Sanctuary

The Sanctuary (聖域) is a secret magic facility for the Cult of Diablos's experiment. Aurora state that the Sanctuary is a memory prison, created from ancient battles.

Overview
The Sanctuary is a place not at all physical, but magical in its isolated magical sub-space within the land of Lindwurm that cannot be physically entered. Except through the magical door that will open in response to the Goddess's Trial or within the Lindwurm church gate, but that gate is only available for the Cult of Diablos members which they can have access to enter the Sanctuary.

History and Functioning
The Sanctuary is place where the hero Olivier is said to have cut off the left arm of the demon Diabolos and sealed it at Lindwurm. Although it is considered a sacred place in the Holy Church, it is actually like a graveyard because many magic swordsmen were defeated during the Diabolos War and their memories and residual magic remain.

"Proof of the Goddess"
Once a year, there is a battle event called the "Goddess Judgment", secretly organized by the Diablos cult, where warriors and knights from different sides, from the countries of the world, come to test their powers, against the ancient warriors and heroes of the past. This consists of a special invocation, in which if a person in the stadium has enough power, a warrior or hero, a ghostly old man from the past (memory projected into himself), of the many that exist, responds to the warrior's call. present to the stadium, to fight against it, but if he does not have enough level of magic power, ability and other things in part, no hero or warrior will respond, and the person who is present in the stadium will be discarded as unqualified.

The invocation itself, of the "Judgment of the Goddess", works through the special measurement of the magical power, and the abilities and skills to a lesser extent of the individual present in the arena, so it is practically impossible to evade or deceive detection. magical as such. Depending on the skills, more on whether the magical power of the individual, the summoned ancient warrior or hero, will be equal to the strength of the challenger, regardless of whether he is a magician, a magic swordsman, or a magic spearman or archer, representing the power of the rival present as such, so even if one is a strong magical swordsman, the summoned warrior, although it may be of a level equal to him, this may not necessarily be a swordsman, they can be something else in terms of skill and magic.

Before the warrior's memory is summoned to fight, a magic shield dome is created to prevent interruption from the outside, one that does not disappear until one of the fighters, the challenger or the summoned subject, has been defeated, sometimes to death. Therefore, despite the strong risk involved in participating in the "goddess test", those who sign up accept the risk as such, since if they manage to defeat the invoked warrior, they will be given a medal of valor for recognize their strength and may have a strong title, which will allow them to get a job as magic knights among other things, in all possible parts of the nobles and kingdoms of the world.

True Identity and Purpose
In reality, the Sanctuary was not a religious temple as the name might suggest, but genetic research site and cloning facility of the Cult of Diablos where they are researching Demon Possession and sealed the Diabolos remains during the Diabolos War about 1000 years ago, also a graveyard of ancient memories and demons' burning grudges. It was concealed in the form of a seal by using the land where residual magic power was staying. There were devices such as holy swords that could only be used by specific humans and chains that could only be cut by those swords.

The Cult are able to successfully seal the demon remains away by using a high-grade powerful artifact. However, the sealing was imperfect, and its generated distortions will eventually became the Sanctuary.

Chronology
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Functions

 * Memory Recall: Can be able to see the memories in the Sanctuary. However, it is not possible to confirm every memory to know how far it is true, because memories can change over time as they fade with time, reshaping themselves to fit their owner’s narrative.
 * Ghost Prison: It is speculated that in certain cases, the Shrine can permanently retain sentient souls fragments of the individual who is imprisoned within the Shrine, up to their entire soul. When Cid Kageno entered the sanctuary he was met by the conscious fragment of Aurora, who according to her was locked inside the sanctuary for 1000 years.
 * Defense System: The defense system will reject every abnormalities in the facility by using a memory that reacted to them and materialized to prevent from entering further to the center. Nelson explains that the closer they are to the center of the Sanctuary, the more of their power is drained. Alpha adds that at the same time the closer is Nelson to the center, he gains more power, which is understood, since the sanctuary territory of the Cult means that its members can use the powers of the sanctuary to their benefit the further inside they are within it.
 * Ghost Memorial Copy: As the sanctuary is a prison and a cemetery of ancient memories, it can be created and invoked a memory puppet of the warriors who perished in past battles that the sanctuary kept as memory, and hundreds of copies of this, this is seen when Nelson invokes a soulless Olivier memory fragment, as such, which only serves to kill anyone that Nelson or the cult members order him to, to undo members of the Shadow Garden.

