The Weakest Tidecaller at the Abyssal Academy

Chapter 4: The First Practical Examination

“Get him off the platform before the whole chamber collapses!”

Professor Marr's command barely reached Ethan through the grinding noise beneath his feet. The diagnostic chamber had begun shaking again, and hairline fractures spread across the floor in branching patterns of blue light. In Ethan's trembling hand, the broken compass vibrated as though something trapped inside its rusted casing were desperately trying to escape.

He stared at the snapped needle, remembering the warning his mother had delivered moments earlier.

Don't let them open the second door.

Her voice had come from somewhere beneath the chamber, but Ethan had no idea what the second door was or why opening it would be dangerous. He only knew that Professor Marr had heard the voice too, and the fear written across her face convinced him that she understood more than she was willing to admit.

“Professor, what is the second door?” he demanded.

“Not here,” she replied, grabbing his arm. “We need to leave immediately.”

“Why? What are you hiding from me?”

“Ethan, this is not the time!”

A deafening crash interrupted their argument as one of the chamber's containment pillars split down the middle. Blue energy poured from the fracture, twisting into a violent spiral that dragged loose equipment toward the center of the room. The emergency barriers flickered dangerously, and a warning appeared across the control console.

CONTAINMENT PRESSURE FALLING.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED: LOWER FOUNDATION.

Professor Marr released Ethan and rushed toward the controls, her face tightening as she examined the readings.

“Someone has breached the lower foundation,” she said. “That is impossible. Every access route has been sealed for decades.”

Ethan looked down at the black symbol on his palm. Its edges glowed faintly, and the familiar sensation he had experienced during the entrance examination returned, allowing him to perceive something hidden beneath the visible world.

The chamber's magical structure unfolded before his eyes.

He could see the energy rushing through the pillars, the bindings holding the protective barrier together, and a thin black thread extending downward through the floor. The thread pulsed in perfect rhythm with the symbol on his hand, suggesting that whatever had reached the lower foundation was connected to him.

“Professor,” he said, struggling to remain calm, “I think the breach is coming through the same structure as the artifact.”

She glanced over her shoulder, visibly startled by his claim.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I can see it.”

Before she could question him further, the floor lurched violently beneath their feet, causing a section of the outer walkway to collapse into the darkness below.

Professor Marr caught the edge of the console to steady herself, but Ethan was thrown against a damaged pillar. Pain shot through his shoulder, and the broken compass slipped from his hand, sliding toward the widening crack.

He lunged forward and caught the rusted casing just before it disappeared over the edge. As he pulled himself upright, someone screamed from the corridor outside.

“Help! Somebody, please!”

Professor Marr turned toward the door, but a second scream followed almost immediately, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of glass breaking.

She rushed outside, and Ethan followed despite her shouted order to remain behind.

The corridor had descended into panic as students fled toward the emergency exits while academy staff struggled to reactivate the protective barriers. At the far end, a section of the training wing had flooded, leaving several candidates trapped behind a transparent partition.

Among them was Damon Cross.

His expensive uniform was torn at the shoulder, and water swirled around his waist. Beside him, a younger student clung desperately to a broken railing while a massive metal support beam slowly sank toward them.

Damon struck the barrier with his fist, his face twisted with desperation.

“Open this thing! We can't get out!”

A staff member worked frantically at the nearby control panel, but the display continued flashing red warnings.

“Emergency lockout! The pressure system has overridden manual access!”

Ethan's eyes widened as his unusual vision revealed the spell structure holding the barrier in place. The protective bindings had been redirected to maintain pressure in the wrong section of the training wing. If the support beam fell completely, the trapped students would be crushed against the partition before the barrier could release them.

“Shut down the third binding!” Ethan shouted.

The staff member glanced at him irritably. “Get away from the control panel!”

“The third binding is feeding the pressure seal. You're reinforcing the wrong side!”

“You are a first-year candidate. You don't give orders here.”

Another metallic groan rolled through the flooded corridor, and the support beam dropped several inches. The younger student screamed as the railing beneath his hands bent under the strain.

Ethan looked at the failing barrier before turning his attention to the black symbol on his palm. The mark burned painfully, and for one terrifying moment, he sensed the enormous presence he had encountered beneath the examination arena.

