“I can see that you figured out how to conjure an illusion, but did you know that you could anchor them in place as well?”

  The statement from Wren easily grabbed Lucas’ attention.

  “Anchor them how? And what does that do?” He asked.

  “First, tell me. How did you manage to figure out how to create a successful illusion?” She questioned in return.

  Recalling the training in the early morning darkness, Lucas smiled as he held out his hand. “I kept trying to shape my mana into the object I wanted to appear as an illusion. Eventually, I figured out I was doing something wrong. Then, I remembered that magic is all about imagination and being creative. So, I tried something different.”

  The older woman cocked a single, white eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.

  “I had the idea to flood the area with my mana and just make it project the image that I wanted anywhere within the ‘bubble’ that I made. Kind of like how a projector can project an image onto a surface,” He explained.

  It was there that Lucas lost Wren. The old woman just looked confused and shook her head. “I have no idea what a ‘projector’ is, but your idea is fairly sound. A bubble is certainly one way to describe the area of a general illusion. But allow me to explain how it really works.”

  With seemingly no effort on her part, an identical copy to Dusk formed at Wren's feet. Both Lucas and his familiar gawked at it as the fox moved about, circling around the older woman and rubbing up against her legs.

  “A general illusion works by suffusing your target area with mana. Once you've done that, you can use your own will and imagination to have your mana take on the form and image that you have in your mind. The better you are able to envision it, the better the illusion is. And when someone enters the space where the illusion's ‘bubble’ exists, the mana in the space targets their senses and makes them see what the caster wants them to see.”

  “So I was right? I figured it out on my own?”

  “Yes,” Wren confirmed. “And it is very impressive that you did so with little instruction from me. But tell me, have you found the issue with holding an illusion like this?”

  That got Lucas thinking. He'd run into plenty of small issues and struggles while trying to learn how to make his first illusion, but he figured that Wren was looking for a specific answer. Then he caught her phrasing and the way she'd used the word ‘holding’.

  “It's really hard to keep my focus an illusion and do anything else,” He pointed out.

  “Yes!” The old potion maker crowed. “Illusions can be difficult to use without a great deal of focus. It, of course, gets easier the more you practice and learn, but it can take some time or specific training. That is where anchoring comes into play. Rather than constantly feeding a small trickle of mana into an illusion and having to focus on it, a mage can feed a chunk of mana all at once into an illusion and anchor it in place. That makes the illusion completely independent of the caster, though it puts the illusion on a timer. Once the mana fed into it runs out, the illusion fades.”

  The idea that he could make an illusion and not have to spend all of his focus just to keep it going immediately appealed to Lucas, and he looked down at the illusory fox repeating its circling around Wren's legs.

  “Clocked onto that, did you?” She chuckled. “Yes, this is an illusion I anchored to myself.”

  As she spoke, Wren took a few steps back. As she did, the fox followed her, continuing to circle her even as she stepped away from Lucas.

  “Wait, you can anchor it to a person?” He asked, stunned by the revelation. He'd figured that he would only be able to anchor an illusion to something non-living and still. But Wren had quickly disproved that.

  “You can anchor an illusion to anything, child. Moving targets are harder, since the illusion will follow them and thus you need to compensate for what they may do. It wouldn't do for my illusion here to walk through my legs as I took a step,” Wren pointed out.

  And once she'd pointed it out, Lucas noted just how intricate the illusion Wren had created really was. With each step she took, the little fox shifted its path so that it continued to circle around her, avoiding her legs each time she would have stepped into its path.

  “That… It sounds so crazy. How am I supposed to do something like that?” Lucas asked. What Wren was describing sounded like an absurd level of thinking and focus that Lucas just didn't think he could ever achieve. “How am I supposed to think of so many things and put them all into a single illusion?”

  “Let me tell you a little open secret among mages with an Illusion affinity,” Wren replied with a sly grin. “Our affinity affects the way we think. It allows us to think through our illusions with greater ease. Our minds become built to spot and keep track of the little details in things.”

