By the time it was over, the training ground stank of old sweat, scorched mana, and the faint metallic scent of blood.
Dominic stepped back, expression unreadable, watching his son from across the chamber.
Damien stood in the center of the ring, shoulders rising and falling with slow, deliberate breaths. He was shirtless now—had been for the last hour—not because of drama, but because every method Dominic used demanded skin contact, pulse access, or bio-feedback.
And his body—
His body had changed.
Not dramatically. Not the kind of metamorphosis that made people gasp and point.
But it was happening.
Real time.
And beneath it all—
That burn.
That humming, coiling pressure beneath the skin. Like a second pulse riding just beneath the first.
Dominic hadn't just pushed him.
He had shaped him.
Each time Damien got close—on the edge of Resonance, circling a Core Induction, just about to breach the rhythm of Pulse Circulation—Dominic would stop it.
Right at the cusp.
