Brin decided he needed some fresh air, but when he tried the door it wouldn’t budge, no doubt due to a careful application of hard light in the locking mechanism.

    “You’re not running away from this,” said Hogg.

    “Who’s running away?” Brin asked. “I just want to stretch my legs, get some fresh air, and then we’ll be right back to this super interesting training you dredged up from the bottom of the lowest hell.”

    “You might think you need some time to recover, but what you really need is to try again while the memory is still fresh in your mind,” said Hogg. “Otherwise we’ll have to waste another potion.”

    “We don’t have to do that! I just realized that [Multithreading] already works for everything I need it for. No need to split my brain any more.” Brin shook the door again, but it really wasn’t budging. Should he try a window?

    “You’re more right about that than you know, but that’s besides the point. Will you... Will you stop that and listen to me?”

    Hogg summoned a giant orange hand to pluck Brin out of the air as he made a running dive for a window and sit him down in front of his reclining chair. “Listen, just think back to what it felt like. Do you even remember which one was you?”

    “What a stupid question. I was the...” Brin trailed off. He actually didn’t remember. It felt like it was extremely clear that he was one half of the mind, and that there was an invader in there with him, but thinking back he could remember both sides with perfect clarity.

    For some reason, that thought calmed him down enough that he could sit without his body screaming at him that he should run. Knowledge was often the antidote to fear, and now he knew that the only thing in his mind had been him. Another version of him, at least.

    In [Multithreading] he’d never really gone through this because he wasn’t actually thinking with two minds at once; it was the same mind switching back and forth between different streams of thought so quickly that it felt seamless. But it was still just one mind. With [Split Focus] there were two minds in his head, and he could feel it.

    “I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” said Brin.

    “You did pretty well your first time. Lots of [Illusionists] crap their pants, so at least we were spared that.”

    Brin laughed. “Really?”

    “Go on. Give it another shot. It won’t be so bad this time,” said Hogg.

    “How?”

    “Don’t think about that. Just do it.”

    Brin tried, thinking back to the way it had felt to split his mind. He shuddered, and his stomach churned, but he concentrated. In a strange way, it really did remind him of all those [Meditation] exercises. Each of them had a little part of the experience, and when he put them together...

    It was back. That horrible thing in his mind was back. Why couldn’t it leave him alone? To make matters worse, it was thinking the same thing about him, which was outrageous. His anger only grew when he felt the other one was also upset for the same reason. How dare he?

    He tried to stand up, needing to know that he was still in control of his body, but Hogg’s hard light held him in place. Brin struggled, growing more claustrophobic by the second.

    Hogg said, “You’re split? Ok, stop whatever you’re thinking right now and [Meditate].”

    “How can you say that? He’s trying to–”

    “No one likes a tattle-tale,” said Hogg. “[Meditate]. Now. Both of you.”

    Through supreme force of will, Brin forced himself to relax the growing anger and paranoia and begin calming his mind. It was only possible when he felt the other one starting to do the same. He’d relent a little, and the other side would do the same, until he finally slipped into the peace of [Meditation].”

    Hogg nodded. “Good. Now you’ll notice, there’s two things happening here. One is the weird feeling of having something else in your head, and the other is the terrible experience of thinking with a brain that’s only half as big as it used to be. It’s hard to really pin down what you’re losing when you do this. In [Multithreading], all you lose is time. With [Split Focus] you’re losing a million little things. Complexity of thought, creativity, your ability to learn new things, and memory are all worse off, to a degree that’s difficult to define.”

    Brin thought it was more than that. It was like his entire body was foreign and he had to learn to use it again from scratch. And that was if the other one would even let him use his body; no doubt it would try to sabotage him if he wanted to do so much as stand up.

    When done correctly, he’d be able to make people think that he was a whole lot stronger than he actually was.

    Near the beginning of the lessons, he thought to ask, “How often will I bother with the Mirror Image? Seems like if an enemy is really that dangerous, I’d be better off ambushing them with full invisibility. Yeah, they''ll know an [Illusionist] is trying to kill them, but there''s no guarantee that they''ll be able to figure out it''s me."

    Hogg grinned as if he''d been expecting the question. "Think about your fight with Zilly. Why did you do better against Rhun with just the Shadow Blade, but then you struggled against Zilly when you were fully invisible?"

    Brin gave the obvious answer, "Because Zilly is stronger? And she has other senses she can use."

    "Ok, but if you remember, that''s not actually how she did it. She just swung her sword around randomly as fast as she could and hit you twice."

    Brin opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again. Was that how it had happened? In the heat of the moment he hadn''t really thought of it that way, but Hogg could be right.

    Hogg continued. "The last thing you want as an [Illusionist] is an unpredictable opponent, and the last last thing you want is to fight someone who knows what they''re fighting against. That''s why your Shadow Blade is better. They think they can see your blade, but they''re wrong. That makes them more vulnerable than someone who knows they can''t see you."

    Because they practiced Hogg’s fighting style, he earned more Dexterity than Strength.

    Through Training, you have increased the following attributes:

    Strength +1

    Dexterity +3

    While resting his body from the strict physical training, Brin learned a hundred different tips and tricks about illusions. How to make more realistic mirror images, how to pick out and copy a person’s mannerisms, and how to mimic their speech. Things to remember when using an illusion in different environments like walking on grass or splashing in puddles. Hogg had a huge wealth of tips and shortcuts, and Brin was finally able to utilize them now that he had the mental power to do it all.

    They sparred, they practiced illusions, they talked about what to expect from a Lightmind once Brin finally got his hands on one, and in the time that was left over they continued to develop his [Multithreading]. He found a pretty good balance which involved sectioning off a fifth of his mind and filling it up entirely with directed threads while leaving the rest of his mind free. His regular mind was close enough to his normal that it wasn’t too uncomfortable while still keeping his regular time. That would be his combat footing; for everyday life he’d just rely on [Multithreading] without the [Split Focus] technique. The mental exertion gave him a few more points of Mental Control, which were coming quick and easy after [Filial Piety] boosted his training speed.

    Mental Control +3

    They worked at a constant pace, both of them sensing that their time was drawing short and wanting to make every minute count. The only real breaks they took were to eat and to play with Marksi, who had decided that he needed at least an hour of laser time every day. Brin figured that Marksi knew the laser dot was just a projection of light, but he didn’t care and chased it as if his whole life depended on catching it.

    Brin didn’t leave the house for the most part, but what glimpses he saw of the city didn’t look good. The army retreated out of town with their conscripts in the morning after the impressment, leaving an overwhelmed city guard to try to calm down the angry citizenry. There wasn’t another riot, but all business was stalled and people stayed off the streets. None of the burned down buildings were repaired. The rubble wasn’t even cleared away, though the guard did make a token effort to chase off looters. Oddly, it seemed like Blackcliff would take longer to recover from this than it had taken Hammon’s Bog to recover from the undead invasion.

    On the day that they were planning on reaching out to Lumina again, Lurilan surprised them both by showing up at their door.

    “I found one,” the [Hunter] said simply when Brin opened the door.

    He had to think for a moment to remember what Lurilan was talking about. “The Ruby Crested Mud Slider? For Marksi?”

    “Yes, but we should go now. Are you ready?”

    “We kind of have something we need to do today...” Brin began.

    Hogg shoved past him and out the door. “No reason we can’t do both. Might be better this way. It’ll be safer to set up that spell out in the woods rather than in the middle of town again.”

    “True,” Brin said, and then looked around for the dragon. “What do you say, Marksi? Ready to earn that poison attack?”

    When Brin spotted him, Marksi was already sprinting down the city street.