  Though Lucas already knew that the passive benefits of his affinity could change his body thanks to his ability to see in the dark, the idea that magic could change his mind was slightly terrifying. It made Lucas worry about just how much his way of thinking had potentially already been changed.

  Wren clearly spotted the growing panic her student was dealing with. She stepped in and reached up, gently smacking her hand against Lucas’ cheek a few times.

  “It's nothing bad, child,” She consoled. “The passive benefits from your affinity won't change who you are. They just make you better at what your affinity focuses on. Those with an affinity for Thought magic don't suddenly become smarter or change their personality. They're able to learn new things with ease and multitask better than anyone else, but they're still themselves.”

  As worried as Lucas was about the changes his magic was making to him, the chance to learn something new was too tempting to resist.

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  “Thought magic? There's an affinity for that?” He asked.

  Wren just seemed amused and laughed. “Out of everything I said, that's what you take away from it,” She muttered. “Yes, it is. Thought magic is a mostly passive form of magic that bolsters a person's mind. They're able to process information at absurd speeds, recall any bit of knowledge that they have ever learned, and perfectly remember everything that they see and hear. Other than an illusion mage, a thought mage will be the hardest to ever capture in an illusion. They're just too good at spotting things wrong to remain tricked by an illusion for long.”

  “I really need to learn more about what kind of affinities there are,” Lucas mumbled, eagerly absorbing everything that Wren had to tell him about the new type of magic.

  “If you do well enough, I'll buy you a book about it later as a gift. I'm sure I can find one that has information about most well known affinities,” The old woman joked.

  “Now, to get back on track,” Lucas had the decency to look a bit embarrassed, knowing that it was his fault the conversation had gotten so sidetracked. “Learning how to anchor an illusion is an important next step. You need to understand how to do that, since anchoring is the basis for any targeted illusion.”

  “How do I do it, then?” Lucas immediately asked, getting a smile from the older woman at his eagerness.

  “The same way you made your first illusion. Mana and imagination. When trying to anchor an illusion to a person, place, or object, it's best to imagine a tether or something that attaches the ‘bubble’ to what you want to anchor it to. Personally, I imagine a spider web. Once you do that, you feed a chunk of mana into the illusion. Instinctually, you'll know how long the illusion will last with however much mana you feed into it. After that, the illusion will be self-sufficient.”

  “Though, as you're anchoring it, you need to focus and imagine what you want the illusion to do if the anchor is moved or if you want the illusion to include movement,” Wren warned. “If you don't do that, the illusion will be shaky, blurry, or it won't be smooth once it manifests. And those are plenty easy to see through.”

  “That doesn't sound easy,” Lucas said.

  “It isn't,” Wren agreed. “Which is why we're spending the next few hours working on your illusions.”

  At Lucas’ surprised expression, Wren cackled a bit.

  “You got my note, so you should know that I made sure my schedule would be clear today. I fully intended to teach you how to create your first illusion. But since you've already done that, we can move onto more advanced things,” She explained.

  “Like anchoring?” Lucas predictably asked.

  “Perhaps,” Wren replied. “But first, we need to get you to improve how you craft your illusions. You use far too much mana and make it much too detectable to those who have learned how to detect mana. So, first we’ll work on easing how much you use, as well as how fast you can craft your illusions.”

  Then the woman grinned, and Lucas felt a shiver run down his spine as the Wren reached into her pocket and pulled out a few small, hard looking rubber balls.

  “And we’ll also work on helping you keep focus on your illusions despite any possible distractions. Two birds, one stone,” She added, ominously tossing one of those balls into the air and catching it.

  Though he knew he wouldn’t like the answer, Lucas still had to ask. “What… What are those for?”

  “Oh, these?” Wren asked innocently as she tossed another ball up into the air. “These are the stones. They’re for when you’re not quick enough. Either you dodge, or you take the hit and keep working.”