Faulty System

 * Faulty summoning: Although at first, the sanctuary functioned under the orders of the main members of the Cult, as time passed, with the development of this (and its variants), the system that was governed, began to act partially automatically. This affected the "summoning system", causing those with great magical power, or those who are related by blood to the memories of the sanctuary, to manifest, in a normal way for the public, or those who enter the sanctuary, but counterproductive at times, to those who direct the activation or laws of the sanctuary. This was in the case of Shadow, Alpha and Zeta, that when they entered the system run by the sanctuary, the memories of very powerful beings or beings linked in some way to them, manifested automatically; (Due to Shadow tremendous power, Aurora responded to the activation of the Sanctuary, Alpha by manipulating the system within the sanctuary, the memory of Olivier manifested next to her, Zeta by entering the hidden Sanctuary of Midgar Academy, the memory of Lili manifested herself in response to Zeta's presence).


 * Opening doors: The greater the power of the challenger, the more the power of the summoned opponent will be, which represents his power, with an equal risk, but if the challenger manages to defeat a very powerful ancient warrior, there is a possibility that the sanctuary will react to the strength of the challenger, opening the doors of the Sanctuary, demonstrating that he is worthy of entering it, either with or without the consent of those who run such a place, who are the members of the Cult of Díablos. The door itself does not have to be physical, it adjusts to the will and location of the carrier that reacts to it, but the door will only be open for a limited period of time, and even if it is possible to enter, the subject as such will not He would be able to see at all, the shrine's guarded memories, if he did not have the ability to open them himself, unless the cult members allowed it for the most part.


 * Shaky memories: The Sanctuary does not manage to maintain in part, the memories shown, plus the environment as such, as a consequence, these are jumping, in a semi-paved way, from the past to the current present, revealing certain events that occurred, later, to the events shown, making That those who visit the place, without being members of the cult, wonder before arriving at the moment shown, or without being shown it, "why everything was left in ruins"?

Weakness

 * Magic manipulation: Although the Sanctuary was created by the Cult as such, even if it is its territory, by using the power of Aurora as the nucleus for its operation, It is possible to manage the magical powers and systems of the sanctuary, externally and internally, as was the case with Aurora, over the centuries, managed to manipulate certain rules of it and be able to bring and search for someone with enough power to free her, being in the end Cid Kagenou. The same happens with those who have the ability and knowledge to manage to a lesser extent, the powers of the Sanctuary, as was the case with the Alpha, who managed to open the sealed memories of the Sanctuary, in order to see the truth of what happened, with the past of the heroine Olivier, and partly the members who accompanied her, who managed to find a way out of the place.
 * Central Nucleus: If the Sanctuary center is destroyed, then everything inside will be released, including the diablos remain which have been sealed.

Location

 * Lindwurm : In novel, it place at the top of the steep mountain. In the anime, it place under the water dam.
 * Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy: In the Light Novel (volume 5), another shrine is found, which is hidden and sealed, below and within the Royal Academy of Midgar.

Trivia

 * Aurora confess that the Sanctuary is a prison, where memories repeat for eternity that make her feel pain for centuries.
 * In the Light Novel and Manga version, it is depicted as a medieval alchemy workshop. But in the anime version, it is depicted as a facility with advanced science and technology that is now lost.
 * During the tour inside the sanctuary, the fragment of Olivier's memory is seen for a few moments, somewhat away from Alpha's group along with Nelson, who apparently accompanies them on the tour, as if it were not a memory itself.
 * While in the Light Novel, Web Novel, and Manga, the "Trial of the Goddess" summoning system works normally, in the anime and in-game, it appears to work by default, as That said system was activated when Shadow appeared out of nowhere, without Nelson's permission, which is somewhat counterproductive, because Nelson was seen activating it from the beginning of the test, and during Shadow's appearance, he was not He saw it deactivated, since if so, the dome, which prevented intervention, would have disappeared with it.