The control variable method: basic and useful.
Fu Qian said there was a reason he'd come out when it was already dark.
The Academy really was a place of outstanding people and remarkable places. On one hand, its residents were always coming up with wild ideas and getting themselves into trouble. On the other, the Ark incident had been ironclad proof that its location was no ordinary one.
Back then, people had spent quite some time arguing over why the Ark had appeared beneath the Institute of Curses, and why Nepheli hadn't been able to move it elsewhere.
In the end, the conclusions had naturally settled on certain conceptual things.
For example, Snow Tree lost its snow-turns-white property once it left the Academy grounds, as did Meria, whose symbol was Snow Tree...
Jade Soul Master had provided quite a bit of information about that mysterious ancient Higher Being.
The most striking details were the handsome yet androgynous body he had once taken on, and the Snow Tree leaf he had twirled between his fingers.
The latter might even have been why the final section of the memoir began with the words "withered leaf."
All things considered, it was almost certain that Lady Meria was the Snow Tree Goddess.
And Snow Tree's strange properties, which had no supernatural aura yet were so obviously tied to a particular region, were all too easy to connect to its symbolic relationship with Meria.
Ultimately, it came down to the link between "this place" and the concept of "Meria."
In a certain "apocalypse" he had once witnessed, this place even seemed to be the first point where the barrier broke.
All in all, the Academy was a good place.
So, by extension, might there be other phenomena with regional properties?
Like Professor Rob's miraculous mushrooms.