Frein's Meiyal
> “His meiyal is my meiyal. Whomever you’re referring to doesn’t matter. You’re talking about the same thing anyway.” Elizzel, Faunel of Freedom and Consequences
“What’s wrong?” Katherine tried to calm down the hyperventilating canintine. She was on duty as a receptionist for the training facility behind her and was struggling for a response.
“Too much meiyal…inside,” she said, gasping for air.
Katherine quickly Drew and administered Samesia, instantly relieving the canintine’s stress. Mesiffera indicated an excessive amount of foreign meiyal running through her system. She recognized the type; it was Frein’s Milled meiyal. How it got inside someone else’s system was beyond her understanding, nor was it the time to contemplate on such a thing.
“How long is your dispersion time?” she asked the canintine.
“Eight minutes.”
It was an impressive amount, but not something that would help her right now, given her situation.
Katherine helped the receptionist back on her feet, putting one arm around her shoulders. “Alright. You should be okay after you disperse all of it. Don’t Mill; you might get hallucinations or something worse, and it might damage your meiyal system. Did you peek inside before this happened?”
The canintine helplessly nodded. “I was curious about the Visitor. It’s like the Nightmare Lands in there, Lady Katherine.”
The Lady nodded. “Don’t worry. As long as you stay here, you should be alright. You can monitor us from the image feed. If something wrong happens, call the Admiral right away.”
The canintine nodded and returned to her seat inside the booth in front of the training facility. She still struggled for air, taking slow and deep breaths, but at the very least, she was still conscious.
Katherine opened the first door of the facility, entering the airlock. She made sure it was tightly sealed first before approaching the second door. Meiyal pressure slammed on her as if an entire ocean suddenly manifested on top of her.
She instinctively Opened her meiyal core to use Peace Within The Chaos, a Void Control Technique that would help her fend off the Nightmare and its influence by projecting her own in a form of a barrier or a film outlining her person. However, she quickly realized that there was nothing to fend off within this absurd supply of meiyal. No Nightmare. It was just Frein, Elizzel, and numerous other sources of meiyal spilling from the Visitor and filling the entire facility.
Siffera was the key. Katherine Drew the Art, focusing on enhancing her ability to exist within a meiyal-filled environment. It was an obscure thing, an abstract concept, to enhance, yet it was easier to do than merely enhancing her strength. When she thought about it, it made sense. Since the day she was born, she was already living alongside meiyal, basically swimming in its power.
Katherine sealed the door and approached the Visitor and his faunel. Each step was laboriously done, costing her a tremendous amount of meiyal. Not overwhelmingly so, but if merely drawing Siffera was a drop, then each foot forward was a glass.
The surrounding meiyal was surprisingly amenable despite its overwhelming nature. It wanted to be Gathered, drawing upon Katherine’s instincts and taking advantage of her floating meiyal system. Unlike other people who had their meiyal cores and marks embedded on their skin like tattoos, hers was unique, imitating a hair ornament floating beside her temple. This meiyal system perpetually swam on meiyal, Gathered easier compared to others, and didn’t have a dispersion time limit, allowing her to manually do so instead. Other people throughout history had had this type of meiyal system before, but as far as she knew, right now, only her and Frill possessed such a thing.
The meiyal, Frein’s meiyal, was extremely dense. It was comparable to clay rather than any viscous liquid, barely moving within Katherine’s system as she accepted it. This gave her an understanding why the canintine collapsed and misinterpreted this pressure for the Nightmare Lands. But unlike that dreaded place, this was neutral, uplifting even. Like the sort of an extremely optimistic companion that never failed to consider a good thing from all the bad. Someone who could smile at even the most tragic of moments.
It guided Katherine. She Milled it willingly, utilizing every skill she had to combine his meiyal with hers. Quickly enough, the struggle was gone. Her steps were light, as if the place itself carried her forwards.
Nine-meiyal. Eight were from Frein and Elizzel’s Milled meiyal. Katherine was experienced enough to dissect all the resources apart, but they didn’t add up. There were too many. Regardless, she continued to Mill, claiming such tremendous amounts of power for her own.
She felt a sense of loss followed by an overwhelming feeling of pride. Even at the height of her power, she had never reached eight-meiyal. In truth, most Virtuosos who never progressed couldn’t fathom the concept of multiple meiyal sources, while Grand Virtuosos like her—even taking history into account—topped at ten-meiyal.
Before she went to Earth, she had six, then her prolonged stay on that meiyal-starved planet deteriorated her Exhibit to almost nothing.
And then here came the Visitor, only two short of the highest recorded ones while his meiyal marks were stuck at fourteen.
She could feel him leaving her behind. It didn’t matter if she was the strongest Meiyal Arts practitioner in Irista Nation. Right now, for her, that title belonged to Frein.
