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.