The Weakest Tidecaller at the Abyssal Academy

Chapter 6: The Professor’s Warning

“Take your hands off him, Professor!”

Ethan Vale barely recognized his own voice as he stepped between Chancellor Voss and Professor Adrian Thorne. The administrative office had transformed into a sealed chamber of darkness, with black water crawling across the reinforced windows while the academy’s holographic display flashed the same accusation repeatedly.

ACCESS HOLDER: ADRIAN THORNE.

Thorne stood rigid beside the desk, his face drained of color. A silver restraint device encircled his wrist, and two security officers approached with their weapons drawn, ready to escort him away.

“You have some explaining to do, Adrian,” Voss said coldly.

“I did not access the second seal,” Thorne replied. “Someone is using my credentials.”

“That is a convenient excuse.”

“Check the access logs and the authorization sequence. You will discover that the command was issued while I was standing in this room.”

Voss narrowed his eyes. “Unless you arranged for the command to execute remotely.”

Ethan glanced between the two men, struggling to understand how the professor whose name appeared on the display could be innocent. However, the terror in Thorne’s expression seemed genuine, and Ethan had already learned that the academy’s magical systems could be manipulated.

More importantly, his Abyssal Sight allowed him to examine the structure beneath the holographic display.

The authorization thread carried Thorne’s magical signature, but its underlying pattern contained a flaw. Someone had copied the professor’s magical identity and attached it to a command he had never issued.

“Chancellor, he’s telling the truth,” Ethan said.

Voss turned toward him with visible irritation. “You are in no position to make that judgment.”

“The authorization thread is a copy. The original pattern has a different binding at its center, and someone has altered the structure to make it look like Professor Thorne gave the command.”

Thorne stared at Ethan in disbelief. “You can actually see the authorization structure?”

“I can see that someone tampered with it.”

The chancellor approached the hologram and studied the display with a cold, calculating expression.

“And you expect me to believe that your extraordinary eyesight is more reliable than the academy’s security network?”

“I expect you to examine the evidence before punishing someone for a crime he might not have committed.”

For a moment, Ethan thought Voss might strike him. Instead, the chancellor deactivated the restraint device and signaled to the security officers.

“Professor Thorne will remain under supervised restriction until this matter is resolved. Candidate Vale will return to his dormitory and remain available for questioning.”

Thorne rubbed his wrist as the silver device released him.

“Chancellor, if the second seal is failing, we need to inspect the lower foundation immediately.”

“We will address the breach through the proper channels.”

“By the time those channels finish arguing, the prison could be open!”

Voss’s expression hardened. “Your concern has been noted.”

The office doors unlocked with a metallic click, allowing the security officers to escort Thorne into the corridor. Before he disappeared from view, the professor glanced back at Ethan. His eyes briefly settled on the rusted compass protruding from Ethan’s pocket, and his lips formed three silent words.

Find the staircase.

Ethan barely had time to react before the doors closed between them.

The black water covering the windows disappeared almost immediately, and the hologram returned to its normal blue glow, displaying seven concentric rings beneath the academy. However, Ethan had already seen the severed connection hidden within the authorization structure.

Someone was deliberately weakening the seals, and the academy’s own security network was being used to conceal the crime.

Now he had another problem. Professor Thorne had instructed him to find something the chancellor clearly did not want discovered, and Ethan suspected that ignoring the warning could be just as dangerous as following it.

By the time he returned to the eastern dormitory, a security warning had been attached to his student record, and a monitor had been assigned to the corridor outside his room.

Ethan tried to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the severed magical thread leading toward the administrative tower. He could also hear the voice that had spoken through the walls during the earlier containment incident.

Now find the second.

Whatever was imprisoned beneath the academy seemed to know more about Ethan’s life than he knew himself. It knew about his birth, his mother, and the strange ability that allowed him to see the hidden architecture of magic.

That knowledge frightened him, but his mother’s warning frightened him even more.

If she had died because of the containment network, the academy might hold the answers he had spent eleven years searching for. He could not afford to ignore the clues simply because they led him toward something dangerous.

A soft tapping suddenly came from his window.

Ethan sat upright, his attention fixed on the reinforced glass. His room was hundreds of feet above the ocean floor, and layered protective barriers surrounded the dormitory windows. Nothing should have been able to reach them from outside.

