The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 15: The Father Who Was Already Dead

“Get back!” Elara shouted as the staircase erupted beneath Awesome’s feet.

The first step split apart with a deafening crack, releasing a column of golden fire that swept across the entrance to the underground passage. Awesome threw himself sideways, barely catching the edge of the platform with both hands, while the original boy seized the back of his uniform and struggled to pull him away from the flames. The heat scorched the surrounding stone, and the air filled with the sharp, metallic smell of burning magic.

For several seconds, Awesome remained suspended over the edge, his fingers slipping against the heated stone as he fought to pull himself up. Below him, the darkness pulsed in a steady rhythm that matched his heartbeat, as though something buried beneath the academy had recognized his presence and was preparing to welcome him home.

A familiar system notification appeared before his eyes.

[GLOBAL AUTHORITY ACCESS: 21%]

[ORIGINAL CONTAINMENT SEAL: CRITICAL FAILURE]

[WARNING: AUTHORITY SIGNATURES ARE CONVERGING.]

With his brother’s help, Awesome hauled himself onto the platform and coughed as smoke rolled across the floor. He struggled to catch his breath before turning toward Elara, who stood at the top of the staircase with her hands raised defensively.

“Professor, what caused that?” he demanded.

Elara continued staring at the staircase, and the fear in her expression made Awesome’s stomach tighten.

“The memory core has detected two competing authority signatures,” she explained. “It is trying to determine which one has the right to enter.”

“Then why did it attack me instead of the other person?”

“Because it doesn’t recognize you as a separate individual.”

Awesome glanced down at the black mark on his palm. The veins surrounding it had darkened again, while a faint golden line had appeared around his wrist and continued glowing beneath his skin.

“That makes no sense,” he protested. “The academy’s system knows my name, my records, and everything about my magical abilities.”

“The academy’s system recognizes the identity it was programmed to recognize,” Elara replied. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the original containment mechanism agrees with its records.”

Before Awesome could demand another explanation, his brother released his uniform and approached the staircase. The remaining flames immediately bent away from him, revealing the first three steps beneath their fading light.

Awesome watched the fire retreat in disbelief.

“Why is it allowing you through?”

His brother studied the exposed steps before answering. “Because I was there when the original seal was created.”

“You were only a child.”

“I was the child they used to test whether the seal could recognize a human consciousness without a stable magical signature.”

He descended one step, and the golden flames withdrew farther into the darkness. Although his face remained composed, Awesome noticed the tension in his shoulders and the way his fingers tightened around the railing.

“They didn’t need a powerful mage for that experiment,” his brother continued. “They needed someone whose identity the system could erase without disrupting the process.”

Awesome understood the implication before the boy finished speaking.

“They used you as a test subject.”

“They used both of us,” his brother replied bitterly. “The difference is that they gave you a story about being weak while they told me the truth about being disposable.”

The staircase trembled beneath them, releasing another wave of golden energy. His brother stumbled as the force struck him, and he barely managed to catch the railing before falling into the darkness.

Awesome reached for him instinctively.

The instant their hands touched, a violent flash of light erupted between their palms.

For one breathless moment, Awesome found himself looking through his brother’s eyes. He saw a small white room with pale curtains, a narrow bed, and a woman kneeling beside a frightened child. Tears streamed down Lyra Voss’s face as she pressed her forehead against the boy’s and promised that she would return before morning.

The child clung to her sleeve, desperately trying to make her promise that she would never leave him alone again.

Lyra gently kissed his forehead before whispering, “I will come back for you, my son. Whatever happens, you must believe that I will return.”

The memory shifted so abruptly that Awesome felt as though the ground had vanished beneath him.

The same woman stood behind reinforced glass while masked researchers carried the child away. Her hands rested against the barrier, and her lips moved as the boy struggled against the restraints.

Awesome expected to hear her begging the researchers to stop.

Instead, her voice emerged clearly through the memory.

“Proceed with the separation.”

The vision shattered.

Awesome tore his hand away and staggered backward, breathing as though he had just escaped drowning.

His brother stared at him with sudden alarm. “What did you see?”

“Mother,” Awesome whispered.

His brother’s expression hardened, and the pain in his eyes was far more unsettling than the anger Awesome had expected.

“Then you finally understand why I stopped believing her promises.”

Before Awesome could ask what he meant, Elara closed the emergency panel on the nearby console and hurried toward them. She had witnessed the exchange of memories, something the academy’s researchers had once considered impossible without a direct connection between two consciousnesses.

“Whatever you saw, you cannot allow it to control your decisions,” she warned. “Memories can be manipulated, particularly inside a containment system designed to preserve identities.”

Awesome turned toward her, unable to suppress the anger that had been building inside him.

