50 Ruins

Jim pulled the detection range inward, he could search faster when it was a smaller area. With the radius being only 10 meters around himself, he could feel everything within that space clearly.

'Okay, let's head further in.' A wide hallway continued on for a few minutes, leading to a large room. Within was a collection of five pedestals, the side walls were covered in murals, with the far wall bearing unfamiliar text carved into it.

Jim felt the writing was the first thing to tackle, he began focusing on it.

[Ancient Sura Race Language Skill Obtained]

'Sura Race? What?' Jim continued studying the text for the next five hours until he could understand it.

"The Sura people are dying, our enemies are too strong. Here we leave this legacy, for one able to claim it. All in Five. Five in One." 'The hell does the last part mean?'

Jim began looking more closely at the pedestals. One had a yin-yang symbol. 'Okay, that's easy to understand.'

The second had three horizontal wavy symbols. 'Hmm, does it stand for wind? Maybe flowing water?'

The third had a simple circle. 'That's...really not descriptive.'

The fourth had an easily recognizable flame symbol. 'Okay.'

The fifth had a verticle line. 'And another cryptic one.'

Turning his attention to the murals, Jim went to the one on the left side from the entrance. It gave a feeling of tranquility while looking at it and showed a vague outline of people, some apparently hunting beasts, others farming. Some were sitting on mountain peaks, others building. Finally, a man huddled over a cauldron.

The mural on the right side was somehow darker and ominous. Starting with a lone person surrounded by others pointing weapons at him, then many men in the center. The third portion seemed to have the tables turned, the surrounding men fleeing. The fourth shows the original surrounding men being cornered. The fifth being the newly surrounded crowd in low numbers.

'Hm...The end of the writing seems to be hinting at something interconnected. The murals seem to depict cycles, I suppose the yin-yang symbol and the circle does too. Atmosphere or Flowing Water fits that theme too. What do flames have to do with that though? And the vertical line, how does that fit in?'

'Wait, in the first place, even if my train of thought is correct, what do I actually do? Do I place something on the pedestals?' Jim decided to try expanding detection towards the pedestals. There were indeed formations carved within them, but Jim had no experience in reading formations. He had no idea what these ones do.

Pulling Detection back to the smaller area, he sent out Qi Sense. Qi Sense gave back some weird feelings. Jim decided to control a strand of Qi and direct it to the flame symbol pedestal. Immediately when it reached, the tip of the Qi strand ignited. Jim began controlling the Qi strand further, the flame moved along with his will. 'Huh, okay...'

Controlling a second strand, he sent it to the horizontal wavy symbol pedestal. The Qi turned into floating water. Reaching his Qi towards the yin-yang symbol one, suddenly Jim felt a rejection, the fire and water Qi strands became disconnected from him. In an instant, blades of light began flying towards him from all directions. He wasn't able to dodge all of them this time, his clothes turned ragged.

Luckily, his body had toughened enough, it wasn't a harsh punishment. Jim felt that if he hadn't reached the peak of Titanium Body he would have been cut into pieces though. 'They weren't playing around with this place, huh.'

Reaching to the fire and water pedestals again, Jim tried sending a strand to the circle. The sensation he got back was strange, like something was pulling and pushing him all at once. 'Is it...force? What?'

Reaching towards the horizontal line, he felt a sudden anger well up from within himself. Like something had been stolen from him, he absolutely needed vengeance. Calming himself down, Jim became even more puzzled at what this puzzle needed from him.

Thinking it over for a minute, he tried moving the fire strand towards the yin-yang pedestal, when it touched, it suddenly adhered to the top of the pedestal. 'Huh, okay.' Moving the water one over, the same rejection occurred. He managed to dodge more of the blades flying at him this time, but not enough. 'I knew it was coming and still couldn't evade.' Thinking of having not trained his defense to this point, Jim shivered.

'Alright, I was on the right track when I placed the flame on the pedestal. Maybe...'

This time, Jim placed the Flame first, then Anger, then Water, then Force. It seemed to work. His reasoning was that anger could be easily connected to flames thematically. Water could be seen as having a calming effect. Water could carry surprising Force, Friction then could create Flames. His solution required several leaps in logic and may not adhere to the puzzle creator's intention, but he seemed to have passed that part.

However, nothing happened. 'What now?' Jim recalled the "Five in One" line and started thinking it may be literal. 'Do I have to merge them together? But I only have four strands attached to the pedestal. Maybe I just did it out of order?'

Jim tried moving a fifth strand towards the yin-yang pedestal, it instantly connected and adhered to the center of the top. 'Alright, now I have to move them together, I guess.' A feeling of resistance was felt when he attempted to directly move them towards the center. 'Okay, cyclical, got it.'

Moving them clockwise didn't work, but all four outer strands began moving counter-clockwise. It was difficult to control them all moving at the same time, Jim's Qi felt like it was starting to run out. 'What the hell?' The four moving strands were heading inward while circling the center. 'C'mon, faster...'

Gritting his teeth, Jim was straining himself to keep the strands moving. Finally, they met and fused together. A golden light exploded out of the pedestal, Jim felt the connection to the strands snap, but the blades didn't come. Suddenly, a stream of golden Qi rushed directly towards his forehead.