A discovery was made in the deep archives—a sealed vault marked "Thematic Resources." Inside were not blueprints, but art. Sculptures of water in spirals. Music scores based on hydrological charts. Poetry about rivers.
The Syndicate had archived it as a curiosity, a pathology of the old mindset. For Sage, it was a revelation.
He brought a water-inspired sculpture to the new "Resonance Design Lab." It was an abstract twist of metal that, when unified Vitae was trickled over it, produced a perfect, calming tone.
"The old world didn't just use the water," he said to the team of engineers and former Choir members. "They conversed with it. Their engineering was an art form. Their art was a form of engineering. We've been trying to build pipes. Maybe we need to build… flutes."
A young engineer, a former pump technician, looked skeptical. "A flute won't deliver water to a hundred-story tower."
"Maybe the tower doesn't need to be a hundred stories if the water sings its way up," Elara, the grizzled janitor, replied softly. She placed her hand on the sculpture. "We've been asking 'how do we move it?' Perhaps we should ask, 'where does it want to go?'"
It was a philosophical shift that broke the logjam. Designs stopped being about forcing flow and started being about inviting it. The first successful prototype was a "Siphoning Chime"—a tower of tuned, spiral plates. When the wind (now subtly charged with ambient magic) passed through it, it created a harmonic that gently drew Vitae from a below-ground seep, lifting it twenty feet into a collection basin without a single pump.
It was inefficient. It was beautiful. It worked.
The first new law was proposed by Regina and ratified by the Council: All new public infrastructure must incorporate harmonic design principles. Efficiency was redefined from "output over input" to "synergy with source."
The world's mechanics had officially been rewritten.