Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

As soon as Alex figured out that concealing one's aura made it difficult for the birds to notice them, their journey through the island became much easier. His concealment technique meant that no bird could see him at all. Pearl and Scarlet pulled in their Qi as well, making it so that they would leak as little aura as possible.

They failed to keep it in entirely, but what they had was enough to make them continue on without much danger. They moved slowly, not catching anyone's attention as the birds continued raining down on the various beasts.

Alex noticed that only a handful of beasts had known to conceal their aura, that too only because of his Demon Eyes. Had spiritual sense not been suppressed, they might've had a better chance at figuring it out. As it was, they didn't.

Unlike the first few trials, this one had a much higher failure rate than Alex could've imagined. Most of the beasts were having to give up as they couldn't fight so many of the birds at once. Risking a single attack from these birds wasn't worth the trial for many.

Of the 1200 or so who had taken part in the third trial, about 400 had already given up, with more giving up as time went on.

About 20 birds attacked Alex's group of three in total by the time they entered the center of the island. Compared to the hundreds that the others had to fight off, it was almost nothing.

They also destroyed the birds with rather ease, so there was no danger whatsoever. Things might've been even safer had Scarlet and Pearl leaked absolutely no aura, but there wasn't much they could do.

There was a single platform once again, the same black and white symbol from before. Only, this time there were more drawn onto it. Alex looked closer, noticing some sort of tree-like drawing on either half.

The white half had a thick golden tree with a flat canopy, while the black half had a leafless tree with crooked branches that spiraled outward.

Alex narrowed his eyes. The golden tree looked familiar to a degree, but he couldn't really tell. He turned toward Pearl. "Does this look like the Yang tree to you?"

Pearl hadn't paid any attention to it before. Looking at it now, he just shrugged. "Maybe?"

"Hard to tell," Scarlet said.

Alex looked at the other tree, but he had no idea what that tree even was. He could think of way too many trees that looked like it. There was no specific answer.

He gave up on thinking about the trees and turned to look at the rest of the beasts that were continuing. There wasn't much time left for the trial to be over. It was only a five-hour-long trial after all, so it would end any time now.

Many of the beasts kept on failing, and when the trial ended, there were more that had failed than those that had passed.

In just three trials, the number had been cut down to just over 500. More than half had failed to complete the trial.

A new island approached them, and the fiery bird emerged to tell them the obvious. Those that had passed moved on to the next trial.

Alex and the rest moved, stepping onto the next island, suddenly feeling their spiritual senses get freed. The sensation was quite liberating.

The island separated from the previous island, and the bird reappeared to tell them the next task. Even without the bird, the beasts had already seen what lay before them.

There was a thin layer of mist that covered everything on the island. If it were just a regular fog, that would've been quite fine. But many of the beasts could tell that the fog was anything but normal.

"For your next trial," the bird announced, "you must walk through this venomous mist and arrive at the center once again. You have just two hours."

"Venom, huh?" Scarlet said, rubbing her chin. "We two should be fine. What about Pearl?"

"Will you really be fine?" Alex asked, not believing Scarlet.

"Mhm." Scarlet nodded. "My flames can burn away the fog before it gets too close to me. And I can also heal myself if I get poisoned. I could help him, but it would consume more Qi than I want to use right now"

"Makes sense," Alex said, turning to Pearl. "What do we do with you?"

Pearl didn't know. "I suppose I can eat a pill. What else can we do?"

Alex thought for a moment, but it was true that they had no other choice. Pearl had to eat a pill.

"Do you have one?"

Pearl nodded, bringing out a pill. "I'll eat it when I need it. For now, let's just continue."

Alex nodded and walked ahead. A soft layer of fire appeared around Scarlet as she burned away the mist that coalesced around her. She could've likely done more to help Pearl too, but that would waste quite a bit of Qi. She couldn't afford to do that.

Pearl felt the venom affect his movement not even a minute later and had to quickly take in the pill. Once the pill took effect, he was more or less safe from the venomous fog for a long time.

Alex, on the other hand, did nothing. He just walked through the venom fog, his body taking care of everything on its own.

Scarlet and Pearl were quite jealous of that.

The fourth trial ended up being not much difficult once they found a way to handle the venomous fog. There was no hidden danger there, no enemy waiting to spring out at them.

They crossed the island in no time, arriving at the black and white platform and getting on it.

Still, what was simple for them wasn't the case for the rest. The beasts struggled to get through the venom mist, not even half of them managing to get halfway through it.

Not everyone had ways to fight the venom mist, causing a few dozen to outright die.

By the time the trial came to an end, only about 100 of them had passed.