The meiyal surrounding her still pressed her on. To say that it was uplifting was an understatement. It was encouraging, emboldening, as if the meiyal existed with the sole purpose of pushing her forwards using one single phrase.
Catch up.
With a smile, Katherine felt like a student again. Of course, she would follow Frein. She would’ve done it her entire life, and she would keep doing it now. This time it was genuine. No need for her to hold back on his account, no need to take things slow. There were two of them ahead of her after all. This time, she was the one chasing with all her might.
The Lady of the Void sat down with the other two, completely disregarding her initial intentions of disrupting their trance. She saw both of them smile with their eyes closed, but she didn’t say anything about it.
Instead, Katherine Gathered their meiyal and Milled.
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After an hour, Frein decided it was time for a break. As expected, Katherine had found him and joined him in meditation.
All the while, a realization had dawned on Frein. Grinding eight-meiyal on his Mill was exponentially harder than four. He was barely getting used to Milling four-meiyal on his own, but even with Elizzel’s help, eight was an excruciating task.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Not to mention his meiyal marks were unable to contain the Milled meiyal properly without his direct attention, causing most of it to release whenever he hit the dispersion time limit. It was a good decision to Mill in isolation, just as Elizzel recommended. This way, they could Gather the deviant meiyal and store them properly in his marks. Frein wondered if this would always be the case or if they were just missing something.
“The others Mill like this, remember?” Elizzel said as she opened her eyes, understanding his conundrum. “They sit down and concentrate. This is the actual reason why they do that. Only, modernization misunderstood history, so eventually everyone, including Aspirants, are doing it nowadays even if they don’t need to.”
Katherine breathed out. Hints of Art fatigue had emerged from her back, but she didn’t look tired at all. “That actually makes sense. If we show this case to others, we can convince them to drop this weird tradition and have them Gather and Mill properly.
“How come you two have so many resources anyway?” she asked. “You only integrated with two materials.”
“Three,” Frein corrected. “Palar’gog gave me another one. We completed a Meiyal Art last night, and we wanted to practice with it, but just Milling became a challenge real quick.”
“By Milling, you mean Milling eight-meiyal, right? Three still doesn’t add up to eight.”
Frein then proceeded to explain how Elizzel served to amplify the resources. Multiplying them instead of adding to them.
“Only meiyal-charged materials,” the faunel confirmed. “Which means, I add another resource for each one he possesses. That’s the Emerald Guidance, the Fulgurblade of the Thousand-Year Storm, and the Blood Ribbon Tassel. The Shinemoon Scabbard doesn’t provide a meiyal resource, so we only have those three. I can amplify those to a total of six. Add Brymeia and Frein, that’s eight.”
Katherine nodded, following the logic now. “Did you know I could Gather your Meiyal? I can feel it. I have nine-meiyal stored right now.”
Frein blinked, amazed. “You can Mill nine easily?”
“I don’t have a lot of it, but I think I can benefit from it, too. Like when you gave me your four-meiyal before.”
His mind went into overdrive, making plans layered on top of other plans. “We should invite the others and let them Gather and Mill!”
“I don’t think that would be viable right now, Frein,” Katherine said.
“Same here,” Elizzel agreed. “Kat was able to do it because her Siffera helped her out. The others should learn how to use the Art the same way we do first. And I’m not sure how to make it possible for Xiv.”
“The receptionist outside took a peek and collapsed just from the sheer pressure of your meiyal,” Katherine added. “I don’t think you can Mill this naturally when you’re outside, not until both of you can prevent this weird dispersion from happening.”
Frein churned the gravity of Katherine’s words. He also recalled something Schrodie had told him before.
> ”Limiting your Meiyal Arts is for your own good. Your reception to meiyal will be far more sensitive compared to that of a native.”
“Meiyal Arts…” Frein murmured.
“What is it?” Katherine asked.
“Schrodie said she was limiting my Meiyal Arts. I thought at first she meant my meiyal system.”
Without even explaining to Katherine, Frein returned to his meditation, pulling Elizzel along through the Tether.
Meiyal Arts was a discipline on its own, not simply isolated to Drawing the Art. It included every bit of the process starting from the beginning. Meaning, if Frein were to interpret Schrodie’s words literally, then the Gatekeeper had placed a limit on his Gathering and Milling in the first place.
Now that he understood the process better, it was time to remove those limiters.
“Fine, let me see it, then.” Schrodie’s voice echoed from across the room, waking Frein from his concentration.
She stood by the doorway, distorting in and out of reality as she moved closer. “It’s been a while. Don’t worry, I put the canintine to sleep; she couldn’t recover properly given her proximity to this place.”
“We have a lot to talk about, Schrodie,” Frein said. The small bits of her hair melding into reality was his only indication that the Gatekeeper was shaking her head.
