The Weakest Tidecaller at the Abyssal Academy

Chapter 2: The Academy’s Biggest Joke

“Seize him before he touches anything else!”

Professor Selene Marr’s command cut through the chaos, but the two academy guards approaching Ethan Vale hesitated when the black symbol on his palm began to glow with an eerie light.

Ethan backed away from them, his shoulder throbbing from the impact against the pedestal. Broken crystal fragments remained scattered around his feet, while the enormous creature beneath the academy had vanished into the darkness as suddenly as it had appeared. Despite its disappearance, the pressure it had left behind continued to weigh on him, making every breath feel heavier than the last.

“I didn't cause this!” Ethan shouted, raising his injured hand. “You saw what happened! The artifact reacted when I touched the frame!”

“That is precisely why you are coming with us,” Professor Marr replied, her expression revealing none of the uncertainty she had displayed moments earlier.

One of the guards raised a silver restraint band, whose blue runes began crawling across its surface as the suppression mechanism prepared to neutralize Ethan's magical energy.

He almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. His tide capacity was only 0.03, so low that the academy's equipment could barely detect it. He couldn't summon a stream of water, produce a spark of elemental energy, or activate even the simplest household enchantment. What danger could someone like him possibly pose?

Before he could voice the question, the symbol on his palm suddenly burned.

A thin black thread emerged from its center and extended toward the restraint band. Ethan watched in disbelief as the blue runes flickered, their carefully arranged patterns becoming visible to him as clearly as words written on a page.

He immediately recognized the flaw.

“Don't turn it on!” he warned.

The guard frowned. “What did you say?”

“The second rune on the inner ring is reversed. If you activate the restraint while that thread is connected, the suppression current will flow backward and overload the band.”

The guard glanced uncertainly at Professor Marr, who appeared unwilling to entertain another explanation from the candidate who had just disrupted her examination.

“Activate it,” she ordered.

The blue runes ignited, releasing a violent crack that echoed through the arena.

The restraint band burst apart in the guard's hand, producing a shock wave that hurled him backward. He struck the edge of a bench and collapsed with a groan while blue sparks scattered across the floor.

Screams erupted from the remaining students, and Ethan stared at the smoking fragments with his stomach twisting in horror.

“I warned you not to activate it,” he muttered.

The second guard drew a short magical baton, but Professor Marr immediately raised her hand to prevent him from attacking.

“Stand down! Nobody activates another artifact near that boy.”

Her gaze settled on Ethan's palm, and for the first time since the examination began, she no longer looked at him as a useless candidate. Instead, she regarded him as a dangerous mystery that she had neither the knowledge nor the authority to understand.

Before she could question him, a deep metallic groan rolled through the arena, causing the transparent floor to shiver beneath their feet. Every surviving examination crystal began glowing black, and the academy's emergency display illuminated with a message that silenced the remaining students.

CONTAINMENT PRESSURE: 98.9%.

ANOMALOUS RESONANCE DETECTED.

SOURCE: CANDIDATE ETHAN VALE.

Hundreds of eyes turned toward Ethan, who suddenly felt as though the entire academy had decided he was responsible for whatever horror lay beneath its foundations.

Damon Cross rose slowly from his seat, his expression hardening into something far more dangerous than mockery.

“What exactly are you, Vale?”

Ethan opened his mouth, but no answer came. The question had begun to frighten him too, because he was no longer certain that he understood what had happened to him.

The guards escorted him through a corridor sealed behind thick transparent barriers, while two security drones floated overhead and swept red scanning beams across his face and hands. Beyond the barriers, the ocean stretched into an endless blue abyss, where luminous plants clung to the academy's exterior supports and distant sea creatures circled the protective dome like curious spectators.

Under normal circumstances, Ethan would have stopped to admire the architecture. Abyssal Crown Academy was considered the greatest aquatic magical institution on Earth, a magnificent complex of towers, laboratories, training arenas, and underwater gardens built around an ancient foundation.

Today, however, he could barely think beyond the black symbol beneath his skin.

Every few steps, the mark pulsed, bringing with it a fleeting impression of something enormous moving through the darkness. Each pulse also carried the faint sound of chains dragging across stone, a noise that seemed to originate somewhere deep inside his mind.

He tried covering the mark with his other hand, but doing so only intensified the sensation.

“Keep walking,” one of the guards ordered.

“I need to speak to Professor Marr.”

“You will speak when the investigation begins.”

“I didn't attack anyone. Your restraint device malfunctioned.”

The guard gave him a humorless smile. “A device that has worked perfectly for twenty-three years suddenly explodes when you touch it, and you expect us to believe you had nothing to do with it?”

