So, what's it going to be?

Silence

The only sound is the whistling of the green grass, when it's blown by the wind.

Every once in a while, at certain points on the field, one could hear that whistling increase in volume.

Sometimes, a patch of tall grass would mysteriously be cut into small pieces, with no sound.

And then once again, silence.

Out of nowhere, a small green man could be seen standing in the middle of the field with his eyes closed.

When he opened them again, one could see the blue of the sea reflect from them.

The man suddenly vanishes, and the strong whistling once again can be heard.

This was, of course, Iono practicing his dagger arts.

Dagger arts were closely tied to assassination, and silent, quick movements. This was what Iono was chasing after. He was trying to increase his agility, and versatility in the arts he mastered, making them more deadly.

He would occasionally stop, and ponder on his technique, try and discern any short comings.

Suddenly, there was a small rustling in some bushes, when Yusef showed up. He saw Iono, and was left almost with the mouth agape.

He handed the dagger arts to him this morning, it was now noon, and he was already at a level where he could physically train with them.

If he knew Iono had already mastered them, much less train with them, he would be honestly scared.

Of course, unless Iono showed the mastery himself he could never know. For now his movements were amateurish at most. This was done on purpose, so Iono could see if he can find a spark of inspiration, by returning to the basics.

When Iono sensed his dad, he stopped moving and turn to him with a happy face.

"Thank god he came when I was training the basics. If he saw me training the deeper principles, he would start imagining god knows what.", he though inwardly.

"Well, little monkey, it seems I underestimated you. Good work on understanding the basics. Just so you know, for someone to do what you did, it would take them months, if not years, and they would be much older than you. I hope you understand how special you are, and don't go flaunting about it."

"Really, dad? I just saw the picture and then read the words and then everything made sense. Is it really that special? ", he said with an Innocent look.

What an actor!

"Yes.", he replied.

"Ah, right the scythe. I didn't make it a treasure, just a simple metal scythe, I hope it's good enough.". He opened his storage pouch, and like a magician he pulled out a scythe about 1.5 meters tall, with a two finger thick metal pole, and a 0.4 meter long blade. The blade was curved and it also had small spikes, making the simple farm tool look ferocious.

Iono's eyes sparkled for a moment, appreciating his father's fine craftsmanship, even when it was a rather plain creation.

"Thank you dad! It's perfect! ", he exclaimed.

"Glad you like it, little monkey. Now, I know you want to train with your weapons, but before you do that, I need to teach you about energy, in particular mana and aura. Do you know what these are?".

"Yes, they are two out of the three energies that comprise the world, I read it in a book."

"Yes, they are everywhere around us, and also everywhere inside us. They are a creation of the universe, and an after effect of chaos. Do you know what chaos is?"

"No, I didn't see it in any book.", he said while glancing at his chest.

"Chaos is the beginning and ending of everything. Whatever you see around you, not only exists because of chaos, it possesses chaos, and it's going to end because of chaos. It's something very difficult to understand, and to this day, no one knows what it really is. But we know that without chaos, the universe and everything wouldn't exist. Even when there is nothing, chaos still exists. It's a very mysterious, and magical thing."

At this point Yusef had sat down across Iono, and was looking him in the eyes, while lecturing him.

"In the beginning of the universe, there was nothing, it was empty. The only thing that existed was chaos. It's something you can not touch, or see. Nor something you can feel in any way. But it's definitely there. After many, many years, the chaos that was all alone in nothingness, decided that it was about time it made some friends. And so it gathered all it's strength, and compressed itself to a very small dot. After it did that, because of the huge amount of it being in such a small place, it couldn't take it any longer and exploded.

Boom!

It was such a big explosion, that the afterwaves of the explosion are still spreading. Even now that we are talking the explosion is still happening. And that small dot, is getting bigger and bigger. Of course after so many years, it's not as strong.

After that big explosion, all the chaos that was compressed, was split into three parts. That was Aura, Mana, and Ether. Then, out of those three energies, Man, Heaven and Earth came to be. By that, I mean life, gods, and earth. Life is everything that is alive, and breaths. Gods are the rulers that watch over us, and earth is every planet and rock you see below and above."

Iono already knew the story, even better than Yusef. But he was engrossed in his father's story telling, because it was one of the things he missed the most when he was gone.

"Of course, no form of life could control such energies, but they tried. They tried so much in fact, that the gods felt so sorry for them, they gave them mana channels, from the moment they were born, so they could control those energies.

But the nature of these energies changed when they were tamed, because we couldn't handle such powerful things."

At this point his father lifted his hand in front of his eyes.

"Aura,", he said, manifesting some purple Aura in his index finger, "was connected with the earth, so it became the manifestation of physical strength, in other words, the strength of your body." He made the purple Aura dance and he fortified his finger, making the seemingly hidden veins bulge.

"Mana,", he said, manifesting a bit of purple Mana on his middle finger, "was connected with the man, and so it became the manifestation of desire. Men wanted to fly, and breath fire, create tsunamis, Mana became the means to that." He turned the Aura to fire, then water, then sand and finally, air.

"Ether was the power of the gods. When it entered our bodies, it became their manifestation inside us." He didn't possess any Ether, so he only explained, putting his hand back down.

"There is also one more form of these energies. Iono, do you know what prana is? "

"No.", he replied completely focused on his father's words.

"Those three energies that created everything, didn't like being apart so, at some point, they tried to become one again, return to being chaos. And they succeeded in becoming one, but no matter how much they tried, they couldn't become chaos. That is Prana. It's the combination of the three energies, that is missing one crucial part to become chaos. Of course, even if it's not chaos, it's way better than any of the three on their own.

Sometimes, a special child is born. That's child, is said to be loved by the gods, and the gods bestow upon him their ether, and help him combine it with the other two, to create prana. This is a very special occasion, and that child will grow up to be someone incredible. But it's very rare, in fact there hasn't been someone with prana in a very long time.

Now, I now you are a genius, but I don't know if you have prana or not. I sensed something like a core inside you, but I can't be sure, that's why I'm sending you to your godfather. ", when Yusef said that, Iono broke into cold sweat. "I am going to need to somehow hide my core, at least until I'm old enough, so it's not entirely impossible to have one.", he thought inwardly.

"Until we find out about that though, let's focus on what we definitely know. Other than ether, the other two energies are definitely present inside you, and inside everyone. Now, training both of them is very difficult, and not many chose to do that. So you have to make a decision to either train as a Sorcerer, or as Brawler.

Sorcerers are the masters of long range fights, they can create catastrophies out of nothing, and drawn whole nations in tsunamis. They mainly use Mana. Brawlers on the other hand are masters of close range. They can split mountains, and turn over the ground and the sky. They mainly use Aura.

So, what's it going to be? ", he asked.

"Dad, what are you, a Brawler, or a Sorcerer?", Iono asked innocently.

"Well, your daddy started as a Brawler, but along the way I picked up a lot of magic arts, and you could say that now, I am an all-rounder."

"Then that's what I'm going for too. I cannot surpass if I don't put in, at least as much effort as you". Of course, Iono was going to be not just an all-rounder, but a completely knew class. Something he came up with in his travels, and developed after painstaking effort. But it was still early to think about that.

Yusef smiled affectionately, at his son's praiseworthy determination.

"It's going to be tough, but I trust you."