Jane was often told by his teacher that he learned things abnormally fast. He was not going to disagree, either. He had felt that way since a young age. Thus, it was incredibly rare for him to take an entire month to reach a high level of proficiency with something. But that just emphasized how much of a pain 'Illusion' and 'Sound' were.
'Illusion' was, for most purposes, a complete waste of mana. It had a circle, and any rune placed inside its defined area would not take effect. Instead, it would only look like the rune had activated. Using it alongside 'Concealment' was incredibly annoying, since the two worked against each other. If he was concealing an area with one 'Concealment', he would need two 'Illusions' to make visible effects. In the case of equal numbers, it would be a failure to both hide and make illusions.
Despite the rather niche use case of 'Illusion' in battle, it was non-negotiable for Jane to learn it. The reason was simple: He would have to be under a constant state of 'Concealment' in public spaces. It would be a little impractical to be completely unable to interact with people, so he needed a way to make himself known without being hunted down. The solution was to create an illusion of himself, overlaid over his real body. This was, of course, incredibly difficult.
Jane walked around his bedroom, observing the illusion from all angles. It was a naked version of himself, although it didn't possess any organs. It only had a layer of skin covering it's slightly misshapen muscles. Jane opened up a book, and began consulting the chart within it.
'Uhh, is that supposed to go there?'
Jane looked back and forth a few times, before manifesting a 'Force' rune to act upon the illusion. As long as runes shared the same 'Illusion' circle, they would be able to interact with each other. Jane pushed a few muscles around, then healed them slightly with 'Grow'.
Making an illusion that looked like a living human was tedious. Various types of skin and muscles, parts which grew hair, all of these came out randomly, and without much ability to be controlled. Because of that, Jane had to pick out the different types, and then transplant them to the correct areas of the body. Additionally, the entire body had to be constantly kept alive with a combination of 'Breath' and 'Grow'. It would have been impossible for him to create a fully functioning human at his current level, but luckily, he only needed to make the appearance of one.
The parts of the body could be moved using 'Force' runes, so the muscles did not need to actually work properly. The joints were composed of 'Metal' runes, shaped in such a way that they could move around each other. The bones were also metal, as well, although they were much larger than normal bones to save on the amount of flesh required.
A rune he had not used before he started this project, 'Forward', was used to accelerate the growth of hairs on certain parts of the body. Since he didn't know how to make the hair the same color as his own, he opted to dye all of it black with 'Tar'. This caused the skin of the illusion to begin breaking down a little, but it was easily fixed up.
Upon careful consideration, Jane realized he had no idea how to make eyes. It would most likely be possible in reality, since he had healed his eyes before, but there was no template to go off of on the illusion. Because of this, he had decided to make it have the appearance of a blind person.
The hands were made, and so were the feet. Since the illusion was blind, anyways, it wouldn't be too strange for it to be slightly deformed. However, Jane was sure that this illusion wouldn't be his best work for long. He didn't want to have to maintain an appearance of deformity long after he could already make a proper human. Because of this, he tried to make the illusion look as close to his own body as possible, minus the heavy scarring.
He formed plant fibers with 'Pulp' and 'Grow', dried them out with negated 'Water' runes, dyed them black with 'Tar', and then began painstakingly weaving them together. After many hours, he had a rough robe formed for the dummy version of himself. It was carefully draped on, adjusted, then finally sealed to prevent it from coming off. Jane would be a little embarrassed if an illusion that looked like him exposed itself in public, after all. Since the puppet was also supposed to be blind, he quickly cut off a portion of the robe to form a blindfold.
Jane activated his locket, then adjusted the number of 'Illusion' runes to have it maintain its appearance. He aligned himself with the fake version of himself, and began cautiously moving around.
When he took a step, he would force his illusion's leg to move along with him. When he outstretched his hand, he would fight against gravity and keep it up. Since he knew how difficult this process would be, he had practiced with a much simpler doll beforehand. Despite that, keeping the illusion perfectly in line with his own actions was painstaking.
Jane formed a fist, and reflected that in his illusion. He lowered himself and braced, then jumped straight out of the window. A fake version of his bare feet stopped just above the ground.
He stretched his arm out, making a cool pose. Then, both inside of the illusion and in reality, he formed a flame extending from his palm. It was a little difficult, since he had to alter the range of his 'Illusion' to cover only one 'Fire' spell.
Jane separated from his illusion, and made it unleash a variety of moves. Its dark hair flapped in the wind generated by the spells, and its taciturn face betrayed no signs of emotion. It had muscles and bones formed in near-perfect proportion, hidden by a robe as black as night.
'So cool...'
The illusion flipped its hood over its head, and pulled it down to cover its face. It grabbed with its pale arm and gripped, as if choking an opponent to death. Jane was a little enamored by the dolls actions. He continued making it cast spells and use attacks until he ran out of mana.
Even though he released all of the 'Force' runes acting on it, it still remained standing upright. After all, Jane had already foreseen this situation. The skeleton was made specifically in a way so that it would not require any effort to stay standing up. The 'Breath' rune was fine where it was, too.
Jane waited for a moment, then stepped back into the embrace of the illusion. Like a normal person, he walked up to his front door and opened it.
His brother was staring back at him.