“I warned you before it happened.”

“And now one of our guards is injured.”

Ethan stopped walking and turned toward him.

“So you're going to blame me for warning him?”

The guard seized his arm and shoved him forward, making Ethan wince as pain shot through his injured shoulder.

“Another word, and you'll spend the night in a suppression cell.”

Ethan swallowed his anger and continued down the corridor. He had spent most of his life being blamed for things he could not control, but this situation felt different. The academy was frightened, and frightened people often needed someone weaker to punish.

He suspected that person would be him.

When they reached the security checkpoint, a young technician hurried toward the guards with a tablet clutched against his chest.

“Wait! I need to scan the candidate before you take him below.”

The taller guard frowned. “Why?”

“The system has flagged his admission record. His examination score doesn't match the data from his entrance assessment.”

Ethan blinked in confusion.

“What does that mean?”

The technician glanced at him before returning his attention to the tablet.

“Your written examination placed you in the top three percent of applicants, but your practical score was almost nonexistent. The system normally rejects candidates with that combination unless a senior examiner authorizes a manual review.”

“I studied,” Ethan replied defensively. “I answered the questions correctly.”

The technician nodded absently as he scrolled through the information.

“That's not the strange part. Your record was created seventeen years ago, but the original authorization code belongs to a department that was supposedly decommissioned before you were born.”

Ethan felt the corridor grow colder around him.

“Which department?” he asked.

The technician's fingers stopped moving.

“Foundational Containment.”

Before Ethan could ask another question, the tablet went completely black. A line of unfamiliar writing appeared across its screen, and the technician recoiled so violently that he nearly dropped the device.

DO NOT SEND THE BOY BELOW.

The guards exchanged uneasy looks, but the message changed before anyone could respond.

SHE IS WAITING FOR HIM.

Every light in the checkpoint flickered, and a distant knock sounded from somewhere beneath their feet. The black symbol on Ethan's palm burned so fiercely that he cried out, clutching his hand against his chest.

The taller guard immediately dragged him away from the checkpoint.

“We're taking him to the chancellor,” he announced. “Now.”

For the first time, Ethan offered no argument. Whatever waited beneath the academy had recognized him, and he was beginning to fear that it had been waiting far longer than he had been alive.

Chancellor Voss received them in a circular office overlooking the academy's central lagoon. The room was elegant but severe, with dark walls decorated by silver maps of ocean currents and a holographic model of Abyssal Crown Academy floating above the chancellor's desk. Its towers appeared as luminous blue structures, while the foundations were represented by seven concentric rings.

Ethan immediately noticed that the lowest ring was black.

A tall man with silver-streaked hair stood beside the hologram, studying the damaged containment readings. He wore the deep-blue robes of a senior professor, and his exhausted expression suggested that he had not slept in several days.

Professor Adrian Thorne.

Ethan recognized him from the academy's public lectures. Thorne was famous for studying ancient aquatic magic, although rumors claimed that he had once been suspended for questioning the official history of the Tide Awakening.

Chancellor Voss looked up as Ethan entered.

“So this is the candidate who brought our containment system to the edge of failure.”

“I didn't bring anything to the edge of failure,” Ethan replied, struggling to keep his voice steady. “The artifact was already damaged.”

Voss's eyes narrowed.

“You will speak when you are questioned.”

Ethan pressed his lips together, unwilling to give the chancellor another reason to punish him.

After studying him briefly, Professor Thorne turned away from the hologram. His gaze moved from Ethan's face to the black symbol on his palm, and something changed in his expression.

Although the reaction lasted only a moment, Ethan recognized it immediately.

The professor knew something about the mark.

“Where did that symbol come from?” Thorne asked quietly.

“It appeared after I touched the artifact.”

“Did you hear anything?”

Ethan hesitated as memories of the darkness returned to him. He could still remember the voice that had welcomed him home and the enormous eye that had opened beneath the academy.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Someone spoke to me.”

Chancellor Voss leaned forward across his desk.

“What did the voice say?”

Ethan considered withholding the truth, but the expressions on both men's faces made it clear that they would not accept an incomplete answer.

“It called me a Tidecaller.”

The room became unnaturally still.

Thorne's fingers tightened around the tablet he was holding, while Voss slowly rose from his chair.

“That is impossible,” the chancellor declared. “His tide capacity is 0.03.”

“Capacity and affinity are not necessarily the same thing,” Thorne replied.

“Do not lecture me about basic magical theory, Adrian.”

“Then perhaps you should explain why the academy's containment network identified him as the source of an ancient resonance.”

Voss's face darkened, but Ethan barely noticed the tension between the two men. His attention had settled on a question that had been troubling him since the artifact activated.