  Once more, Lucas found himself doubting his own choice of mentors. Somehow, he seemed to flock to the people who were slightly, if not fully, crazy.

  “How is that supposed to help?!” He shouted.

  “Why, it’s simple!” Wren replied with a cackle. “We’re going to teach you how to focus until nothing can break your focus when casting an illusion. By the time you leave here, you’ll be able to craft an illusion while in the middle of a fight!”

  While it sounded like a solid idea, Lucas was dreading what was about to happen.

  Dusk seemed to know what was going to happen too, as she looked between the old woman and her partner. Then she promptly hopped off Lucas’ shoulder and moved to sit beside the old potion maker.

  “Traitor,” Lucas mumbled.

  Dusk just snickered quietly and Wren grinned.

  “Now, let’s start!”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Lucas held back a wince as he walked back to the house from Granny Wren’s shop. He’d spent most of the day at the potion shop working with the old woman, and while it had been a painful experience, he’d made massive leaps and bounds in his progress and skill with his magic.

  Wren had immediately made Lucas get to work trying to craft his illusions as quickly as he could. After a couple seconds, if he hadn’t gotten a stable illusion yet, she would throw one of the little rubber balls that she had gathered. And as he started to hit those goals, she would reduce the time that she would allow before pelting him with the small projectiles.

  As it turned out, Wren still had a very powerful throwing arm, even despite her age. Magic, as he was discovering, made physical appearances very deceptive. And those small rubber balls hurt. A lot. With a significant force behind each throw, not only was it hard for Lucas to dodge while in the middle of focusing on an illusion, but it was even harder to not lose focus from the sharp pain of each impact.

  At first, Lucas did horribly. Each time one of those rubber balls hit him, he’d completely lose control of his mana and whatever illusion he’d been crafting would fall apart. But as Wren kept forcing Lucas to try again, and again, and again, he got better. His mana responded faster, his thoughts moved quicker, his focus sharpened, and his illusions formed with greater ease. While at first, trying to dodge or getting hit would cause his focus to fall apart, by the end Lucas was able to hold his focus even while jumping around, dodging, and taking a few blows from the hard rubber balls.

  The training was harsh, and Lucas was not given many breaks. Whenever his mana began to run dry, Wren would have him meditate a bit and draw in the mana around him. She would also had him drink a purple-colored potion that dramatically sped up his mana absorption. With those, he was able to keep going for far longer and recover much quicker than he normally would have been able to. And that meant that Wren could continue amusing herself by pelting him with those painful little balls.

  He was pretty sure he’d end up having nightmares about those vile little things.

  But as hard as Wren pushed him, and as much as Lucas was dreading his training with Magnus that night with his body already covered in little bruises, he couldn’t deny it had been worth it.

  It took less than a second and a small flex of his mana for Lucas to conjure an illusion in his hand. The shape of a small vial of potion, the same purple ‘mana restoration’ potion that Wren had made him drink multiple times during the training. He’d become very familiar with it and the image was easy to pull up.

  As he kept walking, he smiled and moved his hand, watching as the liquid within the illusory copy swirled and shifted about. It had taken a lot of time to meet Wren’s standards, but towards the end of their training, Lucas had learned how to anchor an illusion. He’d started by learning how to anchor one to himself. Watching while the liquid sloshed about as he walked had a warm pride grow in his chest.

  Illusions were incredible, and he was starting to dive into the depths of what they could do. Wren was a massive help, and she clearly knew what she was doing. By the time that his month in Helstrum was over, Lucas was almost certain that he would be able to use illusions in an actual fight.

  Actually…

  Wren’s plan to throw those horrid little balls at him had paid off. And if he wanted to figure out how to use illusions in a fight, what better way than to practice while sparring?

  He was pretty sure that Sasha would be eager for another sparring match. And now he would have some magic of his own to use!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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