Both counts as a post. Starting a new thread is making a post as well as replying in any other thread is a post.
So to answer what I think you really want to know: No, you do not need to make five new topics. You might aswell just reply in 5 topics.
What probably keeps you longer in the newbie area than gettuing 5 posts is the requirement of being logged in for 4 hours, because the logged in time only increases while you are active. Just keeping a browser tab witrh the forum opened in the background will not help you get 4 hours of being logged in.
So to clarify being in the forum for 4 hours actively as in, not just leaving your browser open while on the forum. Does this mean that you need to be clicking on links or scrolling through posts for it to count as active time? I had it open for an hour while I was reading a post that was in depth. I was multi tasking and looking up a few of the things mentioned in the post elsewhere and when I came back to the forum and looked it said I had only 39 minutes so it apparently did not count my full hour +.
Is this because I was not moving? Thanks for the info, much appreciated!
As I don't run the forums I do not know the technichal details. I am unsure in how far it is possible to track scrolling on the page. But what I am quite sure of is that there is some countdown (for example 5 minutes) that is restarted with each activity (again what in detail is viewed as an activity by the forum software is not known to me) and if that countdown ever is to reach zero then your logged in time is stopped to increase until you do another activity and by that restart the countdown and the logged in time tracking.