"This is Saint's Precipice."
Standing at the edge of the cliff and gazing at the sea of clouds after the snow had stopped, Shade had to admit that the view was quite beautiful. But compared to a name like "Saint's Precipice," he did not sense anything particularly unusual about it.
He looked down over the sheer cliff, hesitated for a moment, then leapt straight down, only to fly back up three seconds later.
During his free fall, he saw that below was a White Fog barrier, just like at the starting point of the Path of Atonement. If he kept falling, he would undoubtedly leave this area directly.
But less than half an hour had passed since he entered this place:
"I'll jump down from here when it's time to leave."
There was nothing left to explore on the high platform at the mountaintop, so Shade returned to the ruins below. Looking at the broken walls and scattered rubble everywhere, he began his exploration.
He searched for traces beneath the snow and inspected the broken walls and pillars. Shade then confirmed that, apart from the Temple, there truly were no intact buildings here—not even relatively intact ones.
So if the place for the Final Ritual was an open-air Sacrificial Ground buried beneath the snow, things would not be troublesome. But if the ritual site really was the so-called "Circular Hall," then the candidates would probably need to prepare stone in advance, repair the building first, and only then proceed with what came next.
Yet Shade never managed to find the Upper Spring. Even if the ruins were covered in snow, in an area of such limited size, he could not possibly have failed to notice an Icebound Water. But the fact was that he truly could not find that area.