Illusionary Strength

This spell is a part of the Influence spell chain and found in the Influence rune stone.

The body is rarely the limiting factor. This is something Dream understands, and something the mentimancer learns early. What most people call their limits are not physical truths but mental ones. Beliefs about what they can lift, what they can endure, what they are capable of, worn so long they have started to feel like facts.

Illusionary Strength does not add muscle. It does not alter the target's body in any measurable way. What it does is reach into the mind through Dream and quietly remove the ceiling, replacing the target's belief in their own limitations with something considerably more generous. The strength that follows is, technically, an illusion. It works anyway. Because the body was always capable of it. The mind simply needed to be convinced. Strength Traits rise by the mentimancer's Arcana, physical power represented by their Strength Stat surges by their Runic Power, and the target moves through the world for the duration as though they have always been this strong. When the spell ends and Dream retreats, the ceiling returns. The target is themselves again. But for a time they were shown what belief alone can build, and that is not nothing.