Chapter 54: An Organized Binge Watch
It had been over two hours since Matthew and the others reached their secret base. Night had fallen over the mountain, but the world outside did not sleep. The caverns came alive with the growls and slithers of nocturnal beasts. Glowing eyes moved between the shadows of the rocks. Lava flows pulsed faintly in the distance like veins under skin, and the echoes of creatures scraping along the walls formed an eerie rhythm.
Inside, however, the sound was different. The only noise came from the faint hum of mana and the soft crackle of a conjured flame.
Thane sat cross-legged near the wall, his eyes half-lidded, watching his Celestial TV float before him. Aetherion’s lecture filled the air like a low chant.
Ten hours were spent on this from Thane’s perspective. Despite the high theories of the Body of Magic, Thane sat through it all.
"...and so the body itself mirrors the flow of the world’s Ether," Aetherion intoned, walking in front of a glowing chalkboard. "Each living creature breathes magic, not as air, but as rhythm. Those who learn this rhythm command both life and destruction."
Thane leaned forward, rapt. His fingers twitched, tracing invisible lines across his chest as if memorizing where his own mana veins might lie. His eyes glowed faintly as his Spirit resonated.
Libra hovered nearby, his skull dimly lit by the flickering blue light of the TV. He had long since stopped commenting, partly impressed, partly horrified.
"Master Thane," he finally murmured.
"You’ve been staring at the same screen for over three hours. Your brain must be melting."
Thane didn’t look away.
"Shh. Aetherion’s about to explain the spinal mana flow!"
Libra sighed, the sound like wind rattling through hollow bone.
"I used to judge mortals... But now, I am to be judged by... this?"
On the second hour of Thane’s watch, a gathering of Barbarians occurred right at the exit of the cave.
At the mouth of the labyrinthine cavern, a gigantic warrior, bearing similarity to the facial features of Bolgard the Beheader, stood before his warriors.
He is the leader of the Red Chains and the older brother of Bolgard. He was Boldred the Brute! He stood looking monstrous beneath the torchlight. His muscles bulged under his fur mantle, and his twin axes gleamed like predatory eyes. The compass in his hand spun uselessly, its golden needle refusing to settle.
"The Life Link has vanished!" the battle mage beside him reported, voice tight. "It pointed west an hour ago... now it spins without direction."
Boldred’s golden eyes narrowed. "What did they do to his body?"
"The link was tattooed across his back," the mage said.
"He would’ve had to be skinned alive to remove it... or thrown into lava."
For a heartbeat, no one breathed. Hearing the battle mage’s conclusion made everyone fearful.
Then the sound came as a low, bestial rumble that started in Boldred’s chest and grew into a roar that shook dust from the ceiling.
"They killed him and desecrated his body?!"
He slammed his fist into the stone floor.
BOOM!
Cracks webbed outward. Pebbles jumped. Even the torches flared in terror.
The Red Chains flinched, but none dared to answer.
"Then scour the mountain!" Boldred commanded.
"Tear it apart if you must! Find my brother and find me those three!"
"Yes, Lord Boldred!" the warriors bellowed, and scattered into the tunnels, their armor clattering like metal rain.
Boldred remained alone, his gaze fixed on the spinning compass. Slowly, he sheathed his axes, then drew them again in the same breath, like a man who could not bear stillness.
"Brother... you will be avenged." He lifted his head toward the dark peaks.
"When I find them, I’ll flay their skin and hang them alive for the birds!"
The mountain shuddered as his roar echoed into its core.
Meanwhile, hidden deep below, time moved differently for one overactive binge-watcher.
Thane Weakarm had been "studying" for roughly three hours now of real-world time. But to Thane, watching the Celestial TV’s time chamber, that equated to more than fifteen hours of relentless watching. The pace was unnatural; his mind burned with new knowledge, his hands occasionally twitching in sync with imaginary spellwork.
Matthew and Priscilla stirred awake several times during the night when Thane shouted random phrases like, "Mana Flow, Initiate!" or "MAGIC BABY!" or "BEAVERS! I WANT BEAVERS!" At one point, Priscilla sat up and stared in bizarre wonder at Thane’s fast-paced way of talking. Also, no, she could not understand him!
What was most strange was that Thane’s words were very, very fast!
"Is he possessed?" she whispered.
