PART 1 - Chapters 5 to 7 (Summer camp)

(Chapters 5 to 7 from Part 1 of the novel correspond to episodes 3 and 4 of the anime)

In chapter 5 begins the "most important event Sage Academy held each year" summer camp. It is, in Saki's words "an action-packed weeklong camp where the teams paddled up the Tone River and lived in tents without any adult supervision.” 

They spend two days on camp. The route taken in day one shows in the map below in an orange dotted line, and the rout taken in day 2 is shown in yellow.

On day 1 they set out from Kamisu 66, traveling up the Tone River, it is implied that in some point they reach Lake Kasumigaura and that night camp somewhere in the bank of the river, but it is not specified exactly where.

On day 2, they decide to set out across lake Kasumigaura to look for an evil Minoshiro and Blowdogs in Mount Tsukuba, even though they are not allowed to. They cross the lake within an hour, and then go up Sakura river. In the anime they don't explain this, so you think they just took a small detour, but watching the map, you can see that it is not small in the slightest.

This is how they show Sakura river in the anime:

And this is how it really looks like (near the mountains).

Photo credit: autan

Saki describes really well the disembarking site so locating in it in the map was actually pretty easy, she says this: “Partway up, the river branched in two. We weren’t sure which way to go, so we chose the left branch because it was flowing more rapidly. About a kilometer later, the dense trees opened up and we saw Mt. Tsukuba ahead of us. (...) If we kept following the river, we’d end up too far away from Mt. Tsukuba, so we disembarked here”.

After disembarking they supposedly went up the mountain and "took a look around", but you can see in the map bellow, that it was actually quite a hike.

While going up the mountain they stumble upon a “strange abandoned building”. In the anime Shun says that it is "probably a Shrine" and in the novel he says "it’s probably Mt. Tsukuba’s shrine” adding that “It has a history of at least two or three thousand years. This building too, was probably already considered really old a thousand years ago”.

If you check out Tsukubasan shrine, you will find that in fact, it is what they stumble upon. You can see a comparison of what is shown in the anime, and the real thing.

Anime

Shrine in Mount Tsukuba

Photo credit: Chaobang

In the shrine, they find a false Minoshiro. After capturing it, they learn from it about the true nature of Fiends and Karma Demons, and how the old society fell. They also learn of the slave empires ruled by PK users, the Minoshiro says this: “I only have records of the Holy Cherry Blossom Empire, which consisted of the Kanto and Chubu regions. The Holy Cherry Blossom Empire’s longevity was second only to the New Yamato Empire, which encompassed everything west of Kansai. However, the Holy Cherry Blossom Empire went through ninety-four generations of emperors in five-hundred seventy years”.

Heres a map of the Yamato empire and the Holy Cherry Blossom Empire, just for comparison.

After learning that, and some other things, Rijin (a priest emeritus serving at the Temple of Purit) appears, and everything goes downhill from there.