“You keep telling me not to trust what I see, what I hear, or what the system reveals. At what point do I get to decide which truth belongs to me?”

Elara opened her mouth, but no answer came.

Before she could respond, a desperate scream rose from beneath the staircase.

“Awesome!”

The voice sounded human, frightened, and unmistakably familiar. It belonged to the man who had begged them to open the sealed door.

“Please, help me!”

Awesome moved toward the staircase before Elara could stop him. His brother followed immediately, while the professor swore under her breath and hurried after them, forming a protective shield of blue magic around the group.

As they descended, the remaining flames withdrew from their path, exposing a circular corridor lined with glass chambers. Each chamber contained a different object, including shattered crystals, rusted instruments, fragments of magical armor, and sealed containers holding wisps of golden light that moved like living creatures.

At the far end of the corridor stood a heavy metal door marked with three concentric circles.

The innermost circle bore the symbol on Awesome’s palm, while the middle circle carried the distinctive authority signature of his brother. The outer circle had been violently scratched away, leaving deep gouges across the metal.

Awesome approached the door cautiously, studying the markings.

“What was kept here?”

Elara examined the symbols with visible reluctance. “The original authority components were stored in this chamber. After the experiment failed, the academy transferred them into separate containment chambers to prevent another disaster.”

“And the third presence?” Awesome asked, pointing toward the damaged outer circle.

Elara’s gaze shifted to the deep scratches.

“We couldn’t contain it in the same way.”

Before Awesome could press her for details, the voice behind the door became frantic.

“Don’t let Elara open it! She’s the reason I died!”

Elara stopped so suddenly that her protective shield flickered.

Awesome’s brother slowly turned toward her, his expression filled with suspicion. “What did he mean?”

For the first time since Awesome had met her, Elara looked like someone who had exhausted every excuse available to her.

“I was part of the research team,” she admitted. “I helped design the separation procedure because I believed we could isolate the First Authority without harming the original consciousness.”

Awesome felt the blood drain from his face.

“You told me you sealed my power to protect me.”

“I did seal your power, and I believed it was necessary to keep you safe. But I wasn’t the person who created the experiment.”

“That isn’t what I asked you.”

Elara lowered her eyes, unable to meet his gaze.

“I was the one who activated it.”

Her confession settled over the corridor, leaving Awesome struggling to reconcile the woman who had protected him with the researcher who had helped condemn his brother to suffering.

“You knew what they were doing to him,” he said, pointing toward the boy beside him. “You knew they were treating him like something they could throw away, and you still allowed the experiment to continue?”

“Yes,” Elara answered quietly. “I believed the alternative would destroy the academy and everyone who depended on its protective barriers.”

His brother gave a bitter laugh. “You always have a reason for what you do.”

A deafening impact struck the metal door before Elara could respond.

The outer circle cracked, and Awesome’s palm burned so fiercely that he nearly dropped to his knees. Several warnings appeared across his vision, overlapping until the letters became difficult to read.

[FOREIGN AUTHORITY ACCESS: 24%]

[CONTAINMENT SUBJECT REQUESTING RECOGNITION.]

[WARNING: OPENING THIS CHAMBER MAY RESTORE A DELETED IDENTITY.]

Awesome forced himself to look at the final message.

“A deleted identity?” he whispered.

The voice behind the door answered with chilling certainty.

“Your father wasn’t the only person they erased.”

The three circles began rotating in opposite directions, grinding against the metal with a sound that echoed through the corridor. Golden light spilled from the widening cracks, illuminating a small inscription beneath the handle.

THE DEAD MUST REMAIN DEAD FOR THE LIVING TO REMEMBER WHO THEY ARE.

Awesome read the sentence twice, unable to understand why the academy would place such a warning on a containment chamber. As he examined the inscription more closely, however, he noticed that the final word had been carved over an older one.

Someone had deliberately altered the message.

He crouched and brushed the dust away from the metal, revealing the original sentence beneath the newer inscription.

THE LIVING MUST REMAIN FOR THE DEAD TO REMEMBER WHO THEY ARE.

A cold sensation spread through his chest.

“Professor, what does this mean?”

Elara examined the altered inscription, and the colour drained from her face.

“It means the chamber was designed to preserve a consciousness after its body died.”

Awesome looked at the sealed door again.

“Whose consciousness?”

Elara hesitated, but the voice behind the door answered before she could speak.

“Mine.”

Awesome pressed his marked palm against the metal, and a violent surge of images rushed through his mind. He saw a man standing beneath a sky fractured by golden lines, a woman cradling a newborn child, and another child lying motionless on a laboratory table while masked researchers worked around him.

Then he saw his father.

The man in the memory was younger than the wounded figure who had begged them for help, but his face was unmistakable. He stood beside an enormous machine while golden symbols spiralled around his arms, and his expression carried the exhausted determination of someone who had already sacrificed more than he could bear.

