Fretted seams like clear choice however the caveat is i already own a Ibanez MC940 fretless and would have to buy a beginner fretted bass. Any advice on if a nicer fretless bass or a beginner fretted bass will be a better experience and if it would be worth the investment knowing its a downgrade. All help is appreciated.
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There’s a saying that comes up on this forum a lot. “The best bass to play is the one you have.”
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True.
I have both fretted and fretless.
I have two suggestions. One is if you get fretless, get one with lines denoting where fret markers would be.
The second is, learn on a fretted instrument. It’s more forgiving and you will sound better faster, and build up muscle memory of finger placement. I remember how bad I sounded on violin (fretless) as a kid.
When I picked up a fretless bass after playing for a while it was easy to make the switch.
There are plenty of used good quality basses which could be had cheaply.
If your only choice is fretless it can be done, but I would do it the other way if it were me, after playing both.
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Mine only has the dots along the side of the fingerboard and no lines
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The dots are a bit behind the lines as you can see, so keep that in mind. If you finger at the dots you will be off.
You can use a tuner as you play to see the note your hitting if you need to
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You can also draw lines on with a pencil. I’ve heard some cellist do this when they are learning
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Honestly, get a cheap fretted bass for learning - you have enough to worry about as it is, and intonation and not getting lost on the fingerboard shouldn’t be amongst those worries 
There are decent beginner basses available in the 150-200 dollar range.
Keep the Ibanez for later 
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100% The Squier CV or VM is perfect for this. The Ebonol (I think that is what it is called) fingerboard is really nice, and they can be had for very little anymore. I like mine so much I upgraded the pickups and have no desire for a more costly fretless.
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Ebonol is great for fretless fingerboards for sure.
However, I did mean “fretted” and not “lined” - learning bass on a fretless, even a lined one, is just too hard… no need to make learning bass any harder than necessary
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I spend about 90% of my bass time on a fretless now, but would never have wanted to start that way. Exactly what you said, even after 9 months of playing it, intonation still takes up most of my attention when playing, so I need plucking and rhythm to be on “auto pilot” for this to work. After getting the basics down, I got nothing but love for fretless, Love the sound, and feel, and constant ear training it gives, just afraid it would’ve overloaded me as a beginner.
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I started off as an absolute beginner on a fretted Jazz Bass. Then I bought a fretless Jazz Bass as a graduation present to myself when I complete B2B the first time. I love playing both basses.
I think it was easier to start off with a fretted bass. It is also beneficial having both basses being pretty much the same size, shape, etc. (There is less to adjust to when going back and forth between the fretted and fretless basses.) Does Ibanez make any fretted basses with a similar size and shape to your fretless? If so, this might be helpful.
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No lines Fretless is a bit different than line. Lined Fretless intonations is like normal fretted bass but no line the dot is the line it just shifts a bit.
Fretless can sound 95 percent of like fretted one but when it counts fretted can not sound like Fretless.
No line Fretless is incredibly unforgiving there’s no doubt that it would take at least twice the effort to learn but once you paid the dues you’d have much stronger fundamentals and a lot less bad habits.
If that’s your starting instrument you never have to worry about a few things, ever
One, your fretting will be spot on when you shift to fretted bass you’d have a good habit of fretting on the fret which is a good habit.
Two, you’d naturally developed the proper finger plugging pressure as well as fretting pressure because if your pressure is off you may have the unintended mawh on the note.
Three, you’d have better articulation. On the fretted bass you can sometimes cheat and slide between 2 notes and get two notes. On a fretless you’d just get a pitch bend which technically still a single note. You have to make sure that you fret each note in order to get 2 notes.
Four, you’d naturally have better ear training. Mind you that it would probably takes quite some time to calibrate this one but once you donate going to be pretty sensitive to notes that are out of tune. It seems to come naturally to people who plays Fretless.
Knowing what I know now if I have to start all over again I’d start with the unlined Fretless. I either gave up a long time ago of arrived at a much higher skill levels lol.
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I think that every beginner should spend some time playing a fretless because it forces you to be more accurate with your fretting. If you develop good fretless technique, you’ll have good technique on a fretted bass too. I think the difficulty of playing on a fretless bass is overstated; thousands of children learn to play violin, cello and trombone just fine.
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Absolutely, sadly it does not apply to the lazies, lol.
In all seriousness, Fretless is a great tool. My first Fretless is also an unlined Rogue, cheap and cheerful bass. It was surprisingly easy to play.
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I feel seen
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I actually do play trombone however it is quite different to playing a fretless yes the positions are not defined however there are far fewer of them and they are more spaced out
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Scotland
The point is not how many of them there are or how far apart they are, there are locations that you have to just learn and on some instruments, people just do it because they have no real choice that’s “easier” (and they’re still even marked on the fretless bass). You don’t get people telling you “you should play valve trombone, regular slide trombone is too hard” 