“[PLANT GROWTH]!”
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE
At Gabby’s beck and call, the entire first floor of the Battle Arena began trembling.
“HOLY FUCK, WHEN? HOW? WHY? WHAT!!!” In total shock at the lime-green light painting his vision, Brance stabilized his footing and yelled in confusion.
“THAT LITTLE RABBIT IS SOOO GONNA GET IT WHEN WE GET HOME! I WILL BURY HER UNDER SO MANY WORKBOOKS THAT SHE WILL BE SOLVING COMPLICATED EQUATIONS EVEN IN HER SLEEP! ” Cynrik howled as he struggled to stay standing.
Meanwhile, Selene was cackling like a witch as she hopped up and down in excitement, watching the arrows and bolts scattered around the battlefield explode; in their place, newly born trees sprouted before absorbing the Chloro Mana being pumped into them by Gabby.
In the bleachers, students hugged each other and cried out in panic. However, when the Headmaster stepped in and covered them all with his Space Affinity, they quickly calmed down and watched as over 50 arrow shafts glowed bright like beacons and transformed into fast-growing trees.
The only silent one was Benny, whose eyes were sparkling in excitement. So what if he wasn’t the most powerful? So long as his beloved little sister was strong, he could hop on the escalator to higher levels as a tag along.
On the battlefield, Instructor Alistar dashed about, weaving narrowly out of the path of danger as the trees grew under his feet.
“Damn it, how did she pull this off? It’s illogical? I’ve never heard of someone making trees grow from arrows; hell, it’s just as hard as turning a dried twig into a full-blown tree!” Jumping to the side just as a new tree spanned right under him, Alistar growled angrily. Then nocking an arrow, he aimed down his site and used one of his class skills, [Penetraiting Shot], which blasted apart the whole top half of a tree growing at such an angle that he would collide with it.
Floating in the air, Gabby panted, exhaustion setting in from overusing her Affinity, but once she downed a third Mana pot, along with a Stamina Pot, she was back to tip-top shape. Before reviewing how she set the trap, starting from when she fired her first bolt.
The answer was simple, tied to her belt was a small bag filled with redwood seeds. Then, using her Affinity, she would cover them in a layer of Psychic Mana, just enough to hide the Chloro Mana particles from the brothers and merge them into the connection point between the arrow shaft and the arrowhead. Next, she would fire all the seeded arrows without caring about whether or not they hit the Instructor because their target was never really him, to begin with.
From the moment Gabby found out she would be fighting, she mapped out the battlefield’s terrain and developed a complex blueprint for setting up her first unique technique, which she nicknamed “World of Trees.” Due to the size restrictions of the trees themselves when fully grown, Gabby was forced to make insane mathematical calculations, coming up with the perfect layout and how many trees would be necessary to hinder her opponent. Unfortunately, not every archer was good on the move, and even fewer were able to move through the trees like Cynrik had trained her to.
In fact, aside from the Elves, who spent their whole lives hunting and fighting in the treetops, relatively few people bothered training in this aspect.
Selene summarized to Cynrik and Brance how everything came to be and detailed exactly how the trap was set.
[[That’s pretty much it. When we had our secret meeting, Gabby asked if it was a good idea to go through with the plan, which, well, as you can see, I agreed with.]]
[[When the fuck did she get the Chloro Affinity Selene, and don’t you dare fucking lie to me.]] Cynrik snarled without taking his eyes off the impressive forest growing up from the dried dirt.
[[EEP, it…it was our second night at the Academy. Gabby and I spent the whole first night talking about girl stuff and eventually talked about how you two have triple Affinities, yet Gabby, Benny, and I, only have one. So the two of us did a bunch of research online, and she eventually decided that she wanted to get the Chloro Affinity so that she could one day help Brance with healing the party in a pinch.]] Scared out of her witts by the tone Cynrik took, Selene spilled everything.
[[And after you got injured and Brance could barely keep you alive during your Turning Point Quest, Gabby made the decision then and there to go for it. So the two of us went to the commissary and bought two Affinity Gems and a bunch of different plant seeds. It took a lot of use, but eventually, she got her new Affinity.]]
[[Then, during our first period, when you two were lost in conversation, she asked a whole bunch of questions to Umbridge and started calculating how best to use it in battles. Next, she burned all of her Stat points, increasing her INT and MIND stats to compensate for the heavy strain her new Affinity would have on her; that was the gist of what the Professor advised.]] Looking down at her feet in shame, Selene finished her story.
[[Tsk, if she split the 268 points between her two stats, that’s 134 into both, meaning Gabby now has 509 INT and MIND, passing both of us, Brancie, that’s an added 2,680 MP almost giving her 6k, fuck what a little monster.]] Shaking his head slowly, Cynrik tried to calm himself down. Make no mistake; he wasn’t pissed that Gabby had done what she did. Instead, he was actually quite pleased. What made him mad was that both his girl and Gabby had gone behind his back and kept it all secret so that the little rabbit could surprise him, Brance, and Benny.
