Advanced spells repost

I dont think i ever got an answer on these boards about this

Advanced Spells
Advanced Spells are simply complex Spells. At any time you may attempt to combine any two Base Spells into a single Advanced spell. To form an Advanced spell, both Base Spells must share the same Source, Duration, and Area (if applicable). You may use Adaptations to alter one or both of the Base Spells, in which case the CTN is added to the Base spell(s) individually before they are combined.
The final spell then takes on the following characteristics:
• Category: Change to Advanced.
• CTN: Equal to the sum of both CTNs – 15.
• Speed & Strain: Equal to highest spell Speed and Strain cost + half of the lower Speed and Strain cost (min of +1).
• Range: Equal to the shortest Range and number of targets. Area spell Ranges are equal to the smallest Area and the shortest Range (For example, an Advanced spell built with two spells having a 15’ Cone and 20’ Area (10’ radius) would be reduced to 15’ Cone).
• Effects: The effects of both Spells are combined; if the new spell attacks two different Defenses, then a single roll is used to determine the success of the spell. If the spell fails to bypass one of the target’s Defenses, only apply the effect that successfully bypassed
the other Defense. If the spell fails to bypass either of the Defenses, the spell fails as usual. Regardless of the combined effects, when combining two damaging spells only one of your primary casting Attribute die may explode.
• Advanced Spells and Adaptations: You may add Adaptations of either Base spell to the final Advanced spell.

What does “Area (if applicable)” mean, in specific, how does area differ from range, does that mean you can only combine Arcs with Arcs (…etc on the other ranges)? and why does that differ from the example under range?

or are we just ignoring that completely when combining spells?

(folks if this is obvious to you let me in on it because i really don’t know)