His father suddenly looked directly at him.

“If you’re seeing this,” the man said, “then the academy has failed to keep its promise.”

The vision disappeared.

Awesome staggered away from the door, struggling to steady his breathing.

“That was a memory,” he whispered. “A real one.”

Elara nodded reluctantly. “The chamber is responding to your authority signature.”

“Then open it.”

“No.”

Awesome turned toward her, and the restraint he had maintained for so long finally began to crumble.

“Why do you keep deciding what I’m allowed to know?”

“Because the person inside that chamber may not be the man you remember.”

“You have spent my entire life deciding which truths I am permitted to know,” Awesome snapped. “You sealed my power, hid my origins, and helped create whatever is living inside me. If you expect me to trust you now, then give me one reason to believe you deserve that trust.”

For several seconds, Elara stood motionless. The blue light surrounding her fingers slowly faded as she struggled with a decision that seemed to frighten her more than the failing containment seal.

Finally, she reached inside her coat and removed a small silver key.

“I was ordered to destroy this after the experiment,” she confessed. “Instead, I kept it because I knew that one day someone would have to face what we had done.”

She placed the key in Awesome’s hand.

“But you must understand that the man inside this chamber may be your father, or he may be the last surviving fragment of the person your father once was. If you release him, you might not be bringing a man back to life. You might be giving an ancient consciousness a new body.”

Awesome closed his fingers around the key.

“Then I’ll find out which one he is.”

He inserted the key into the lock.

A soft click echoed through the corridor as the mechanism accepted it, and every light immediately went out.

For a moment, Awesome could hear only his own breathing and the distant vibration of the failing containment system. Then a thin golden line appeared around the door, tracing its circular markings until all three circles aligned.

The lock turned.

With a deep metallic groan, the door opened.

Inside the chamber, a man lay suspended in a transparent container filled with pale liquid. His clothes had almost completely disintegrated, leaving only a dark garment wrapped around his waist, while golden symbols covered his chest and arms. Thin cables extended from his body into the walls, pulsing with a rhythm that resembled a heartbeat.

Awesome recognized his face immediately.

It was the man from the memories, the figure whose features had appeared in the academy’s restricted records.

His father.

But the man’s eyes were open, and both were completely black.

“Stay back!” Elara shouted.

The chamber shattered before she could finish speaking.

Pale liquid flooded the floor as the cables snapped one after another, releasing showers of golden sparks. Awesome threw himself aside when the man fell forward, striking the stone on his hands and knees. His body convulsed violently while the symbols beneath his skin burned brighter, as though something inside him were struggling to escape.

The original boy rushed toward him without hesitation.

“Father!”

The man slowly raised his head, and recognition softened his expression for a brief, fragile moment.

“My son,” he whispered.

The boy froze as tears gathered in his eyes. For years, he had carried the pain of being abandoned, experimented on, and erased from the world. Now, the man he had believed lost forever was kneeling before him, alive enough to speak his name.

Then their father turned toward Awesome.

His expression changed so abruptly that Awesome felt the First Witness stir inside his chest.

“No,” the man breathed.

He scrambled backward, dragging himself across the wet stone until his shoulders struck the wall.

“No, no, no. They weren’t supposed to wake you.”

Awesome approached cautiously, refusing to let the fear rising inside him dictate his next move.

“My name is Awesome,” he said. “Who are you?”

The man stared at him as though the question itself were a threat. Then he began to laugh, and the sound carried the broken desperation of someone who had spent years dreading a moment he had believed would never arrive.

“Your name,” he whispered, “is the name they gave you after they buried the first one.”

Awesome’s palm burned.

The system flashed before his eyes.

[IDENTITY CONFLICT DETECTED.]

[ORIGINAL SUBJECT: AWESOME VOSS.]

[CURRENT SUBJECT: AWESOME VOSS.]

[WARNING: TWO IDENTICAL IDENTITY RECORDS FOUND.]

Awesome struggled to breathe as the two records remained displayed before him. The academy had always identified him as a boy with almost no mana, yet its deepest system was now claiming that someone with the exact same identity had existed before him.

His brother backed away from their father, shaking his head as though he could reject the evidence simply by refusing to believe it.

“That isn’t possible,” he whispered. “There was only one Awesome.”

Their father looked at him with unbearable sadness.

“No,” he replied. “There were two.”

The Second Awesome

Awesome stared at the system until the letters blurred before his eyes. Two identical identity records should have been impossible, especially when the academy had spent years classifying him as a boy whose magical capacity was too weak to produce even a simple spell.

“What does that mean?” he demanded. “Who was the first Awesome?”

