"Good." Margaret's approval carried satisfaction mixed with regret. "You're experiencing the foundation technique. Emotional anchoring through memory amplification. We'll spend the next week cycling through your most significant memories, burning them so deeply into consciousness that divine influx has to work around them.""A week?" Damon's voice carried paternal concern that transcended tactical assessment. "You just reduced my daughters to sobbing wrecks over a single memory. How are they supposed to survive an entire week of that intensity?""The same way every previous inheritor survived it. By understanding that temporary pain beats permanent corruption." Margaret's voice hardened. "This is the gentlest part of Ascension training. Stage One just hurts. Later stages will break them, rebuild them, and break them again. If they can't handle amplified nostalgia, they definitely can't handle what comes next."She pulled up a schedule that made Elena's enhanced awareness blur with co

Day 43 of Ascension TrainingDamon stood in the cave system's observation room—a chamber Margaret had carved specifically for monitoring students without interfering with training protocols. Through transparent walls spelled to be one-way, he watched his daughters undergo Stage Three's moral reasoning exercises.The scenario playing out was brutal in its simplicity: Elena and Isabella confronted with a choice between saving a city or preserving their humanity. The divine consciousness flooding through their amplified connection whispered that cities were temporary, human concerns beneath gods, that allowing casualties served greater cosmic balance.Fighting those whispers required effort visible in their strained expressions."How long have they been at it?" Mei Lin entered quietly, carrying coffee that had gone cold hours ago. She'd been coordinating security while Damon maintained vigil over training that had already nearly killed his daughters twice."Seventeen hours." His enhance

  "Took three weeks to even get close—divine beings are notoriously difficult to ambush. When I finally managed it, her last words were thanking me for ending what she'd become. She knew she was a monster. Just couldn't feel it anymore." The medical bay fell silent except for monitoring equipment tracking Isabella's impossible vitals. Elena had gone very still, processing implications about what failure during training actually meant . Not just death. Something worse—survival as something that wore your face while being fundamentally other. "I want to talk to them." Damon's voice carried the kind of controlled determination that had built business empires and survived supernatural assassins. "Both girls. When Isabella wakes up. Before any more training happens. They need to understand exactly what they're agreeing to." "They're ten years old." Margaret's objectio

He looked at Elena, seeing recognition in her eyes of exactly how significant this moment was. Not just another training decision. The inflection point where their future stopped being something Margaret orchestrated and became something they consciously selected. "You should rest." He moved to her bedside, enhanced senses picking up exhaustion that went deeper than physical tiredness. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you need to be clear-headed for it." "I can't sleep." Elena's voice carried the kind of wired energy that came from near-death experiences. "Every time I close my eyes, I feel Isabella's consciousness fragmenting. Experience pieces of what she went through during that power surge. It's like..." she struggled for words. "It's like touching infinity. Understanding that consciousness is so much bigger than individual identity, but also knowing that surrendering to that bigness means losing everythi

  Margaret's precision was brutal. "I remember every one. Their faces. Their final words. Their hopes about what they might become if they succeeded. Most were children—divine inheritance manifests young. Most were terrified. All were brave enough to try anyway." She gestured to a section with noticeably fewer names. "These are the successes. One hundred and seven individuals who survived Ascension training, maintained consciousness through Convergence, and managed to preserve humanity afterward. That's a 1.4% success rate across seventeen decades of trying." The mathematics were devastating. 98.6% failure rate when dealing with mortality rates, corruption rates, and psychological breakdown combined. Odds that made Russian roulette look safe. "And Elena and Isabella's odds?" Damon's voice carried the careful control of someone standing at the edge