[[Let it go, Cyn; you know she didn’t mean ill intent by keeping it hidden.]] Reaching over and grabbing Cynrik’s shoulder, Brance added a little strength to his grip as if telling Cynrik that he better not make Gabby upset.
[[Ack ack, I got it, I got it, FUCK, why did you have to raise your STR, it’s just unfair.]] Cynrik cried out as he felt his collarbone creaking under the pressure of his little brother’s hand.
BOOOMMMMMM BOOOOMMM BOOOMMM
On the battlefield, Gabby had finished growing the redwood trees to the extent of her abilities. Once fully developed, Gabby swapped to using her second Affinity skill [Awaken], allowing her control over the trees’ lush branches to keep the Instructor at bay.
The sight of dozens of tree branches moving was surreal to witness, as it made them look alive. The male students were on their feet in the bleachers, cheering Gabby on. In contrast, all the female students were cheering for the handsome Instructor Alistar to keep dodging. Every time it looked like he was about to be smashed to bits, the girls would all squeal in fear while the boys laughed loudly.
BOOM
FWOOOSSHH
Using his bow to cut through the dust cloud, Alistar sprinted at full speed, ducking and weaving every attack with his eyes flicking around, trying to find a clear path up to the sky to take Gabby out. But no matter where he turned, he was bombarded by hundreds of tree branches, causing him to get frustrated at his inability to go on the offensive.
The worst part was how thick the tree canopy had become; he couldn’t even get a clear line of sight on the girl he knew to be floating just above the leaves because of the foliage.
His eyes flicked to Garrison, who was following him by jumping from tree to tree, monitoring both sides of the battle. Although he was focused on doing his job, Instructor Garrison couldn’t help but be happy it wasn’t him on the ground jumping around like a flea. If he was in the same situation, the only thing he could do was expend his Mana by using [Vector Spikes] to counter each branch, but this wasn’t something that could be easily sustained on either side. So he knew that so long as Alistar could hold out long enough, he would eventually wear down Gabby’s Mana Pool to the point where she couldn’t control the trees any longer.
High above the tree canopy, two meters below the Arena ceiling, Gabby followed after Instructor Alistar, using her [Floating Disk] like a shuttle. The most unusual thing the audience could see wasn’t how she was flying or even the trees attacking. Instead, it was how the girl had closed her eyes. This was because, through her connection to the trees, she could sense where her opponent was and was subsequently attacking non-stop.
Exhaling shakily, Gabby opened one eye, checked her MP to see it was sitting at around 40 percent, and downed her last Mana Potion. One of the rules that were explained during the briefing before the battle was that each challenger was allowed to use up to five potions in the battle. So, having already gone through three Mana and one Stamina potion, this fourth Mana potion was it. Once her tank went empty, the battle would be over when she fell unconscious due to Mana Sickness.
Sighing heavily and staring at the empty bottle in her hand, Gabby decided it was time to end this fight. The only problem was how. She wasn’t nearly as good at strategy as Cynrik or Benny, and she was on the weaker end of the scale when it came to game-changing power. Moreover, her Redwood Forest, although strong, had a time limit to how long she could actively control the trees to attack. By her estimate, the time limit only had another 10 minutes left, so the victory would go to Instructor Alistar unless she figured out something clever.
Cynrik’s eyes narrowed to slits down by the bleachers as he watched Gabby’s Mana Signature flicker out slowly like a candle in the wind with [Mana Sight].
“She’s running out of time. Although this technique of hers is impressive, the strain is still too much to handle; if she had gone with, say, ten fewer trees, Gabby would have been able to extend its duration, but at the same time, there would be a significant drop off in its attack efficiency.” Cynrik spoke softly so that only his party members could hear.
“I agree, each of those redwoods has a pretty hefty cost to maintain, and Gabby’s already burned through all five of her allotted potion quota.” Stepping up beside Cynrik, Benny gave his opinion.
As the second in command with strategies, Benny was able to see most of what Cynrik could.
“Option A would be split off and make two clones. Have them move in opposite directions and draw the Instructor’s attention. Then, knowing how good she is at making realistic replicas, she could buy herself some time to sneak up and take open shots.” Cynrik shared his plan with Benny, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving from Brance and Selene.
“It could work, but it will be too heavy on her Mana Pool; option B would be leading him into a choke point, then drop down into the treeline and sneak in for a guerrilla assault. That way, she could partner up with multiple trees and fire arrows.” Benny countered Cynrik’s plan with his arms crossed.
“Could work, but you forget that he is both highly skilled and highly agile. So far, he has yet to be even grazed by one of Gabby’s branches. The real question is how long he can keep up that momentum.
The two of them fell silent and continued watching the battle, leaving Selene and Brance wholly lost in the process.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. P.S. Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg