The Weakest Mage at the World's Greatest Academy

Chapter 4: The Professor Who Sealed His Power

“I'm the one who sealed you.”

Professor Elara Veyne's confession hung heavily between them as the academy's alarm continued screaming overhead. Red emergency lights swept across the shattered infirmary, casting shifting shadows over the overturned beds and broken medical equipment. Beneath Elara's collar, a black symbol glowed with an unnatural intensity, pulsing in time with the mark embedded in Awesome's palm.

Awesome stared at her, struggling to reconcile the woman who had protected him from Corvin with the person who had apparently stolen something fundamental from his existence. Only moments earlier, he had believed that Elara might be the one person who could help him understand the impossible things happening around him. Now, every word she had spoken seemed to open another wound in his already fractured understanding of himself.

“You sealed me?” he repeated, his voice trembling with disbelief. “What does that even mean?”

Elara slowly extended a hand toward him, but Awesome immediately stepped backward, refusing to let her come any closer.

“Don't touch me.”

Pain flickered across her face, revealing how deeply his rejection affected her, yet she made no attempt to defend herself or force him to listen.

“Awesome, you have to hear me out. I didn't do it because I wanted to hurt you.”

“Then why did you do it?” he demanded, his voice rising above the alarm. “What could possibly justify taking something from me without my knowledge?”

“Because you asked me to.”

For a moment, Awesome could only stare at her. The answer was so absurd that a bitter laugh escaped his throat before he could stop it, although there was nothing remotely amusing about the situation. Laughing felt easier than screaming, and screaming would not bring him any closer to understanding why his own professor was claiming responsibility for something he could not remember.

“I've never met you before coming to this academy. I've never seen that chamber, and I've never heard of a First Authority until today. Yet you're standing here telling me that I asked you to erase my own power?” He shook his head, struggling to control the anger building inside him. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

“You don't remember because the seal was designed to remove the memories connected to it,” Elara explained, her voice growing more urgent. “It wasn't simply meant to suppress your abilities. It was meant to keep you from remembering why those abilities had to be sealed in the first place.”

“Convenient.”

A violent impact shook the infirmary doors before Elara could respond, sending fragments of plaster cascading from the ceiling. From the corridor beyond, Corvin shouted orders to the security officers, demanding that they reinforce the entrance before whatever was happening beneath the academy spread any further.

Silver light spread across the doorway as another protective barrier formed, its intricate runes illuminating the smoke drifting beneath the frame. However, the barrier had barely stabilized when the metal doors buckled inward under another tremendous blow.

Elara glanced toward the entrance, and Awesome noticed the fear she was trying to conceal.

“We have less than three minutes before they break through.”

“Then explain everything in two,” Awesome replied, refusing to let the approaching danger distract him from the answers he deserved.

Elara opened her mouth, but the words seemed to catch in her throat. Her hesitation lasted only a few seconds, yet those seconds were enough to reignite Awesome's anger.

“You knew about the crystal. You knew about the voice, and you even knew what would happen when the formation activated.” He pointed accusingly at the black symbol beneath her collar. “How long have you been lying to me?”

Elara met his gaze, and when she finally answered, her words struck him harder than any spell could have.

“Since before you were born.”

Awesome froze as the meaning of her confession began to sink in. For a brief moment, the screaming alarm seemed distant, as though the entire world had withdrawn around him and left him alone with those five impossible words.

“Before I was born?” he whispered.

Elara nodded slowly, her expression weighed down by memories she clearly wished she could escape.

“Twenty-five years ago, when magic first appeared across the world, the academy's founders discovered an ancient structure beneath the land where this building now stands. They believed it was a natural source of magical energy, an extraordinary reservoir that could explain the sudden emergence of magic and help humanity understand its limits.”

Another impact struck the doors, causing the silver barrier to ripple violently. A thin crack appeared across its surface, branching through the protective runes like lightning spreading across glass.

Elara continued before the barrier could fail.

