A New Path for the Sacred Flame Altar

Vilar had assumed the document Yasol handed him was a simple deployment diagram for the Sacred Flame Altar.

So he had paid it little mind, taking it for a reconstruction plan prepared by the young deputy envoy.

But as his gaze moved down the page, his brow slowly furrowed.

The plans did show the Sacred Flame Altar's position, the distribution of its nodes, and how its components connected. Beyond those standard structures, however, a large number of new Rune Arrays had been marked around the altar.

Vilar straightened instinctively.

Those Runes were not meant to strengthen the Sacred Flame's burn. Nor were they the usual Purification, flame-stabilizing, or protective structures.

They were attached directly to the altar's perimeter, where special circuits linked them to the waves it emitted.

In other words, someone intended to install an entirely new Rune system on the Sacred Flame Altar.

As a technical Bishop of the Sacred Flame Industrial Academy, he knew better than anyone that the Sacred Flame Altar was the Church's most important Most Holy relic.

Generations of engineers had approached it with something close to reverence.

Most craftsmen worshipped it as a miracle all their lives. The thought of adding new Rune devices to it, of changing it even slightly, struck them as all but heresy.

Had a more conservative Bishop seen this, he might already have closed the plans and demanded to know how the designer had dared.

Vilar, however, was not one to cling blindly to old rules. At least, he believed some parts could be adjusted in small ways.

And he soon discovered that the new Runes did not touch the altar's core structure.

They were all attached to its outer region, clearly isolated from the Flame Seed and Holy Unction circulation system.

That discovery eased his initial discomfort,