Yu Xiang and Lin Fen slowly and carefully made their way forward, fully expecting an ambush to be sprung at any time. They walked at a snail pace towards the imposing metallic doors, passing through the five stone altars without giving them but a single glance.

They slowly walked up the steps to the iron gate, their eyes shooting back and forth across every dark and lit corner of the room, but even then they didn’t let their guard down.

It was only after they finally reached the end of the room and they found no sign of hidden traps or enemies that they began to relax and lower their guard.

Yu Xiang let the lightning constructs crackling between his fingers dissipate, letting out a huff as the tension disappeared from his shoulders.

His feline companion meanwhile dispelled most of the floating alchemical fireballs he had conjured before entering the hall, though he kept one burning in the palm of his hand. Furthermore, while he relaxed his stance like his friend, his feline ears still stood erect upon his gray scalp, while his tail was frozen pointing upward, the silvery fur covering the appendage standing up and making it look like an enormous fuzzy caterpillar.

Once they had calmed down the two cultivators finally turned around and laid their eyes in the large iron door.

The young reincarnator amended his previous statement, the aura coming off the closed off gate was not like that of the stone that lined the tunnel, if anything it was several times stronger. His own aura wasn’t even able to touch the iron door, there was some kind of force field that completely rebuffed any of his attempts, while he could at least touch the stones in the tunnel even if he couldn’t push his perception past them.

The young alchemist laid one of his hands upon the door. Yu’s head whipped towards him in alarm but seeing that nothing bad was happening he quickly calmed down.

“There’s something carved into the door.” Lin said in a curious tone, while he traced a groove cut into the door with his index finger.

Yu Xiang blinked, then he looked over the imposing gate and found that his companion was indeed right. Lines criss crossed over the surface of the metallic construct, forming some sort of pattern.

His brows furrowed as he noticed something. The lines weren’t just forming some kind of abstract painting or an array he was too uneducated to understand.

Yu Xiang took a couple of steps backward, followed closely by Lin Fen, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him.

“It’s… a monkey?” Yu said in total puzzlement.

“There’s also a snake there.” The feline alchemist said pointing at the door’s underside. “Also a horse, a dragon, a rabbit, a tiger, and a pig…” He trailed off.

Yu Xiang raised an eyebrow. “This is just some kind of big zodiac calendar then?”

Lin Fen nodded with a contemplative look on his face. “Looks like it.”

Chiseled into the metal was an enormous circle with the twelve animals of the eastern zodiac drawn all around it. Yu Xiang let himself admire for a moment the skill of the craftsman who carved the piece, every single animal was perfectly proportioned and always separated from the others by the same distance, there was no irregularity in the work and the young cultivator’s eyes could not find a single sign of scuffing or scratching upon the gate’s surface, meaning that it had either been perfectly made in a single try or that whoever made it was really good at hiding his mistakes.

“Yu.” Lin Fen called out to him as he contemplated the carving. “There is something at the center of the circle… it looks like a star?” He finished, his brows knitting in concentration as something seemed to pass through his mind.

The green eyed cultivator looked over the spot his friend had been observing, immediately noticing the symbol. A five pointed star, its lines criss crossing over one another forming a pentagram, laid at the exact center of the zodiac circle, it was considerably smaller than the rest of the carving which was why he had overlooked it initially.

Still, Yu couldn’t make heads or tails of what the whole design was trying to convey, so he promptly came to the conclusion that knowing when to give up was a virtue and turned to his better read scholar of a friend.

“You got any clue what this means?” He asked the feline alchemist, breaking him out of his thoughts.

Lin Fen hummed noncommittally, slowly turning around towards the pedestals at the center of the room. “I might. But first I need to check something.”

With that said he descended the steps towards the stone stands. He slowly walked between them, observing them with both his eyes and aura, tracing the carvings that only now Yu Xiang noticed ran along most of their surface and which were almost identical to the ones on the metallic gate.

“I think I know what this is.” Lin said, straightening his back as he waved his hand in a circle, pointing at the entire room.

“Enlighten me, then.” Yu said with a smirk, sensing his companion’s eagerness to lecture him once again.

The feline cultivator drew himself up to his full height, which despite his chi refined body still fell considerably shorter than Yu’s own, and raised his nose in the air before starting in earnest with his lesson.

“You see the carvings on this pedestal?” He said while laying his hand on the basin atop the nearest stone structure, running all the way down on its surface were carved pigs and rats. “You might not know this but the animals of the zodiac are associated with certain elements. Now, the exact combinations tend to vary based on tradition, but this puzzle seems to follow the most common one. Which means…” He patted the carved pillar. “That this pedestal represents the element of Water.”

He then pointed at another pillar with carvings of monkeys and chickens. “That one is Metal.” At one with snakes and horses. “Fire.” At one with tigers and rabbits. “Wood.” And finally at one with cows, dogs, goats, and dragons. “And that one is Earth.”

Yu Xiang nodded in understanding at his friends’ explanation but raised an eyebrow at him once he fell silent. “So what does that mean? What do we need to do to solve this puzzle?”

Lin Fen shrugged his shoulders, his self assured smile not diminishing in the slightest. “No idea. But we first need to find out how to activate these pillars. I doubt these basins are here just for show.”

The green eyed cultivator sighed at his companion’s nonchalance and decided to wait patiently as the feline cultivator inspected the carvings for any hidden mechanism or clue.

Suddenly an idea struck him.

Yu Xiang deployed his aura, sending it towards the water pillar, then, much as he did with the enchanted sink in his kitchen, he pushed his spiritual energy into the carved stone.

A gush of water sprayed forth from the basin, soaking the feline cultivator who had been carefully inspecting its inner surface and leaving him in a spluttering mess.

The young reincarnator couldn’t help but laugh at his shocked expression, which netted him a heated glare and a fist to the side which he received with grace.

The beastfolk’s vengeance was unable to wipe the smirk off his face though.