“The founders were wrong. The structure wasn't a reservoir of magic. It was a control system designed to regulate something far older than the magic humanity discovered twenty-five years ago. When they tried to activate it, they awakened an intelligence that identified itself as the First Authority.”

Awesome's mind returned to the terrifying vision he had experienced inside the ancient chamber. He remembered the black sky, the figures kneeling beneath it, and the mysterious stranger whose face had seemed disturbingly familiar. Most vividly, he remembered the warning about the final gate, spoken with the certainty of someone who had already witnessed the consequences of opening it.

“Me?” he asked, his throat tightening. “Are you saying that I was the First Authority?”

“Not exactly,” Elara replied. “I'm saying that the being you saw wore your face.”

Awesome felt a cold sensation spread through his chest as he tried to understand what she was telling him.

“What happened to him?”

Elara's expression tightened, and for the first time since her confession, she seemed genuinely afraid of the answer.

“He stopped the system from opening something beneath the chamber, but the effort nearly destroyed him. His consciousness was divided, his memories were sealed, and the authority he controlled was hidden inside a new life. The founders believed that separating his power from his memories would prevent the disaster from happening again.”

“And that new life was mine?”

“I believe so, but I cannot tell you whether you are the same person reborn or someone who inherited his authority. The seal was never designed to answer that question.”

A violent crash interrupted their conversation as the infirmary doors buckled inward for the final time. The silver barrier shattered into fragments of light, scattering across the floor before fading into nothing.

Corvin appeared through the smoke, accompanied by four armoured guards whose enchanted equipment glimmered beneath the emergency lights. His silver staff radiated concentrated mana, while a translucent defensive barrier shimmered around his body and distorted the air near his shoulders.

“Professor Veyne!” he thundered. “Step away from the student immediately. This is your final warning!”

Instead of obeying, Elara moved in front of Awesome, placing herself directly between him and the approaching guards.

“No.”

Corvin's expression hardened, and the mana surrounding his staff intensified until the silver engravings along its shaft shone like heated metal.

“You have violated direct Council orders, interfered with an authorized containment operation, and concealed evidence concerning an ancient authority. Whatever your intentions might have been, you are no longer acting as an instructor. You are now a suspect.”

“Then arrest me,” Elara answered, refusing to retreat.

“I intend to.”

Corvin raised his staff, and the four guards immediately advanced toward them.

Awesome's instincts screamed at him to run, but he could see no escape from the rapidly closing circle. The windows had been shattered, the entrance was blocked by the guards, and every visible exit had been covered by the academy's security formations.

His ribs throbbed with every breath, and his legs were still trembling from the strain of dismantling the earlier spell. He had no reliable supply of mana, no proper understanding of his abilities, and no idea whether the power awakening inside him was something he could control.

Worse still, the only person who seemed capable of explaining his situation had just admitted to sealing his power.

“What am I supposed to do?” he whispered, turning toward Elara with an expression that betrayed more fear than he wanted her to see.

She glanced at him, and her voice softened despite the danger surrounding them.

“Look at the golden lines.”

Awesome frowned, uncertain whether he had heard her correctly.

“What?”

“The connections between the spells,” she clarified. “You saw them when the formation activated. Don't fight their power, because you don't yet understand how much of it you can withstand. Find the command holding them together and focus on that instead.”

Before Awesome could ask another question, Corvin thrust his staff forward.

A cage of silver energy erupted from the floor, its luminous bars snapping into place around Awesome before he could move out of their path. The instant the final bar connected with the surrounding formation, crushing pressure descended upon him, forcing him to his knees as though an invisible hand were pressing against his spine.

He grabbed one of the glowing bars to keep himself from collapsing completely, but the energy surged through his arm and sent a sharp wave of pain through his injured ribs.

“Stop struggling,” Corvin ordered as he approached the cage. “The formation is specifically designed to suppress irregular magical signatures. You cannot overpower it, and every attempt to resist will only strengthen its hold.”