“What is a First Witness?” he asked.

Thorne went completely still.

Ethan realized too late that he had spoken aloud, but the question had already changed the atmosphere in the room.

Chancellor Voss slowly turned toward him.

“Who told you that name?”

“No one. I saw it in a message when I touched the crystal.”

“Where did you see it?”

“In my vision. There was a structure made of seven chains, and something identified me as the First Witness.”

Voss walked around the desk, stopping close enough for Ethan to notice tiny blue sparks moving beneath the chancellor's skin.

“Listen carefully, boy. You will remain inside the academy's secure quarters until we determine what happened. You will not discuss the examination with other candidates, and you will not attempt to access the containment system.”

Ethan's jaw tightened.

“And if I refuse?”

The chancellor's expression became cold.

“Then your admission will be revoked, and you will be transferred to the authorities for examination under the Magical Security Act.”

Ethan felt his stomach tighten at the threat. He had worked too hard to reach Abyssal Crown Academy to lose everything on his first day, yet he could not shake the suspicion that the chancellor was more interested in silencing him than discovering the truth.

Professor Thorne stepped between them.

“Let me supervise him,” he proposed. “If his ability is what I suspect, forcing him into a suppression cell could make the situation worse.”

Voss studied the professor for a long moment before finally nodding toward the guards.

“Take the candidate to the eastern dormitory. Place a monitoring seal on his room and restrict his access to the lower levels.”

As the guards led Ethan toward the door, Thorne caught his attention with a brief glance. The professor's eyes carried a warning, but beneath that warning Ethan detected something he had not expected to see in an academy official.

Hope.

The eastern dormitory was crowded with new candidates when Ethan arrived. Conversations died away as the guards escorted him through the common room, and whispers followed him toward the narrow staircase.

“That is him.”

“The boy who broke the containment artifact?”

“I heard he nearly killed a professor.”

“No, I heard the thing beneath the academy spoke to him.”

Ethan kept his eyes forward, refusing to give the other students the satisfaction of seeing how deeply their words affected him.

He had imagined arriving at Abyssal Crown Academy countless times, always picturing himself proving that a person did not need overwhelming magical power to accomplish something extraordinary. Instead, he had become the academy's most suspicious student before attending his first class.

The guards left him outside Room 317 and warned him not to remove the monitoring seal attached to the doorframe.

Inside, Ethan found a narrow bed, a desk, and a circular window overlooking the ocean. His belongings had already been delivered, including two sets of clothes, a battered notebook, and the rusted compass that had belonged to his mother.

He picked up the compass and rubbed his thumb across its cracked surface, remembering how his mother had pressed it into his hands before she disappeared.

“Mother, what did you leave me?” he whispered.

The compass had never pointed north, and Ethan had assumed since childhood that it was broken. Now, however, its needle began moving in small, deliberate circles.

He placed it on the desk, but the needle immediately stopped and pointed directly toward the floor.

A soft knock came from the other side of the wall.

Ethan froze as three measured knocks followed, each one vibrating through the room and reminding him of the sounds he had heard beneath the examination arena.

“No,” he whispered, backing away from the wall.

The compass snapped open by itself, and a thin strip of black metal slid from its casing. The movement revealed writing etched so finely that Ethan had never noticed it before.

He leaned closer and carefully read the message.

WHEN THE SEVENTH SEAL BREAKS, RUN.

Before he could examine the inscription again, the monitoring seal on his door flared red, and every light in the room went out.

A message appeared on the dark window, although nothing had touched the glass.

CANDIDATE ETHAN VALE: STATUS UPDATED.

PROVISIONAL ADMISSION CONFIRMED.

Ethan stared at the words, struggling to understand why the academy's system had suddenly changed his admission status.

A second message appeared beneath the first.

HIDDEN APTITUDE: ABYSSAL SIGHT.

He barely had time to process the unfamiliar designation before the final message emerged.

WARNING: YOUR MOTHER'S DEATH HAS BEEN RECLASSIFIED AS A CONTAINMENT INCIDENT.

The compass slipped from Ethan's fingers and struck the floor.

For seventeen years, he had believed that his mother had disappeared in an accident connected to the early years of the Tide Awakening. Nobody had ever given him a body, a convincing explanation, or even a proper account of what had happened to her.

Now the academy was telling him that her death was connected to the ancient prison beneath its foundations.

The black symbol on his palm pulsed once, sending a cold sensation through his arm.

Then a woman's voice whispered through the walls.

“Ethan, whatever they tell you about me, do not believe them.”

He stumbled backward, his heart pounding as he recognized the voice he had not heard since he was six years old.

It was his mother's voice.

And she sounded terrified.