Tobi and Kiala put on their blindfolds at Akio's request. "How is this going to help us see iko?" Tobi asked.

His first impressions of the old man, had him sketched out. He couldn't predict what he might do next. His instincts were right, as a tiny pebble, struck the both of them in the back. Irritating the pair.

"Why would you-" Kiala started to say but was cut off by the Elder.

"Amateurs that can't even sense a pebble, without their eyes, have no right to complain." He taunted.

Kiala sealed her lips, frowning with frustration. "One day I'm going to..." She murmured to herself.

Akio hopped up onto a platform, sitting with his legs crossed and made himself comfortable. "From sunrise to sunset, you'll mainly be training with these blindfolds for the next several weeks. You're eyes cloud too much judgment, diminishing the potential of all your other senses."

They braced themselves, as they felt, a tremendous amount of energy, rising below them. Then, jumped up, just in time to escape a ground implosion, spitting dust and rocks in the air all around them.

"What the h-" Tobi struggled to speak, unable to continue, due to a dense stone, knocking the wind out of him. Kiala, beside him, frantically shook her head around, feeling something amiss. With their blindfolds on, it was hard to tell, but surrounding them, stopped in motion, were the stones and rocks, kicked up by the implosion.

"Use your senses, figure out, where next, I will attack." He ran his iko in rhythm through, the stones and rocks and all around them, throwing off their senses.

Spontaneously, several stones or pebbles would sail, into the back of their heads, backs, thighs, and arms. Frustrating Kiala, even more. She raised her energy, about to turn up a gear.

However, Akio shook his finger at her in disappointment. "Ah, ah, ah! No! There's no need to transform yet, during our lessons. Let the pain seep in, then use it to sense the next stone."

Kiala gritted her teeth, regretting agreeing to train with this lunatic. "Fine!"

She took a deep breath and focused on anything moving unnaturally, within her vicinity. As she closed her eyes, she started to first picture her iko. What it would look like. What it would be like.

A violet and ash-colored, hurricane began swirling around her, with a calming and soothing breeze. She looked around her, as a vision of an ethereal plane unfolded. Revealing a room with dozens of combat androids, pointing non-lethal weapons in her direction.

Kiala shed a tear. It was the moment she first got her powers. Her mother was terrified of putting her through training early, but it was why Saphyra was there. To always remind them of the mission.

Which she succeeded in because, before her being in that situation, Saphyra had told, the young version of her that if she didn't use her powers to get through the doors ahead, she would never see her mother again.

The feeling of raising her hands terrified her, yet she was still able to imagine fire, ice, electricity, stones & telekinetic force, to obliterate the enemies before her. Purple and reddish veins, flowed like lava through her arms, as the feeling of losing her mom, at four years old, traumatized her.

Kiala chuckled, wondering how she fell for that. However there was one detail, she overlooked. The same swirling hurricane appeared before her for a second, when she was a child. Manifesting all of the elements for her, and carrying it in the direction she wanted it to. The epiphany hit her like a bullet.

"That's my iko!" She yelled out loud, rubbing her right arm with frost, as it stung from a pebble the Elder struck her with, while she was in deep focus.

Akio, stroked his beard, chuckling. "Have you figured it out?"

She ignored him and continued focusing on her discovery. He smiled, not wanting to bother her further, then turned his attention towards Tobi, who was still struggling.

Midway through, he lost his patience and began swinging indiscriminately, hoping to catch the pebbles and stones, before they striked him, but to no avail. Each one, struck him cordially until he started to slowly descend, due to fatigue.

Akio shook his head, looking back at Kiala, who had just dodged her first pebble. His eyes grew wide in excitement. Then he grinned menacingly, knowing she could finally see it. A wall, truly impossible to climb.

Making Kiala sweat, as she just noticed the amount of flares of iko, running all around her, but mainly, the titanic amount, swirling around the Elder. "He's a monster." She whispered to herself, dodging two more stones, sailing overhead and below. "How is that even possible."

Akio laughed out loud. "You can finally see it, that's good, that's good. Well done! Truly a prodigy."

He then directed his next words toward Tobi. "Are you going to let your daughter outshine you?"