“Apologies, Frein, but I don’t have enough time. I’m only here to witness if you can properly remove the seal I’ve placed upon your system. If not, then I will make sure it’s affixed properly to prevent any risks. If you can, then I will be on my way. We can talk about other matters once you have a Fragment.”
“Fragment?” Katherine asked, realizing a second later what the Gatekeeper meant. “Oh, a Fragment of Zerax’thum’s Meiyal Core.”
“Correct. Only then will I know it’s safe to tell you everything.”
“Alright, fair enough,” Frein conceded and returned to his meditation.
The effect was immediate, he didn’t even need to bother returning to his Mind Palace at all. From within his meiyal core, there was a small film of meiyal affixed like an envelope with a small opening. It was almost imperceptible and didn’t give him an impression of any discipline he knew of.
This was Schrodie’s Painting. To recreate things with just her imagination. An unbelievable control and application of meiyal that Frein could only begin to grasp. What did she have to do to achieve something like this? Were the souls she collected from Brymeia’s heroes something that enabled her to do this?
“Concentrate, Frein,” Elizzel reeled him back to their objective.
Frein controlled his meiyal from within. Like a pair of massive hands tearing off a sheet of paper, he ripped away the limiters placed upon his system.
Everything became calm.
Schrodie’s meiyal, a thin film that limited his Meiyal Arts, integrated within his system. Now it became a part of his Mill, something Frein didn’t expect was a possibility.
He immediately began to Mill eight-meiyal, feeling the unwieldy combination progress to a suitable mixture. It was like two Elizzels helped him with the process, rolling and pressing each type of meiyal equally and efficiently, until it resulted in the perfect yield that Perpetual-Layered Milling Form had always given. Such tremendous power behaved as though it was his own, a familiar sensation from the common two-meiyal he was used to.
Despite the advanced combination of meiyal involved, Frein knew that this was his most efficient batch yet. He opened his eyes, hungry to test his strength. His eyes were met by an astonished Katherine, her jaw dropped as she turned back and forth between him and Schrodie. The Gatekeeper was smiling, or at least, every face that quickly flashed on her was elated by how easily he was able to remove his limiters.
“Good,” she began. “This bodes well for all of us. I will be on my way. The Letterman’s warnings might just be the least of our problems.”
“What warnings?” Katherine asked. A frown appeared on the Gatekeeper’s distorted features, but Frein was quick to raise his hand.
“I’ll explain. Good luck out there, Schrodie.”
“If I find the time, we can talk in two weeks. I’ll see if I can address some of your worries.” The Gatekeeper vanished as if she wasn’t there to begin with.
“What warnings?” Katherine repeated.
Frein relayed the Letterman’s message about the three Nightmare Incursions about to occur within a couple of weeks. He observed the astonishment from the Lady’s face slowly turning into fear.
“That can’t be,” she said. “The last time something like this happened, an entire country disappeared.”
“You survived a triple Nightmare Incursion?” Elizzel asked.
Katherine was quick to shake her head. “Records from the Order of the Void. Even if we have the entire support of the Western Sanctum, we can’t fend this off.”
Something in her words made something click in Frein’s head. “Wait,” he began, trying to crystalize the idea in his head. “Did the Letterman specify which places those Incursions will occur?”
Elizzel was silent, hard at thought. “He only specified one.”
Frein tugged on the Tether. “It’s where I’ll be.”
“It doesn’t matter where you’ll be, he said. But he can’t specify the exact time either.”
“He’s probably accounting for Destiny,” Katherine guessed. “That ironically makes him more sincere.”
“Which means, that simplifies our problem,” Frein concluded. “I don’t have to deal with three Incursions.”
“But if they all hit Irista Nation…”
“We’ll do our best if that happens, Kat.”
“We should warn them, right?”
“I don’t think that’ll make a difference,” Elizzel said.
“It will,” Katherine and Frein retorted at the same time.
“Because unlike last time, Eli,” the Visitor continued, “this time, we know it’s coming. And you have us.”
Before the faunel could say anything else, Frein’s M.O.B.I.L.E. rang. He answered it, and Kristel’s voice came through.
“Where are you, guys?” she started. “No one’s answering from your room.”
“We’re at the training facility,” Frein replied. “What’s up?”
“Oh, good! Head to the boarding platform nearest you. I reserved a spot. We’re Jumping today. See you there!”
“Jumping?” he asked, but the Princess already hang up. He passed the question to Katherine who brightened up, almost forgetting the doomsday prophecy she just heard.
“You want to test your eight-meiyal, right?” she asked. “We can try it on the Jump. You can probably try your new Meiyal Art as well. We should probably change clothes too.”
“Wait!” Frein tried to stop the Lady from pushing him into the bathroom, but she was too excited. “What does the Jump mean!”
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