She Used Me for a Dare… Now I Own Her Mother - Chapter 302: Progress
Chapter 302: Progress
The clash of fists echoed through the basement training facility.
Alex ducked under Pavel’s jab, his body moving on instinct now rather than conscious thought. He saw the opening… Pavel’s guard fractionally too high… and drove a straight punch toward the exposed ribs.
Pavel twisted, absorbing the impact on his forearm, then countered with a knee aimed at Alex’s midsection.
Alex read it half a second before it came. His hand dropped, catching Pavel’s thigh mid-strike and redirecting the momentum sideways.
The exchange flowed seamlessly… attack, counter, adaptation, response. Neither man giving ground, both pressing advantages that appeared and vanished in microseconds.
Alex’s breathing had found rhythm. His movements had shed their earlier clumsiness. He was still getting hit… Pavel’s experience ensured that… but the hits were glancing now, controlled, teaching rather than punishing.
“Good!” Viktor’s voice cut through the sound of their sparring. “That’s enough for today.”
Both fighters separated immediately, discipline overriding the momentum of combat.
Alex stepped back, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his jaw. His muscles burned with familiar exhaustion, but underneath it was something else… satisfaction. The kind that came from genuine progress.
Pavel lowered his hands, rolling his shoulders loose as he approached.
“Mr. Hale.” There was something different in his tone now. Not the clinical assessment from their first sessions, but genuine respect. “I have to say… you’re improving too fast.”
He shook his head, expression caught between impressed and slightly disturbed.
“I’ve trained fighters for years. Watched them develop. Normally, what you’re doing now would take months of daily practice to achieve.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you’re absorbing it in days. Reading feints I haven’t even taught you yet. Adapting to combinations mid-exchange.”
Pavel’s gaze held Alex’s, searching.
“It’s… unusual.”
Alex managed a tired smile. “Maybe I just have a good teacher.”
“Maybe.” Pavel didn’t look entirely convinced. “Or maybe you’re just a freak of nature.”
He clapped Alex on the shoulder… firm, genuine.
“Either way, keep it up. At this rate, you’ll be dangerous in a few weeks instead of a few months.”
***
Alex made his way to the bench against the wall, legs finally registering their protest as adrenaline faded.
He sat heavily, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat from his face, and allowed himself a moment to just… breathe.
The improvement was real. Undeniable.
He could feel it in the way his body moved now… smoother, more efficient, less wasted energy. In the way he read Pavel’s attacks… not perfectly, not every time, but enough to matter. In the confidence that had begun to settle into his stance.
’I really have improved a lot today.’
The thought brought satisfaction that went bone-deep.
’Maybe the battle last night helped too.’
Alex’s lips curved into a private, self-mocking smile as another memory surfaced.
Last night.
Vivienne and Helena.
That had been… intense. More than he’d anticipated, actually.
They’d fought him. Not physically in the traditional sense, but they’d tested him in every other way… two Early Enhanced cultivators pushing back with everything they had, forcing him to dominate, to control, to overwhelm their resistance and bend them to his will.
Taming them hadn’t been easy.
They’d been proud, defiant, desperate to maintain some shred of control even as their bodies betrayed them. He’d had to break through that pride, systematically dismantle their defenses, prove beyond any doubt who held the power.
And he had.
By the end, both of them had been sobbing, begging, completely his.
Alex’s smirk widened slightly.
’Combat training,’ he thought with dark amusement. ’Just… a different kind.’
The kind that taught him to read resistance in a body. To anticipate when someone’s will would break. To control without destroying.
Useful skills.
Even if Viktor would probably raise an eyebrow if Alex tried to explain how fucking two women into submission had improved his combat instincts.
He shook his head, still smiling at his own absurdity, and straightened on the bench.
Time to check his actual progress.
“Lilith,” he said quietly. “Show me the Battle Sense metric.”
The translucent display materialized in his vision.
[BATTLE SENSE: 0.5%]
Alex blinked.
Point five percent.
It had moved.
Yesterday, after hours of training with Pavel, it had been 0.1%. A fraction so small he’d almost thought he imagined it.
But this morning, after another intense session… another 0.4% had been added.
0.5% total.
Still almost nothing in the grand scheme of reaching 100%. Still frustratingly far from the mastery that metric represented.
But it was progress.
Real, measurable progress.
And if he could gain 0.2% in a single day…
’At this rate, I could hit 1% in less than a week,’ Alex calculated. ’Ten percent in a few months. Maybe 100% in a year or two instead of the decades it would take others.’
The Combat Training Enhancement Package was working.
He took a breath, then made a decision.
“Lilith. Show me my full status.”
“Eager to see the numbers, are we?” Her voice carried amusement. “Very well.”