Tobi's rage boiled over, but thanks to habits from old anger management sessions as a kid, he decided to take deep breaths instead and took his mind somewhere else. He thought about the training, his favourite character went through. Chuckling to himself and realizing that his favourite MC went through something similar. Blindfolded and getting hit for training.

'But what was the reason?'

Tobi had always tried to find lessons and true meanings of the scenes he had witnessed, read, or watched, ever since he read his first book, given to him by his ESL teacher. Telling him one thing. "Knowledge is power."

However, there was something, he never truly, completely comprehended and that was himself. 'Why was I chosen for this? Whose son am I? What am I supposed to do?'

Thoughts of Atlas, destroying his former world, and being capable of doing the same to his current, ran across his mind, as his body, continued to be bombarded by stones and pebbles. The Novas, the soldiers, and the people depending on him, as well as his newfound daughter. Lastly, setting him off, was Mado calling him an abomination, 'the one that must be eliminated.'

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'No... Who would you give all of these problems to? You must take care of them yourself.' His stubborn mind, yelled within, refusing to surrender. He opened his eyes, still blindfolded in darkness. However, swirling violently around him, was a massive hurricane, made out of a myriad of white light, and dark energy, never mixing, but tangled in a constant fight.

"What... What is this?" He spoke out loud, stunned by the sight.

At Roku's training grounds...

Kayed struck against the boulder in front of him as hard as he could, but his stone gauntlets broke apart.

"Again!" Roku yelled at him, then continued to watch the others.

Sighing, the Nova took a deep breath, looking over at Norah struggling to make any progress as well. Roku had quickly drilled the basics of iko, into them, wanting to move them quickly over to the next lesson. The strength aspect.

Surprisingly though, they didn't expect him to be such a good teacher. He was just a bit too strict, in their opinion. With his help, they were able to become aware of their iko, brought it under control, and then began to arm themselves with it.

However, the titanium boulders, filled with diamonds and gems, were incredibly difficult to break. On top of that, they weren't allowed to use any gear.

"Dinner will get cold, if you take long, trying to make a dent in brittle stone," the General yelled, trying to motivate them.

Osei, furiously punched his boulder, as his hands bled, but he refused to back down. He was angry with himself. Something he had been taught long ago, but had never made any attempts to completely master.

The Rennayan martial arts, Waio taught him, was a way of awakening and perfecting one's iko. He used to tell him, that the ones that practiced and perfected it to their utmost limits, were capable of breaking boulders with little movement.

"How... How could I forget? Waio!" He yelled, in frustration while throwing a last strike with his full might, carrying with it the intention for it to break. A massive crack ruptured, lining up horizontally and breaking into small branches through, a third of the boulder.

Norah and Kayed stared in astonishment. Roku was impressed. "I expect no less from a Rennayan Prince, but you must channel your iko, with less aggression. It breaks because you will it to, not because of your anger."

Osei nodded, then walked back to their sitting area and started to wrap up his bleeding knuckles.

The General turned his attention towards the rest of the Novas. "You won't make any progress by staring at it!"

Kayed & Norah rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Then, got back into position and continued training.

Above Kaieda's training grounds...

Tai leaped up, trying to one-up Kaieda, who had just unleashed, a thirty-foot-tall golem, covered in tough metals from the earth. Then sent it after Carina and Kalista.

Tai covered his fists in the hottest flames he could produce without transforming. Remembering Kaieda's words, 'Don't hold back, but no ascending.'

He bit down, throwing his fist forward, toward Kaieda's back. Expecting a hard connection and breaking the unsuspecting man's back. Instead, the Nova almost threw up, as he was lurched back by an arm made of sand. Which grabbed him, with a firm grip. While nearly breaking one of his arms.

"Now, now, how could you fall for that? Didn't I tell you? Iko can be anywhere, as far as your body will allow, and your imagination can reach..." Kaieda reminded them, as he turned around and let his golem smack Kalista far off into the distance, then it threw Carina high up in the air, towards them.

The prince caught Carina in a floating bed of sand, before continuing his lecture and restrained her. "You've been letting your emotions cloud your judgment for too long. It should only be a catalyst. If you were more aware. You would have realized..."

