Now that they had found out how to activate the carved pillars and Lin Fen had exacted his due vengeance on Yu Xiang for his carelessness and childishness they could finally move on to the next step of their trial.

Or they could if they knew what exactly they needed to do to open the way forward. But unfortunately, the towering metal gate stood as implacable and ominously as when they first set foot into the open chamber.

The feline alchemist had quickly dried himself off after Yu accidentally drenched him, not even needing to use one of his alchemical flames to purge the moisture from his clothes, but simply suffusing the water with his chi and guiding it out of his robes. A neat display of spiritual energy control that Yu Xiang could not help but appreciate.

Presently, the young reincarnator was quietly sitting on the steps to the large metal door, bored out of his mind, while he let his more studious friend take a crack at deciphering the meaning behind the trial puzzle without his buzzing around keeping him distracted.

A tingling feeling in the back of his brain left him on the edge of his seat as a constant sense of deja vu frustrated him to the point where he simply could not sit still.

Something about this entire test was poking some slumbering part of his memories from the great before, preceding his birth into this world, when he was still a normal man living a normal life on a normal planet.

Unfortunately, a simple poke was apparently not enough to dislodge whatever atrophied memory connected his nebulous past to this situation, not that he was really surprised about it.

It had been almost two decades now from those first days when his mind fully woke up inside a tiny infantile body, an experience that he in no way looked forward to living through again for the third time, or god forbid a fourth or more.

Which was one of the reasons that had pushed him forward towards the road to eternity.

Not exactly the noblest or most dignified goal for someone in his circumstances to embark on the path of a cultivator, but that’s what had started his devotion to the practice and he had ended up finding other reasons to keep pushing himself along anyway.

Yu Xiang shook his head violently to dispel the suddenly morose air that had started to gather around his sitting place, picking himself up and stretching his legs in an effort to distract himself.

He needed to do something to divert his thoughts away from reminiscing, so he decided to start looking over the pedestals on his own.

Lin Fen was still looking over the basin that had been the instrument of his accidental prank earlier, and Yu had to suddenly fight down the urge to infuse his spiritual energy into stone structure again just to see what the feline cultivator’s reaction would be.

Instead of listening to his foolish baser instincts, the green eyed cultivator hastened his pace and headed the opposite way to his companion, toward a rocky stand with carved rabbits and tigers.

Yu Xiang reached toward the structure with his aura and started pumping his raw spiritual energy into it, making sure to stand a few steps away from it just in case something exploded.

With curious eyes, Yu Xiang observed as a sapling started growing seemingly out of the stone at the center of the basin that stood on top of the carved structure. He used his aura to scan it more thoroughly which confirmed that the plant was indeed teeming with spiritual energy, but that it lacked the same controlled and natural feeling that normal spiritual plants gave off.

It was more like the sapling had been force fed energy as it grew, too fast for it to have adapted to the torrent of power, which was probably what he did when he supplied spiritual energy to the pillar.

Yu Xiang let out a hum as he stepped away from the sapling and heading for another pillar. Behind him, he felt through his spiritual senses as the chi infused plant withered away, destroyed from the inside by the unchained energy coursing through its body.

The next pillar he looked over was the one with the most animals carved on it, the earth pillar if he remembered correctly.

With no hesitation, he repeated his earlier actions, pushing his chi into the stand, and watched with interest as an opaque green gem bloomed from the bottom of the basin, seemingly passing right through the stone and leaving behind an unblemished surface.

The egg sized jade was in much the same situation as the plant, wild energies coursed inside of its form, threatening to destroy it at any second. Which is exactly what happened once Yu Xiang disconnected himself from the stone.

Noticing the clear pattern the young reincarnator quickly went over to the other two pillars, which he left him with a thick rectangular sheet of metal that crumbled to dust and a fist sized flame that went out once it was left on its own.

Yu Xiang scratched his head in perplexion as he contemplated his findings, ultimately coming up with nothing and cursing his own laziness when it came to the less exciting parts of cultivation. Silently, he vowed to take his friend’s advice more seriously and start actually studying once they got out of these tunnels.

Speaking of Lin Fen, he had finally finished with his research and his self assured smile told Yu Xiang that either he had found the solution or researching simply made him happy.

“You got something Lin?” The green eyed cultivator asked in a defeated tone.

The feline cultivator’s smile turned positively catty as he heard his companion’s hopeless inflection, his small nose raising to the now out of sight heavens.

“Indeed I have Yu.” He said proudly. “But before that, you need some context to fully understand the answer to this test!” With that said, the young alchemist positioned himself into his lecturing stance once again. “You see, the five elements exist in a closed system, where each of them feeds and creates another. Water makes wood. Wood makes fire. Fire makes earth. Earth makes metal, and Metal makes water.”

Lin Fen took a deep breath as he prepared himself for another spiel, which Yu Xiang forced himself to actually listen to on account of his earlier vow.

“Now, the logic behind that particular interaction isn’t really important right now, what matters is that there is another part of this system!” He raised his hand up, his index finger outstretched then started walking towards the fire pillar.

“Just like some elements feed off of each other some other elements actively destroy their counterparts! Metal destroys wood. Wood destroys earth. Earth destroys water. Water destroys fire…” The feline beastfolk laid his hand on the side of the carved basin, a flame bursting to life at its center. In an almost comical display of chi enhanced strength, Lin Fen proceeded to lift the entire stone basin with a single hand, carrying it effortlessly towards the imposing closed gate.

“And fire destroys metal!” With that Lin flicked the entire basin towards the metal gate, making sure not to let it slip. The fire that burned inside the stone recipient flew forward freely, impacting against the gate in a small conflagration of fire and light.

The entire door lit up in a cherry red glow as it heated up, looking hot enough to scald even their reinforced flesh as smoke started to rise out of it.

Then the glow died down and the door returned to normal.

Yu Xiang couldn’t help himself and started clapping sarcastically as his long time companion turned as red as the burning door.

“But that’s not possible…” The young cultivator muttered pathetically, his feline ears drooping towards his scalp and his tail flopping down like a fuzzy noodle.

Yu Xiang patted his back sympathetically once he had enough fun. “Maybe the fire wasn’t hot enough?” He said with a shrug.

Lin Fen blinked blearily for a moment, then his furred ears shot up and light returned to his eyes. “Of course!”

With swift moves, Lin Fen deposited the fire basin back upon its pedestal, then shot towards the earth one.

He once more picked up the basin, waited until the jade like stone appeared inside of it, then dumped it into the metal basin. An infusion of spiritual energy later the metal sheet started absorbing the green gem, making it grow even thicker.

After that he repeated his actions with the water basin and the wood basin, until he was back to the fire pillar, an healthy looking shrub laying inside the stone receptacle, ready to be fed to the fire. Which is exactly what he did.

Lin Fen slowly walked back to Yu Xiang’s side, the stone basin laying in his hand filled with a crackling bonfire whose tongues threatened to spill over its sides.

Once he was back the feline alchemist flicked his entire arm forward once more, an inferno following his gesture as flames swallowed the metal gate whole.

Hinges burned, metal melted and the entire structure started to come undone under the extreme heat.

Yu Xiang smirked down at his feline companion, who met his smile with his own, even as the taller cultivator proceeded to tussle his hair for good measure. Now they had wasted enough time, they needed to keep going.