Three more taps followed, each one quiet but deliberate.

Ethan approached cautiously and peered through the glass. A small mechanical fish hovered beyond the window, its scratched brass body reflecting the dim light from his room. A narrow strip of blue light flashed across its eyes, and a tiny display attached to its side illuminated a message.

STOP STARING AT THE WINDOW AND OPEN THE MAINTENANCE HATCH.

Ethan blinked in surprise. He recognized the handwriting style immediately.

Milo Reef.

His roommate was a wiry boy with unruly brown hair, grease-stained fingers, and a habit of repairing machines that everyone else considered useless. During their first evening together, Milo had spent nearly an hour explaining how he had rebuilt a broken cleaning drone using discarded academy parts.

Apparently, he had found something more interesting to repair.

Ethan opened the narrow maintenance hatch beneath his desk and pressed the release switch. The mechanical fish slipped inside, landed on the floor, and unfolded into a compact hovering drone. A moment later, the door to his room clicked open, and Milo squeezed through with a tool bag hanging from his shoulder.

“You look terrible,” Milo whispered.

“Good evening to you too.”

“I heard about the containment failure, the diagnostic chamber, and your little argument with the chancellor. You are becoming famous.”

“I would rather be invisible.”

“Then you chose the wrong academy.”

Milo closed the door and turned his attention to the black symbol on Ethan’s palm. His usual humor disappeared as he examined the strange markings.

“That looks worse than it did yesterday.”

“It appeared after I touched the artifact.”

“And you didn't think to mention that it was still active?”

“I had other things to worry about.”

Milo sighed and removed a small scanner from his bag. The device emitted a soft chime as he passed it over Ethan’s hand, and its display filled with rapidly changing symbols.

“I don’t understand half of this,” Milo admitted, “but the mark is responding to something beneath the academy. Every time the containment network fluctuates, the symbol reacts.”

“Can you trace the signal?”

“Possibly. However, before we do anything reckless, tell me why the professor who supposedly sabotaged the second seal sent you a message through a mechanical fish.”

Ethan stared at him. “How do you know about the message?”

“I don’t. I was hoping you did.”

Milo grinned briefly before reaching into his pocket and producing a folded strip of paper.

“I found this attached to your dormitory’s maintenance panel. Someone left it there after the security officers arrived.”

Ethan unfolded the paper carefully. Three words had been written in hurried handwriting.

THE FORBIDDEN STAIRCASE.

Beneath the words was a small drawing of a circular symbol surrounded by seven chains.

Ethan recognized it immediately because the same symbol appeared on the compass his mother had left him.

“Where did you find this?” he asked.

“Behind the maintenance panel. The message was tucked inside a cavity that shouldn’t exist, at least according to the maintenance diagrams.”

Ethan studied the drawing again. His mother had known something about the academy, and Professor Thorne now appeared to be guiding him toward the same mystery. He could no longer dismiss the possibility that his admission had been more than a coincidence.

“Milo, I need your help finding something.”

Milo glanced toward the security monitor outside the door. “Let me guess. Something dangerous, forbidden, and likely to get us expelled?”

“Probably.”

“Excellent. I was getting bored.”

They waited until the dormitory lights dimmed and most of the students had gone to sleep. Milo then led Ethan through a maintenance corridor behind the eastern laboratory, using a small device that temporarily confused the security sensors. The device had been assembled from a broken cleaning drone, two discarded circuit boards, and what Milo described as “a perfectly legal amount of unauthorized engineering.”

Ethan was beginning to understand why the academy had not expelled his roommate.

Milo was surprisingly useful.

They eventually reached a narrow service passage behind an unused lecture hall. Dust covered the walls, while old pipes carried faint streams of magical energy toward the academy’s lower levels.

Inside Ethan’s pocket, the compass began to vibrate.

He pulled it out and watched as the broken needle reappeared, pointing toward a blank section of wall.

“There’s something behind here,” he whispered.

Milo crouched beside the wall and swept his scanner across its surface. “That can’t be right. The academy’s architectural plans show solid foundation material behind this section.”

“Then the plans are wrong.”

Milo examined the readings for another moment before his expression changed. “There’s an empty space beyond the wall, and it’s much larger than I expected.”

He removed a compact mechanical tool from his bag and attached it to a small access panel hidden beneath the pipes. After several minutes of careful work, a metallic click sounded from inside the wall, and a narrow section slid aside.

