Hortus had greatly expanded compared to its initial form. With the merger of all planets, moons and planetoids, the landmass expanded thousands of times.
The quality and density of aura had far exceed any other time in history of humanity. According to Oob, even the devas didn't enjoy this luxury.
In fact, all kingdoms and duchies, for that matter even provinces would find specific spots where the aura flowing out from the inner space was high.
It's like someone was taking up aura and spraying it outside. Instead of getting the dispersed, foggy aura, the goal was to capture the aura just right before it's sprayed.
Hortus, for reasons no one understood, was positioning itself at these specific space-time spots and pumping itself with aura.
This had the effect of improving everyone's talent, accelerating their progression and pushing them over many bottlenecks.
Varian spent 6 months in Paradise.