This is a "nostalgia" puzzle mainly because it's a rehash of a puzzle I made for EnigMarch 2023. In the future?!?!
Here's how the crystals work this time around:
The Dark Crystal inserts the string "ASS" into a word.
The Earth Crystal applies a Caesar shift of 20 to a word.
The Fire Crystal just turns "dough" into "bread."
The Holy Crystal removes the string "ASS" from a word.
The Poison Crystal removes the letters "H" and "P" from a word.
The Time Crystal takes an EnigMarch prompt from 2023 and comes back with the answer to the puzzle I made for that prompt.
Thus:
| PING | P | A | S | S | I | N | G | ||||
| LATTE | F | U | N | N | Y | ||||||
| DOUGH | B | R | E | A | D | ||||||
| ROYAL | S | Y | R | U | P | ||||||
| MOLASSES | M | O | L | E | S | ||||||
| SPHERE | S | E | R | E |
"Sere" is a real word, but I guess it's not very common if you don't read a lot of Clark Ashton Smith stories. Anyway, the answer is PURPLE.