Beyond it, a stone staircase descended into darkness.

Cold water vapor drifted upward, carrying the scent of wet stone and old iron. The staircase bore little resemblance to the academy’s modern construction. Its walls consisted of dark stone carved with unfamiliar symbols, while the handrail was formed from a single continuous piece of black metal.

Ethan’s Abyssal Sight activated.

For an instant, the staircase appeared covered in luminous threads. Each step connected to the next through a complicated network of magical bindings, but the lowest sections were almost entirely black. Something pulsed at the bottom, sending a faint vibration through the hidden structure.

The symbol on Ethan’s palm responded with a dull ache.

Milo swallowed nervously. “Please tell me that thing isn’t going to explode if we look at it.”

“I don’t know.”

“That is not the answer I was hoping for.”

Despite their unease, they began descending carefully. With every step, the sounds of the academy faded until Ethan could hear only the distant movement of water behind the walls. The staircase seemed to extend far beyond the building’s actual dimensions, winding downward through a space that felt strangely disconnected from the world above.

Halfway down, Ethan noticed a series of inscriptions carved into the stone. He could not identify the individual characters, but when he focused on them, their meaning appeared in his mind as clearly as spoken words.

THE FIRST WITNESS HAS RETURNED.

He stopped so abruptly that Milo nearly collided with him.

“What is it?” Milo asked.

Ethan pointed toward the inscription.

Milo examined the writing with his scanner, but his expression grew increasingly confused. “That’s impossible. These symbols don’t match any recognized magical script.”

“They match the message I saw in the examination arena.”

Milo looked at him with growing concern. “Ethan, how many things have you touched since arriving here?”

“Too many, apparently.”

A low vibration suddenly traveled through the staircase. The lights on Milo’s scanner flickered twice before going out completely, leaving them surrounded by darkness.

From somewhere below, three knocks echoed through the hidden passage.

Ethan tightened his grip on the compass. He remembered the voice in the medical room, the black tendril that had reached for him, and the warning about the second door.

Milo slowly backed toward the stairs they had descended. “We should leave before whatever is down there decides to come looking for us.”

For once, Ethan agreed.

Before either of them could move, however, a woman’s voice drifted upward from the darkness.

“Ethan Vale.”

He froze.

The voice sounded different from the one that had spoken through the walls earlier. It was older and deeper, carrying a strange patience that made the hairs on his arms rise.

“You have taken your time.”

Milo seized Ethan’s sleeve. “Tell me you heard that.”

“I heard it.”

“Good. I was worried the stairs were making me hallucinate.”

Ethan forced himself to look toward the bottom of the staircase. “Who are you?”

The darkness shifted, revealing a pale blue light beneath the final step. The light illuminated a massive circular door covered in seven chain-like markings. Six markings glowed faintly, while the seventh had split down the center.

Ethan’s compass snapped open in his hand, and its needle pointed directly toward the door.

A new inscription appeared across the ancient surface.

SECOND SEAL: ACCESS DENIED.

Beneath it, another line slowly materialized.

BLOODLINE AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.

The black symbol on Ethan’s palm began to burn. In response, the circular door released a deep, resonant pulse that traveled through the stone beneath their feet.

Milo grabbed Ethan’s arm. “Whatever that means, do not put your hand on it.”

However, Ethan had already seen the magical structure beneath the door. The seal was not merely locked; it had been designed to recognize someone belonging to a specific bloodline, and its inner bindings were beginning to unravel.

Someone had been trying to open it. Someone with access to the academy’s security network might have been responsible, and that person could also have played a role in his mother’s death.

Ethan stepped back, struggling to control his breathing.

“I think this is what Professor Thorne wanted me to find.”

“Then Professor Thorne has terrible judgment,” Milo muttered.

A final knock sounded from the other side of the door, followed by a whisper that seemed to seep directly into Ethan’s mind.

“Ethan, your mother promised she would return.”

His compass shattered in his hand.

The broken pieces scattered across the stone steps as the lights embedded in the staircase went out one by one. Ethan could barely move while the darkness gathered around him, and then the voice spoke again, so close that he felt an icy breath against his ear.

“She broke that promise.”

The circular door began to open.

As a narrow gap appeared between its ancient edges, something on the other side called him by a name he had never heard before.

“First Witness.”