>>6304055

She casts a simple spark spell above her hand. A small flickering 'click' and nothing else. "Now, this is the most common way to use Extra." She casts it again, and the flash is brighter, bigger, and louder. "It's not bad, but most people can notice when big spells are... not quite right, but it's harder to tell when the spell is smaller. Like this." She casts spark again, except the spark splits into 10 different versions, making it look like a firework. To your surprise, the real spark wasn't where you expected it to be. "All these spark clones are from one, singular extra spell. Illusions are very cost-efficient once you know a few tricks like that."

"But... isn't making a clone of a spell more of a Delayed Double thing? Why use it when you could use extra?"

"Because Extra only modifies spells that have already been cast, illusion or not. What I just did was modifying a Delayed Double. However, did you know you could use a DD on another DD?" She casts the same spark, but this time makes a line of sparks that flows around the room like a serpent. If you focus on the spark themselves, they become less and less convincing the further out they go, but if you were in the middle of a fight, you might be too focused on your opponent to even notice. Not just that, but Dill is casually looking at the sparks like she's not even casting the spell.

"How do you do that? That looks like it'd take a lot of concentration to pull off," you ask.

She shakes her head. "You need to stop thinking of illusions as regular spells once they're cast. They're more like... a summon, an extension of your mind. A real spell has a tangible presence in the world, but an illusion can easily be controlled by just... thinking about it. It does take some practice, and you need to keep your cool, but anyone can do it."

"What about... spells like Never There? How do I know how much my target will resist it?"

She lays her back against the wall next to the bed. "That's tricky. There's a difference between Life mind spells and Divination mind spells. Life usually messes with your brain directly, either via chemicals, or feeding their brain wrong info. Divination is... strange, it's more like it affects what information the universe itself feeds them. It's more akin to an illusion that's blasted directly into the person than anything. For example, what's my name?"

"Huh? It's..." For some reason, you hesitate, the question seems obvious but... "Uh... Ivy? No, wait, that's something else."