSEF! ", she yelled.

"Get off him, before I send you to the otherworld! ", she continued

At this point cold sweat was running down Yusef's face, and Iono was still laughing, while inwardly laughing even harder. He liked putting his father in trouble. It was like a hobby to him.

"No, honey, wait. This is a misunderstanding, I was just trying to tickle him, but his flesh is strong, so I had to put some force into it. He's laughing see!? ", he said while moving out of the way to show Iono.

Only Iono suddenly changed his laugh to an all out crying, making Anna glare even harder, and Yusef widen his eyes at his son mischief. At first he thought that he had actually hurt him only to see a small grin on Iono's face.

"You little monkey! ", he yelled at Iono.

Anna was approaching Yusef with slow steps, while Iono was peaking through his fingers, laughing hard inwardly.

Yusef turned to his wife. "Anna, honey, calm down. You know I would never hurt Iono. It's me Yusef!", he then turned to Iono with pleading eyes.

"Please say something. You still need a dad, don't you? ".

Hearing his plea, Iono decided that's enough. He stopped his fake crying, and started laughing. Seeing this Anna calmed down a bit and turn to look at him.

"Don't worry mom, just a little prank. I wanted to see dad scared. We were just playing, nothing bad happened. "

Anna's gaze darkened, but her mana still flared.

"Iono Rosenblood. How dare you make me part of such a ridiculous ploy. You and me need to have a long talk." she said, sounding scary.

Now it was Iono's turn to gulp nervously, and Yusef's turn to grin happily. Iono knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes and used his strongest ability.

Giant, blue, baby eyes

"I'm sorry mommy, I just wanted to have some fun, please don't be mad at me. ", he said making Anna's mana and aura instantly disappear, and a loving expression return to her face.

"Oh my angel, of course mommy isn't mad. How could I be mad at you? ", she said while kissing him all over.

"Well, you are one fearful existence, son.", his father added from the side.

--------------------

After having a plentiful breakfast, his father took Iono outside in the fields to officially start their training. He looked at his son with a proud expression and then started a small lecture.

"Son, you agreed for me to train you but before we do I need to know something. You have open Channels and you have even reached Flesh Tempering . This is something that most accomplish after 13 years of age, and after obtaining a core. Now tell me do you know what any of the things I said mean?".

Iono was ready for this lecture, he knew he couldn't hide much from his father so he had a story ready.

"Yes Dad, I learned these things from one of the books at home. It said some things that I didn't really understand, but I when I tried to do as the book said I felt something weird. After a while, this refreshing feeling came from all over my body, and I knew that I had entered the thing they call foundation stage.

I read on how to enter Flesh Tempering, but I couldn't really tell what was going on, so I asked Ballu, and with his help I completed it. That's why I didn't want you to hurt him. He helped me a lot. ". He left no holes in his story, and tried to appease any concerns so he wouldn't be damned as a freak. Now that Ballu was hiding, his father wouldn't go and ask him, so he was clean.

"Iono you know, most people can't do what you did. Many have tried, but opening your channels just after reading a few lines from an elementary book, is unprecedented.

My guess is that the world energies adore you very much. It's a good thing don't worry, it's just you have to be careful. With great power, comes great risk as well. Many bad people can covet what you have, and hunt you down. So promise me, that you won't tell anyone about this. If anyone asked, you opened your channels at six years old, and I helped you enter Flesh Tempering. People won't have a problem believing that.", Yusef said with a concerned look.

Iono of course already knew that. He wasn't really adored by the energies, it was actually the opposite. Because of his claim of going against Karma, he wasn't particularly liked. Although, that didn't mean he couldn't force the world energy to do his bidding, but that's a story for another time.

He nodded to his father's words, and said, "I promise".

"Okay, now that we have that cleared up, let's start by discussing how this is going to work. Your mother and I would love for you to attend an Academy, so you socialize with your peers and make friends, brother's in arms. I didn't go to one, but your mother says that it's a great opportunity for you. Of course it's always your decision. Before that though, given your special circumstances, I was thinking of sending you to your godfather, The Dragon of the East, for a year to train with him. I may be knowledgeable, but regarding your condition he knows best. What do you think?", Yusef asked.

Iono was smiling, but inwardly seething. He didn't like the academies. He hated them, to be precise. Many bad memories of his last life came from them, making him curse heavily at their mention. Although he did like the fact that this might be a chance for revenge. What he seemed to be excited for, was the year with his godfather. Iono respected Iono, the Dragon, very much.

"Yes Dad, that sounds like a plan! ", he said with a beaming smile.

"Alright, now let's start. Before we go into explaining energies, let's begin with something important. Your weapon. Before you do anything you have to choose what weapon you will be using for the rest of your life.

This is an important decision. A weapon is a warriors best friend and strongest ally. It's better to choose one, and train it to the max, rather than use many, without mastery. I use the sword but you said you don't like the sword, so I have a couple of others with me. Before you make your choice, let me demonstrate, what I mean by mastery. "

Yusef drew his purple sword, and held it with both hands. Suddenly his aura spiked, and all of it was absorbed into his sword. The sword was now trembling with power, and Yusef had closed his eyes, lifted one of his legs, and got into a weird position. Iono was watching from the side, reminiscing his father's brilliance.

Thankfully, the place they were, was an empty mountain valley. After a few moments of concentration, Yusef vanished and where he was previously standing, one could see the image of a giant purple sword. This sword cleaved downwards towards the mountain they were facing, and decimated it, cutting it in half. For a moment everything went silent, the sky turned purple and eerie, and after a few seconds,

BOOM!

The mountain cracked open like an egg, both sides falling on the valley. His father's figure returned, with his face a bit pale. It seems he went a bit overboard, trying to impress his son. Of course this was meant to teach Iono, what weapon mastery meant, but also to increase his love for the sword.

"This is what it means to be one with the sword, Iono. It's important you realize that, this would be impossible without a lot of hard work and determination. So, do you think that you would like to follow the path of the sword, like your old man, or was the demonstration not impressive enough?", he said breathing a bit heavily. Cutting a mountain in half, was indeed a bit straining.

Iono smiled at his father, and faked excitement. Not that he wasn't excited, but he knew his father's strength very well.

"Well, dad, that was impressive. It's just made me realize, how hard I would have to work to surpass you. But I still think I'm not suited for the sword. What else do you have?", he replied.

In Iono's previous life, he used many weapons. He took the other path, that his father didn't recommend. But because of his long life, he actually had mastery over a lot of them. Plus his other life, he could pick any weapon. But, in truth, there was one weapon he just loved, and it was the only one, with which he had almost reached the realm of fusion, which was something far surpassing simple mastery like his father's.

"Okay, I understand. Let's see now... ", his father said, with a dejected expression, and opening his dimensional pouch, and dropping a few different weapons. There was a spear, a lance, a staff, a knife, a sword, a bow, all kinds of different weapons.

"Okay check them, and tell me which one you like. I'll go find some suitable arts for the one you pick.", his father said.

Iono looked over all the weapons, and pondered for a while before turning around. His father was curious as to why he turned, seeing as there weren't any weapons behind him. Iono walked a couple of feet before bending down and picking up something.

His father's curious eyes, followed his movements and saw him pick up a farming tool.

A scythe.

Something used to gather wheat.

Iono then turned to his father and said, "This will do! ", leaving his father dumbstruck.