His father tried to stand, but his legs gave way beneath him. Elara moved forward to help, only for the man to recoil violently when he recognized her.

“Don’t touch me, Veyne! You have already taken enough from my family.”

Elara stopped immediately, her outstretched hand hanging uselessly between them.

“I was trying to prevent the experiment from destroying you,” she said.

“You were trying to save the academy from the consequences of its own decisions.”

The accusation struck harder than a shout, and Elara lowered her hand without offering another excuse.

Awesome crouched in front of his father, keeping enough distance between them to retreat if the man’s behaviour changed again.

“Tell me what happened,” he demanded. “No more riddles, no more stories about authority signatures, and no more secrets disguised as protection. I want to know who I am.”

His father studied him for a long time, and something resembling grief passed across his exhausted face.

“You were born twenty-five years after magic returned to this world,” he began, “but the experiment that created the conditions for your existence happened before your birth. The academy discovered that the First Authority could alter magical laws by imposing its will upon reality. They believed they could reproduce that ability inside a human subject and use it to control the future of magic.”

“Were they trying to create me?”

“Not at first.”

His father swallowed painfully, glancing toward the boy standing behind Awesome.

“The first child was your brother. When the experiment failed, the academy decided to create another subject whose consciousness might withstand the First Witness. They used the original child’s memories to construct a new identity, then placed that identity inside a body designed to contain the entity.”

Awesome slowly turned toward his brother, struggling to process what he had heard.

“So I’m his replacement?”

“No,” his father answered firmly. “You became someone neither the academy nor your mother expected. You developed your own thoughts, your own fears, and your own ability to choose. Whatever they intended to make you, they did not succeed in controlling who you became.”

For the first time since entering the chamber, Awesome felt a small measure of relief. His existence might have begun with an experiment, but the life he had lived belonged to him. His fears, friendships, struggles, and choices were not meaningless simply because other people had attempted to determine his purpose before he could understand it.

Then his father destroyed that fragile comfort with a single sentence.

“However, the consciousness that was meant to occupy your body was never completely removed.”

Awesome felt the First Witness stir beneath his ribs.

“What are you saying?”

His father reached toward him, stopping just short of touching the black mark on his palm.

“The entity inside you isn’t the only thing sharing your body. There is another presence, one that existed before the First Witness entered the experiment. It was the original identity the academy tried to erase.”

Awesome looked from his father to his brother, desperately searching their faces for an explanation that would make the situation less terrifying.

“Whose identity was it?”

His father closed his eyes, as though speaking the answer would reopen a wound that had never healed.

“Yours.”

The chamber shook violently.

Black veins spread across Awesome’s palm, and a second pulse began beating beneath his skin. It did not match his heartbeat; instead, it followed the rhythm of the machinery buried beneath the academy, as though something hidden inside him had finally heard its name being called.

The system flashed another message.

[HIDDEN CONSCIOUSNESS AWAKENING.]

[IDENTITY RESTORATION: 1%.]

Awesome stumbled backward when a voice emerged inside his mind. Unlike the First Witness, which spoke with the cold certainty of an ancient authority, this voice sounded frightened and painfully young.

Please don’t let them erase me again.

His father screamed.

“Get away from him! It’s happening too soon!”

Elara raised both hands, attempting to form a protective spell, but the blue magic gathering between her fingers dissolved before she could complete the incantation. The original boy dropped to his knees and clutched his head as memories flooded his consciousness, forcing him to relive moments he had spent years trying to forget.

Awesome could no longer distinguish his own thoughts from the images pouring into his mind. He saw a child’s bedroom illuminated by a dim lamp, a woman singing softly in the darkness, and a laboratory filled with masked researchers whose faces remained hidden behind silver masks.

He felt the terror of being strapped to a table, the cold touch of instruments against his skin, and the unbearable pain of watching his mother turn away when he needed her most.

Then the memories stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

A boy stood alone in a white room, staring at his reflection in a tall mirror. He appeared to be no older than Awesome, and the black mark on his palm was identical to the symbol that had haunted Awesome since his power began awakening.

The boy raised his hand toward the glass.

His reflection smiled.

Awesome did not.

The child pressed his palm against the mirror and spoke in a voice that sounded both familiar and terrifyingly distant.

“You took my name.”

Awesome tried to answer, but his mouth refused to move. He could only watch as the boy’s expression hardened and the mirror began to fracture around the point where their hands touched.

“Now I’m taking my body back.”

The reflection shattered.

Awesome collapsed onto the stone floor as the system announced that the hidden consciousness had reached five percent restoration. His father shouted his name, while Elara struggled to contain the spreading energy and his brother reached desperately toward him.

Yet Awesome could hear none of them clearly, because another sound had begun echoing through the depths beneath the academy.

Somewhere far below them, an ancient lock clicked open.