Awesome clenched his teeth, refusing to give the deputy headmaster the satisfaction of seeing him surrender.

“I wasn't planning to.”

Instead of wasting his remaining strength against the bars, he forced himself to look beyond their blinding silver glow. He concentrated on the strange perception that had allowed him to see the structure of the academy's magical formations, searching for the golden connections Elara had told him to find.

Gradually, the lines emerged from the surrounding light.

They threaded through the cage, branching into the floor and connecting to the runes engraved along Corvin's staff. Unlike the complicated network he had encountered earlier, this formation possessed a tightly organized structure, with every connection serving a specific purpose and every branch leading back to a central command.

CONTAINMENT.

The word seemed to form inside his mind as soon as he recognized the pattern.

Awesome followed the golden connections carefully, ignoring the pressure crushing his body until he discovered a small knot where three threads intersected near the base of the cage. Something about the arrangement immediately struck him as wrong, although he could not explain how he knew it.

One thread carried energy into the cage, another maintained the shape of the bars, and the third transmitted Corvin's command throughout the formation. The three connections formed a closed loop that forced the cage to reinforce itself whenever its prisoner resisted, allowing it to draw upon its own structure to increase the pressure.

It was an elegant design, powerful enough to suppress a student whose mana was unstable or difficult to measure.

However, the loop also contained a flaw.

The same command that maintained the cage's stability was trapped inside the cycle, meaning the formation depended on a continuous sequence of instructions that could be interrupted if the central connection was broken.

Awesome reached toward the knot.

Corvin's eyes widened as he realized what the boy was attempting to do.

“Don't you dare!”

Ignoring the warning, Awesome pressed his fingers against the nearest silver bar and focused on the command that held the entire formation together. He did not attempt to overpower the magic, nor did he try to supply the cage with an opposing force. Instead, he concentrated on the single instruction at the heart of its existence.

Release.

The moment the command took shape in his mind, the knot came apart.

The entire formation collapsed in a violent burst of silver energy, sending two guards tumbling backward while the others scrambled to protect themselves from the explosion. Corvin staggered as his staff cracked from its tip to the middle of its shaft, and the defensive barrier surrounding his body flickered before disappearing.

Awesome dropped to one knee, gasping for breath as the remaining energy dissolved around him.

He had done it again.

Without casting a single conventional spell, he had dismantled a powerful magical formation simply by understanding how it worked and identifying the command that held it together.

Yet this time, the consequences arrived before he could fully appreciate what he had accomplished.

A searing pain spread through his palm, and the black symbol beneath his skin burned with such intensity that a cry escaped his throat. Golden lines erupted from his wrist and climbed toward his elbow, spreading beneath his skin like glowing veins as the power inside him surged beyond anything he had experienced before.

Elara rushed toward him, her expression changing the instant she saw the golden markings spreading across his arm.

“Awesome, stop! You're accessing too much of the authority!”

“I don't know how to stop!” he shouted, clutching his burning hand as the golden light pulsed beneath his skin.

“Then stop looking at the spells!” she commanded. “Close your eyes if you have to, but don't let the authority pull you any deeper!”

Before Awesome could follow her instructions, Corvin recovered from the destruction of his formation and raised what remained of his staff. His face had twisted with fury, and the mana gathering around him threatened to overwhelm the damaged weapon.

“Seize them both!” he roared.

The guards immediately moved forward, determined to carry out his command before Elara could interfere again.

However, they had barely taken their first steps when a deep mechanical voice reverberated throughout the infirmary. The sound emerged from the walls, the floor, and the ancient structures buried beneath the academy, carrying an authority that made even Corvin hesitate.

[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.]

Every person in the room froze as the voice echoed through the shattered infirmary.

[FIRST AUTHORITY UNDER THREAT.]

Awesome raised his head, struggling to see through the golden light obscuring his vision.

[PROTECTIVE MEASURE: TEMPORARY TRANSFER.]

