“Your potions are so annoying!” Jiwoo shouts as she chases Sooyoung through the treeline, her vines helping her swing from tree to tree. Almost like tarzan.

Her health has depleted by 250 points and was currently at 750 hp. Jiwoo is lucky some of her plants, mostly her vines, being able to tangle among themselves to shield and negate effects coming from Sooyoung’s potions.

Their battle had lasted for five minutes and already Jiwoo was frustrated how much Sooyoung had been teasing in the attacks. She would spill explosive potions, slowing potions and then give herself a speed potion to run away from Jiwoo and she was slowed.

“Virtual arena closing in for 20 seconds!” Matches like these would mainly focus on combat 90% of the time. But that apparently wasn’t how Sooyoung was going to play.

The arena started closing it. The official boundary represented as a fog. Jiwoo’s heard of this, one touch even for a split second, your health will start depleting.

Sooyoung had been avoiding combat and leaping towards the fog, it left Jiwoo confused. For what almost seemed like Sooyoung jumping into the fog, she remained on the branch with the fog closely approaching her.

She turned back to see Jiwoo on the opposing branch out of breath. “Christ, you are hard to keep up with!” Jiwoo is attempting to catch her own breath, Sooyoung reflected this as well but mostly seemed unbothered.

“What you’ll learn for training, stamina. You need to have this unless you want to be like those mutants.” Her friendly, playful tone had been replaced with one that was enforcing. Jiwoo felt chills climb up her spine, Sooyoung knew business was business within the Hero Academy and it made Jiwoo admire her even more.

Jiwoo kept this thought in my mind, but the battle was still far from over. She kept a close eye on their health bars and Sooyoung didn’t shred a single hp.

“Heroes retreat to the center for combat showdown!” The administrators were growing impatient with the battle considering it was like Tom and Jerry. Jiwoo as Tom, Sooyoung as Jerry.

“I’ve also noticed you haven’t been focusing well either, I know you can do much better than this, Jiwoo.” Her words were light on the former’s ears, she was given encouragement and seeing that it was clear her focus was broken just by the beautiful girl before her, she had to think otherwise.

Jiwoo didn’t speak a word but lunged at the taller girl using her vine as a whip tagged along with rose thorns serving as projectiles. Sooyoung did manage to leap again, but unfortunately her lower left leg received the hit of her thorns.

The former felt more accomplished than anything even if she simply has done 10 hp damage. The feeling was short lived when she saw Sooyoung drink one of her concoctions colored blue as she ran towards the center of the arena. Jiwoo flicked her eyes down to see Sooyoung’s health status, “Are you kidding me?!” Sooyoung recovered her lost hp with a simple health potion.

Ok come on Jiwoo, strategize. If Jiwoo wanted to win this fight, or maybe just land critical damage, she had to manipulate Sooyoung.

It’s obvious she has a potion for anything. Elemental casts, healing from side effects and lost health, but her attacks are just projectiles.. As Jiwoo thought to herself, she was lagging behind Sooyoung, and the fog.

The fog would obviously cause damage if stayed longer than a second. She was engulfed into the fog for a few moments, her health bar beeping to signify her surroundings were affecting her. Jiwoo used her previous mode of transportation, swinging from tree to tree. Soon enough released from the fog but her health dropped to 550/1000.

She shook her head and continued going to the center, her head still processing a strategy.

I need her to stop healing herself. The second she does, I need to pay attention where she gets it and destroy the source. She nodded to herself.

~~~

Jiwoo made it to the center but Sooyoung was not in sight. The fog closed in so that the arena and a few meters around was revealed. Otherwise, thick fog made the landscape opaque.

Jiwoo had fallen backward to land on the conveniently growing tree trunk that encircled her body to comfort her. Thanks to her power of course, this could never actually happen if she didn’t possess it. It was a low apple tree, the tree became animate, its branches moving along as if it were a child waving their arms around trying to catch their mother’s attention.

And so, Jiwoo looked up to the tree’s lively branches. It was waving an apple. This was new. True, Jiwoo would grow an assortment of plants out of nowhere when she thought about it. But all she thought of was rest.

The tree seemed to offer its apple to Jiwoo. She reached for it and took it off the branch. She inspected it closely. A honeycrisp apple, innocent enough she took a bite of it. It’s sweetness and crispness like its name invaded her tastebuds.

She was pretty sure she wasn’t allowed to eat at this time, but there was a pinging at her wrist.

“Status change: Agility increase! Speed increase!” Jiwoo unlocked another new power. Eating! Just kidding.

The apple had given her status effects but her health remained the same. Perhaps other fr