Level Quintet⬟ Solution Doc

Intro

fiveelements.zip

The poem is an acrostic, and the first letters read wuxing, which means the five elements in Chinese philosophy. So the password is wuxing.

In the picture, f1, f2 and latin are in the same color. This implies that we need to solve for file1 in the fire folder together with file2 in the earth folder and the answer is the password to the zip in the metal folder (note that aurum is gold in Latin). We follow the same rule to solve the other four pairs of puzzles to unlock the corresponding Latin zips.

Similarly, fI, fII and greek are in the same color. So for example solving fileI in wood with fileII in earth will give the password to the zip in the water/aqua folder (note that hydro is the Greek prefix for water). We follow the same rule to solve the other four pairs of puzzles to unlock those Greek zips.

Latin Layer

fire/file1 & earth/file2 -> metal/aurum.zip

Entering different numbers in file2.htm produces two types of results. And it's easy to find the pattern that when the number is a prime, it's a smiley face, and a sad face otherwise. So we can split the characters in file1 to get two strings:

dmNxZnh2dm9yZHZmdHA= and pRiMeReGeX

Decoding the first string as base64 we get vcqfxvvordvftp. Using primeregex as the vigènere key, we get glitteringgold, which is the password to metal/aurum.zip.

earth/file1 & metal/file2 -> water/aqua.zip

In metal/file2 is a quote from Jeremy about Morse, which just hints that the cipher in earth/file1 is Morse somehow. If you look at the image row by row, you will see each row is either a 1x1 or 2x1 block. So this is a typical Morse pattern. Decoding with Morse we get ab aqua libertas. So the password to water/aqua.zip is abaqualibertas.

metal/file1 & water/file2 -> wood/lignum.zip

First identify the items in the picture based on the crosswords cell layout, we have

In water/file2 is part of the famous painting Starry Night by Van Gogh, which hints for stars and night skies. Googling with the hint, we can find that each item has a constellation associated with it. They are

These six constellations are all bordering with Caelum, which means Engraver's Chisel in Latin, and this phrase just matches with the crosswords cell format. So the password to wood/lignum.zip is engraverschisel.

water/file1 & wood/file2 -> fire/ignis.zip

The diagram of wood/file2 illustrates that we should shift the first letter of each word to the next. So we get the phrase we make hell real. Complete this quote, we get the password to fire/ignis.zip as westokeitsfires.

wood/file1 & fire/file2 -> earth/terra.zip

The gif is the song How deep is your love, which hints for the parenthesis depth (or level) of each heart symbol.

To count the parenthesis level, starting from the left of that string, when you see an opening parenthesis, you increase the level by 1, and when you see a closing parenthesis, you decrease the level by 1. So the first heart is at level 4, second at 22, etc. A1Z26 gives dungthreeon, which is read as dung3on, and thus we get the password to earth/terra.zip.

Greek Layer

lignum/fileI & terra/fileII -> aqua/hydro.zip

There are 11 files in fileI.zip, which corresponds to the 11 singers/bands in fileII. With some googling, we can find that each word comes from a song by a particular singer and that song has a number in the name.

Reordering these files based on the numbers in the song like above, we get the string SQA-nS9TEII, which is a YouTube link to Petricor. So the password to aqua/hydro.zip is petricor.

aqua/fileI & ignis/fileII -> aurum/chryso.zip

Two maritime flags (J & N) are in fileII.jpg. Looking at the pattern of the flags, it implies that we need to transform the stripes into a checkered grid. So we apply this transform in the spreadsheet to get

We also have the hint "scan . code", which implies that we should scan this barcode as the DotCode. Recreating the barcode and scanning it gives the password to aurum/chryso.zip as ch3ck3red.

aurum/fileI & lignum/fileII -> terra/geo.zip

Fun fact: the poem in fileI was mainly written by ChatGPT with some small changes. The fileII image hints for Pretty Good Password (PGP word list). So picking the PGP word from the poem, we get

Converting from hex then from base64, we get Lhooq. Googling it and we can find the French phrase elle a chaud au cul, which matches with the password format. So the password to terra/geo.zip is elleachaudaucul.

terra/fileI & aqua/fileII -> ignis/pyro.zip

The image in fileI is the famous game Jeopardy!, so in the string

Imglu "Bwzqmtnk!", Mjwo Gtwxww'd afp GE sfch ymrw.

"Bwzqmtnk!" is apparently mapped to "Jeopardy!".

Besides, we observe that all 26 letters are present in this string, which is a hint to pangram. Googling Jeopardy and pangram we find the sentence

Watch "Jeopardy!", Alex Trebek's fun TV quiz game.

Therefore, we can build the substitute alphabet

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz -> fjisvutzwlycadxnpmqrhkebgo

Applying the substitute to the base64-like string (ignoring cases as instructed) in fileII, we get a valid base64 string. After decoding it and apply the substitution again, we get

asswiftaswind.

asgentleasforest.

asfierceasfire.

asunshakableasmountain.

This is the description for furinkasan, i.e. the password to ignis/pyro.zip.

ignis/fileI & aurum/fileII -> lignum/xylo.zip

As hinted by "rarest color in the palette", we just need to find that color. In the GIMP histogram sidebar, for the red channel, we find there are only 27 pixels (which is the lowest non-zero count) with value 114.

With same method in green and blue channels, we find the rarest color to be #724c35. Highlighting this color in red (approx. at the chin of this portrait) we get

Apparently this is a Braille pattern, which reads h4ystack (note the second symbol means number #) as the password to lignum/xylo.zip.

Finale

After unlocking all five parts in the Greek layer, we concatenate these five parts and from hex we get a new zip file. Unzipping it we get a file revisit (without file extension), but apparently it's a jpeg.

So we revisit previous steps:

1. J->N indicates the maritime flag pattern transform. So the letter grid becomes

Note that all white squares are empty, so we rewrite the characters from the grid row by row as

BTDWUEMX-NBYEVCUE-HHSNGF-ZRZL-WTGBC-DGY-

2. c0102 45 k3y means color as key in Leet. The color involved was #724c35 (the rarest color), and it translates to traces in Leet. So decoding the above string with vigènere key=traces, we get

ICDUQMTG-NZUMCLUC-DPZWGD-VZGU-WRCJJ-MGW-

3. Substituting this string with the alphabet we used, we get

WISHPART-DOHAICHI-SNOETS-KOTH-EMILL-ATE-

4. These are the singers in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 11th place, which implies prime. So removing the characters at the prime indices (note that dash also counts), we get

WHAT-DHICH-NOES-KOT-MILL-TE-

5. This symbol is the arrow seen in the diagram of wood/file2.jpg. Applying this operation to get

THAT-WHICH-DOES-NOT-KILL-ME-

So to complete this sentence, we get MAKES ME STRONGER.

And the final answer to this weekly is

weeklys5didnotkillmebutmademestronger