He could almost hear chains dragging across stone.

Then unfamiliar words appeared in his mind.

The subject has identified the seal.

Ethan did not know who was speaking, but he understood the significance of the message. The barrier had been constructed according to the same ancient principles as the containment artifact, and its failure was not an ordinary accident.

Someone had deliberately altered the spell.

“Give me access to the panel!” Ethan demanded.

The staff member hesitated, uncertain whether to obey a student whose presence had already caused one major security incident.

Professor Marr appeared behind him, her expression hardening as she assessed the trapped candidates.

“Let him work,” she ordered.

“Professor, he doesn't have the authorization—”

“Do it!”

The staff member reluctantly stepped aside, allowing Ethan to approach the control panel.

Ethan placed his palm against its surface, and the world immediately sharpened around him. Luminous lines of energy spread across his vision, revealing the barrier's entire structure, including its main binding, pressure channels, and the hidden connection diverting energy toward the lower foundation.

The spell was too complicated for him to understand completely, but one flaw stood out clearly. A single binding had been twisted backward, forcing the barrier to consume more energy than its structure could safely sustain.

Ethan's hands trembled as he studied the corrupted pattern.

His mana capacity was too low to generate enough energy to repair the structure, and he had no idea how to replace the damaged binding. However, he realized that he might be able to interrupt the corrupted connection before the entire barrier collapsed.

“Professor, I need you to redirect the pressure flow into the upper channel,” he said urgently. “If you can hold it there for three seconds, I can break the corrupted binding.”

Professor Marr stared at him as though he had proposed something impossible.

“You cannot manipulate an active containment spell without generating a counterflow.”

“Then generate one for me!”

The professor's expression hardened, but she raised both hands and summoned a controlled stream of blue water-energy that flowed toward the barrier.

The spell immediately resisted her efforts, and Ethan watched the structure buckle beneath the opposing forces. He could see the upper channel beginning to stabilize, but the corrupted binding continued drawing energy away from the protective formation.

“Now!” he shouted.

Ethan pressed his thumb against the third binding, and a violent burst of pain exploded through his palm.

The black symbol flared brightly, transporting his vision into a vast darkness where seven enormous chains stretched into the distance. One of the chains had begun to fracture, and something on the other side was pulling against it with terrifying strength.

He forced himself to abandon the vision and concentrated on the barrier.

The corrupted binding snapped.

A thunderous pulse swept through the corridor, causing the water to stop swirling and the support beam to freeze in place. The barrier turned transparent before dissolving into harmless blue sparks, leaving the trapped students free to escape.

Damon stumbled forward, dragging the younger student with him as academy staff rushed to assist them. Moments later, the emergency system announced that the pressure levels were stabilizing.

Ethan staggered away from the control panel, clutching his injured hand as his vision blurred. For several seconds, he struggled to remember why he was standing in the corridor or how he had reached the control panel in the first place.

The missing seconds frightened him more than the pain.

Professor Marr caught him before he could fall.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

“I broke the binding.”

“You interrupted a containment structure that has resisted our engineers for twenty years.”

“I didn't have time to ask permission.”

Her grip tightened around his arm.

“You have no idea what you are dealing with.”

Ethan looked toward the flooded training wing, where Damon was being examined by a medical officer.

“I know what would have happened if I had done nothing.”

Professor Marr followed his gaze but offered no response. For once, Ethan had no desire to defend himself against the people watching him. He had seen students in danger, understood the consequences of the failing barrier, and acted because someone needed help.

Yet as the black symbol slowly faded, a disturbing emptiness settled behind his eyes.

Something had taken another small piece of his memory.

He simply could not remember what it was.

An hour later, Ethan sat inside a medical examination room while a healer examined his palm. The black symbol had become almost invisible, leaving only a faint circular scar beneath his skin. His shoulder was bruised, and his head throbbed whenever he tried to concentrate.

Across the room, Damon stood with his arms folded, refusing to sit despite the medical officer's recommendation.

“You could have killed everyone in that corridor,” he said.

Ethan raised his eyes toward him. “You're welcome.”

Damon's jaw tightened as his face reddened with anger.

“I didn't ask you to save me.”

“No, you were too busy shouting at the barrier.”