The display expanded, text filling his vision with familiar categories.
[DOMINION SYSTEM – LEVEL 2.0]
[MASTER STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NAME: Alexander “Alex” Hale
AGE: 22
TITLE: Master of Dominion/Master of all paths
REALM: Enhanced Realm (Early)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CORE STATS]
• Body: 35/50 [+] (Cost: 500 CP per point)
• Mind: 35/50 [+] (Cost: 500 CP per point)
• Charm: 35/50 [+] (Cost: 500 CP per point)
Current CP Balance: 18,000
[Note: Enhancement is permanent and immediate upon allocation]
[Warning: CP cannot be refunded once allocated]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[FINANCIAL RESOURCES]
Bank Account (Liquid): $1,025,000,000
Other Assets: $25,000,000
Total Net Worth: $1,050,000,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ACTIVE SKILLS]
★ Silver Tongue Protocol (Level 2)
★ Elite Presence Mastery (Level 2)
★ Golden Touch (Level 2)
★ Alpha Stamina Core (Level 2)
★ Bullet Veil (Level 2)
★ Dominion Touch: Serpent’s Whisper
[All skills function on targets up to ONE STAGE above host.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[DOMINION PRIVILEGES]
★ HAREM SUPPORT SYSTEM
Function: Purchase system resources for harem members at 10% standard price
★ COMBAT TRAINING ENHANCEMENT
Function: Increases training speed and skill comprehension by 100x
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[BATTLE METRICS]
★ Battle Sense: 0.5%
Required for Apex Advancement: 100%
Progress: Minimal (Novice)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[HAREM – PARTNERS]
★ VICTORIA BLACKWOOD (100%)
Status: Completely Devoted
★ TISHA WELLS (95%)
Status: Extremely Loyal
★ CATHERINE BLACKWOOD (90%)
Status: Deeply Committed
★ VIVIENNE VANDERBILT (78%)
Status: Heavily Dependent
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alex scanned the display, absorbing the changes.
His stats had increased… the +5 boost from completing the Vivienne mission now fully integrated. 35 across the board.
He could feel the difference. His body moved with more power, his mind processed information faster, his presence commanded more natural authority.
The stat increases were subtle but real.
But something else caught his attention.
The Harem section.
Four names now. Victoria, Tisha, Catherine… and Vivienne.
But Helena wasn’t there.
Alex frowned, reading through the list again to make sure he hadn’t missed it.
No. Just the four.
“Lilith,” he said aloud. “Why isn’t Helena listed in the Harem section? She’s at 74% dependency. That’s high enough to matter.”
Silence for a moment.
Then Lilith’s voice returned, carrying the patient tone of someone explaining rules to a student.
“There are criteria for official Harem recognition,” she began. “Not every woman you conquer gets automatically added to the list. The system has standards.”
Alex waited.
“The woman must possess significant social, political, or financial power in her own right. CEOs, heirs, influential figures. Women who matter on the world stage, not just in your bedroom.”
That made sense. Victoria…CEO. Blackwood family. Catherine… CEO and heir of the Blackwood line. Tisha… he still didn’t know her full story. Vivienne… Vanderbilt matriarch, media empire CEO.
All powerful women.
Helena was… an assistant. Influential within the Vanderbilt sphere, yes, but ultimately serving Vivienne rather than commanding her own authority.
Alex processed that, staring at the Harem section again.
“So I can’t add her to my Harem?” he asked.
“You can,” Lilith corrected. “Once her dependency reaches ninety percent. At that threshold, the depth of her attachment compensates for her lack of individual authority. She becomes yours completely enough that the system recognizes the bond as permanent.”
She sounded almost approving.
“But until then, she remains… unrecognized. Present in your life, dependent on you, serving you… but not officially part of the Harem structure.”
She paused, her tone turning meaningful.
”Consider it a necessary safeguard. To prevent the… misuse… of System privileges.”
Alex blinked.
Misuse?
Then it clicked.
[ HAREM SUPPORT SYSTEM]
”Ah,” Alex murmured, a smirk touching his lips. “I get it now. No shortcuts to the discount.”
”Precisely,” Lilith confirmed.
”Understood,” Alex said quietly.
He dismissed the interface with a thought, the translucent display fading from his vision.
Four official Harem members.
And one woman close enough to count, but not quite there yet.
’Ninety percent,’ Alex thought, a small smile tugging at his lips. ’I can work with that.’
Helena would get there eventually. Especially if he kept pushing, kept reinforcing her dependence, kept making it impossible for her to imagine life without him.
And once she hit that threshold…
The system would recognize what was already true.
She was his.
Alex stood, rolling his shoulders, feeling the satisfying ache of muscles properly worked.
Time to shower and head home.