He barely had time to register the announcement before the floor beneath him began to separate. A circular platform rose from the darkness below, its surface covered in ancient golden symbols that matched the markings spreading across his arm.

Elara grabbed his wrist as the platform began drawing them downward, and the sudden movement forced Awesome to cling to her for support. The surrounding walls shifted as hidden mechanisms awakened, revealing a passage that descended into the forgotten depths beneath the academy.

Corvin lunged toward the opening, abandoning all pretence of calm as he realized that the ancient system was taking control of the situation.

“NO! Close the passage!” he shouted at the guards. “Shut it down before they reach the lower chamber!”

The platform accelerated beyond their reach.

Awesome caught one final glimpse of Corvin's furious expression as the deputy headmaster stretched his hand toward the opening, but the distance increased too quickly for him to intervene. A moment later, the floor sealed shut above them, cutting off the alarm, the shouting, and the chaos of the infirmary.

Darkness swallowed them as the platform carried them deeper underground.

For several seconds, Awesome could hear nothing except the rushing air around them and Elara's strained breathing beside him. His palm continued to burn, although the golden lines had stopped spreading beyond his elbow, and every attempt to move his fingers sent a dull ache through his arm.

Gradually, lights awakened along the walls, revealing an enormous underground corridor carved from black stone. Ancient symbols covered its surface, glowing with the same golden light that had appeared in Awesome's vision, while towering pillars disappeared into the darkness above them.

Far ahead, an enormous door stood between two statues that resembled armoured guardians. Their faces were hidden behind featureless masks, and each carried a weapon engraved with symbols that seemed to shift whenever Awesome tried to examine them directly.

At the centre of the door was an indentation shaped precisely like a human hand.

Awesome slowly looked down at his palm, where the black symbol had begun glowing again.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice echoing through the enormous corridor.

Elara swallowed before answering.

“The original containment chamber.”

Awesome looked from the door to the golden markings on his arm, trying to understand why the ancient system had brought them to a place that appeared to have been waiting for him long before his birth.

“Why did the system bring us here?”

“Because it recognizes you as its highest authority,” Elara replied. “Whatever the founders believed they had contained, the system has never forgotten who gave it its original commands.”

Before Awesome could question her further, a message appeared in his vision.

[FIRST AUTHORITY RECOGNIZED.]

[MEMORY RESTORATION AVAILABLE.]

[WARNING: RESTORATION WILL REVEAL SEALED SUBJECT.]

The final line remained in front of him, pulsing faintly as though the system were waiting for him to make a decision.

Awesome took a cautious step toward the enormous door, drawn forward by a strange familiarity that he could neither explain nor resist. The closer he came, the more strongly he felt that something beyond the entrance was connected to him in a way that went far beyond inherited magic or forgotten memories.

Before he could reach the hand-shaped indentation, Elara seized his arm.

“Don't open that door.”

Awesome turned toward her, startled by the desperation in her voice.

“Why?”

For the first time since he had met her, Professor Veyne appeared completely broken. The composure she had maintained throughout their confrontation had vanished, leaving behind a woman who seemed terrified of something she had spent her entire life trying to keep buried.

“Because the person who ordered me to seal your memories wasn't the Council, and it wasn't Corvin.”

A terrible metallic groan echoed from behind the door, deep enough to vibrate through the stone beneath their feet. The ancient symbols brightened in response, and dust drifted from the ceiling as something on the other side began to move.

Elara tightened her grip on Awesome's arm, her fingers trembling as she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“It was you, Awesome.”

He stared at her, unable to comprehend how he could have given an order before remembering the life in which he supposedly gave it.

“You told me that if you ever remembered what was behind that door, I had to kill you before it woke up,” she whispered.

The golden symbols blazed with blinding intensity, illuminating the statues and the enormous entrance as a deep mechanical rumble rolled through the corridor.

The hand-shaped indentation began to glow.

The door started opening.

And from the darkness beyond it, Awesome heard his own voice laughing.