“You think this makes you special?”

“I think it makes me the person who opened the barrier while you were trapped behind it.”

Damon stepped forward, but the healer immediately intervened before the argument could escalate.

“Enough. If either of you causes another disturbance, I will have you both removed.”

Damon reluctantly backed away, his expression revealing how deeply the incident had wounded his pride.

Ethan returned his attention to the rusted compass lying on the examination table. Its needle remained broken, but the metal casing had grown warm since the incident.

He wondered whether his mother had carried it for the same reason he did: because she had known something about the academy that nobody else wanted to discuss.

The door opened, and Professor Adrian Thorne entered the room.

After quietly instructing the healer to give them privacy, he pulled a chair beside Ethan's bed.

“I heard what happened in the training wing,” he said.

“Then you know I didn't cause the failure.”

“I know you identified a flaw that our senior engineers missed. I also know that the same containment network reacted to you during the entrance examination.”

Thorne leaned forward, studying Ethan with an intensity that made him uncomfortable.

“Tell me what you saw when you touched the barrier.”

Ethan described the glowing bindings, the reversed channel, and the seven chains he had glimpsed inside his mind. When he mentioned the chains, Thorne's expression changed, and his fingers tightened around the edge of the chair.

“Did you see anything beyond them?” he asked.

“Only darkness.”

“Did you hear a voice?”

Ethan hesitated before repeating the words that had appeared in his mind.

The subject has identified the seal.

Thorne briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the concern on his face had deepened into something Ethan could not identify.

“Professor, what are the seals?”

Thorne glanced toward the door to ensure it was closed before answering.

“Seven containment structures protect something beneath this academy. The official explanation is that they stabilize the magical currents surrounding the foundation.”

“And the unofficial explanation?”

“That they keep something imprisoned.”

A chill traveled down Ethan's spine as he remembered the enormous creature beneath the examination arena.

“The creature I saw beneath the academy—is that what the seals are containing?”

“Possibly. We do not know what it truly is, and anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or dangerously ignorant.”

“Then why was the academy built here?”

“Because the founders believed the prison could never be opened as long as the containment network remained intact.”

Ethan looked down at his palm, where the black symbol had left its faint circular scar.

“And now one of the seals is failing.”

Thorne nodded slowly.

“Your ability may allow you to see flaws in ancient magical structures. However, every time you interact with one, the network responds to you. That makes you both a potential solution and a potential threat.”

Ethan thought about his mother's voice and the warning written inside the compass.

Don't let them open the second door.

“Did my mother work here?” he asked.

Thorne's silence answered more than any explanation could have.

Before Ethan could press him for details, the professor's communication device chimed. He read the incoming message, and his expression immediately turned grim.

“What is it?” Ethan asked.

Thorne rose from his chair.

“The chancellor has ordered a full review of your admission. Until that review is complete, you are forbidden from entering the lower levels of the academy.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“No, it doesn't.”

Thorne reached the door but stopped before leaving, his hand resting against the frame.

“Ethan, whatever happens next, do not trust anyone who tells you that your ability is a gift without a price.”

The words struck Ethan with terrible familiarity.

His father had said something almost identical years earlier, shortly before disappearing from his life.

Before Ethan could ask why the professor's warning sounded so much like his father's, Thorne left the room.

A moment later, the medical display beside the bed flickered. Ethan looked toward it, expecting another routine diagnostic reading, but a black message appeared against the illuminated screen.

CONTAINMENT PRESSURE: 97.1%.

FIRST SEAL: COMPROMISED.

A second line materialized beneath the first.

SECOND SEAL: TARGET ACQUIRED.

Ethan's compass snapped open, and the broken needle began moving again, pointing directly toward the floor.

Then three measured knocks sounded from beneath the medical room.

Ethan stopped breathing as the sound echoed through the chamber, reminding him of the voice that had spoken from beneath his dormitory.

A woman's whisper drifted through the floor, so soft that he almost mistook it for his own thoughts.

“Thank you for breaking the first lock, my little Tidecaller.”

Ethan scrambled away from the bed as a thin black line appeared in the floor beneath it. The fracture spread slowly across the surface, revealing darkness where solid metal should have been.

Something on the other side began knocking back.