Matthew, however, urged her to somehow just cover her ears and even told Jonathan the same.
"I sense magic surging around his body. He seems to be in a strange state of meditation. He is exploring and channeling mana with astonishing speed within his body. This could be training."
"He is also a mage!?" Josiah was amazed.
"He doesn’t have any core. But I can tell that his foundations are shocking. He surpasses my man potential by two times from the mana flow he is doing!"
"Two times?! But my father once told me that you were the best battle mage he met, one able to compare against the mages of Sanctus Luminara and Elyndoré! Don’t you have an innate body that is said to be unmatched?!" Josiah asked.
"Yes." Matthew smiled.
"I was called, a once in a once-in-a-century genius. But that boy... He would be a once-in-a-millennium genius!" Matthew explained.
Josiah was amazed and watched the strange man.
Thane suddenly turned to the three.
"Oh! Sorry! Did I wake you guys?!"
"...It is alright, Master Thane. I can see you are using a secret magic technique and are trying to learn something. Feel free to keep training."
"Erm... Yeah! It’s something like that. I’ll be mindful from now on. Libra... Do something about this."
"Libra?" Matthew was confused. Why was Thane asking a dreaded being of legend to do something?
Thane then turned back towards the entrance of the cave and continued his act of strangely looking ahead. But this time, his hands were over his mouth!
"What an eccentric boy! And I thought you were the most eccentric one for marrying a slave girl." Priscilla chuckled as she turned to Matthew.
"How is he practicing?" Josiah asked.
"I have no idea... This might be a new type of trance ability. I heard that great geniuses fall into this state easily. I will have to warn him, though. To be able to fall into an enlightened state so quickly would reveal his superior state. He is already formidable enough as one who is trained in the Assassin arts. And that’s considering his physical body is already quite powerful. If he is shown to be a person of exceedingly great mana, then he would be the envy of many! You know about that, Josiah. After all, you can harness Power far more than your peers can."
Josiah was quiet.
The three turned back and tried to sleep. And true to his promise, Thane kept his cries to a minimum. Though he made muffled sounds and would cry a quick gasps, he managed to contain it, and the rest fell into a deep slumber.
Meanwhile, Thane restrained himself from yelling, but not from his gasps and cries of surprise, shock, joy, or even frustration. But he was in a heated argument! He quickly discovered that his mental voice worked just as well. Unfortunately, Libra was the only recipient.
"MASTER! YOU DO NOT NEED TO WATCH A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GIANT FERAL BEAVERS! NOT NOW! NOT EVER!" Libra roared, his spectral voice cracking through Thane’s mind.
"LIKE YOU WOULD KNOW WHAT I NEED, YOU NEPHILIM-POSSESSING FREAK!" Thane snapped back mentally.
"THAT SHOW HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MAGIC OR SUMMONING! WE HAVE A GOAL, REMEMBER?!"
"YES, IT DOES! THEY SUMMONED THE BEAVERS THROUGH TAME MAGIC!"
"THEY WERE BUILDING DAMS, NOT CASTING SPELLS!"
"IT’S CALLED STRATEGIC CONSTRUCTION!"
Their arguments would have sounded insane to anyone awake, but in the strange dimensional space of the Celestial TV, their shouting reverberated like a choir of mad spirits. Thane’s booming voice rattled the very air inside Libra’s Channel; even the Scales of Judgment trembled from the sheer volume of his mental rants.
Libra tried everything, reasoning, bribery, muting the TV for ten seconds, but nothing worked for long.
"PLEASE! JUST ONE EPISODE!" Thane begged.
"REALLY?! JUST LIKE THAT ONE EPISODE THAT LED YOU TO WATCHING THE ENTIRE FIVE SEASONS!"
"YOU ENJOYED THAT SHOW AND YOU KNOW IT!"
"HOW COULD I ENJOY TEN WAYS TO COOK MONSTER EGGS?! I DON’T EVEN EAT!"
Libra and Thane went into an argument as Libra restrained the impulse of Thane to basically watch anything he wanted. Libra was simply amazed and realized that his defeat was clearly an act of God, for how could he have been defeated by an ADHD driven child like this?
Episode after episode was shown. With Libra acting as a guide to channel and focus Thane to only watch what he needed, with a few episodes as a reward for Thane’s good behavior, the night passed into dawn, and Thane learned many things about magic.