The ground of their entire training grounds, began to shift and change, rumbling as if two earthquakes were fighting each other, underground. "I have already made this entire area my domain. The only way you can escape my gaze is by overwhelming my domain or moving faster than me. For that, you're going to have to keep putting yourself on the brink of death." He spoke gleefully, then had the floating arm throw him across the field, before turning his head in Kalista's direction.

"Looks like one of you, has figured it out already." He sighed, raising his right hand, then dropping it, as a sudden pit, opened up under Kalista's feet. She yelled out, but with quick thinking raised a platform to fly out. Only for it to crumble apart as the ground closed up above her and sunk her into an abyss.

Kaeida turned his eyes towards Carina. She was struggling to get out of her restraints, but Kaeida's iko felt like iron. "Are you going to continue playing princess or are you going get stronger?" His words stung. He barely knew her, but she felt like he had peeked into her whole life with one gaze.

"I know! We are going to play a game." He said excitedly, as three perfectly carved gems, rose out of the ground, hovering behind Kaeida's back. Then he reached his left hand out, as a crude alien-like megaphone, put itself together in his hand.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Attention Novas. Your comrade has been captured. Whenever you get the chance to free her and destroy the stones behind my back, you'll get to enjoy supper tonight. Don't worry, The Rahmanaka can go days without food!."

He let out a hearty laugh, while dropping the megaphone down below and faced Carina. While ignoring Kalista, erupting out of her pitfall. "Now then... Are you just going to let yourself be saved?"

At Yori's training grounds...

Yori, released the growling bears, out of their cages. Who immediately, rushed after the two Novas, as they instinctively jumping out of the way.

"Don't be scared. They won't bite, if you can tame them with your iko, that is!" Yori called after them.

Jacira & Runa looked at each other, and then at Yori. "Are you crazy?!" They asked in unison.

The girls had all right to be wary. The bears were called Nakaya bears, native to the Azurian planet and could survive the harshest of conditions, the planet had to offer. Especially with them having to adapt from one Solar System to the next.

Their defining features included black and light brown fur, with an all-black underbelly. Weighing in over three thousand pounds, larger than any bear on Earth. One of them continued to charge after the Novas. The other turned its bloodthirsty, red eyes towards Yori.

Seeing her as easy prey. However, she didn't panic, as it got closer. Instead, she raised her left hand towards its head, while it continued to snarl at her with overwhelming malice. Then she dropped her hand down, as the bear followed suit, bowing its head.

"Woah! What the actual -" Jacira started to say before her bear leaped four feet into the air and attempted to pull her down.

She raised her ice platform higher, then manifested walls surrounding her bear, so that she could have a little time to think. To her dismay, it broke out of it easily, like it was tearing paper.

Yori piped up, trying to get across to the struggling Novas, while Runa kept yelling, "Stay put" and "Sit," as she dodged her bear's lunges. "I forgot to mention, where there is an abundance of iko, animals adapt. As such they will be able to use it too." Jacira looked at her with a poker face, like she couldn't have told them earlier.

Runa stopped running around and faced her bear head-on. "I said... Sit!"

She spoke with a serious tone. Her bear in response, slowed down for a second. As it raised its arm, high above its head, ready to strike her down. Runa, showed no hint of fear, as she continued to stare down the bear and repeat her words louder this time. "Sit, or I'll fry you alive!"

The bear paused as if it was thinking things over. Then dropped its paw, to the ground, and sat, snarling once at her.

Yori smiled, seeing Runa's progress. "Well done Runa! You've almost completely tamed the beast. Next time, use a little less aggression. It helps."

Runa rolled her eyes. She didn't like Yori, but she acknowledged her battle experience. However, she still hated the fact, that she had to train so far away from Simon, someone she had started to become more fond of. She only found out he turned down the invite at the last minute.

Yori, gave her an indifferent smile, even though she knew, she would never receive one back. She turned her attention back to Jacira, watching her continue to struggle with her bear. "Jacira, you've got this! Think of them as the adorable cubs, they usually are!"

Jacira was a little annoyed, thinking to herself, that they weren't 'adorable,' and that she was just trying to get her killed.

As if sensing her thoughts, Yori yelled out to the both of them. "After this, I have descendants of dinosaurs, you can practice on!"