Building and Upgrading the Ara Vitae Blood Altar with Runes, Slates, and Automation
The Ara Vitae blood altar is the foundation of every vitaemantic practice, and learning to build and upgrade it with runes, slates, and automation is the first real task of any practitioner. This basin of stone transforms raw blood into Essentia Vitae, the refined lifeforce behind every vitaemantic work. It starts small, but with the right additions it becomes a rune-carved monument.
The Basic Altar
Place the 
Ara Vitae and it awakens on its own. It takes in blood and distills it into Essentia Vitae, then spends that essence to transfigure whatever item sits in its basin. Right-click the altar to set an item down, and right-click again with an empty hand to pick it back up.
A bare altar holds 10,000 EV to begin with. The crimson pool inside shows roughly how full it is; a 
Divination Sigil gives you the exact number.
An empty altar will not wait for you to fill it. Lay a 
diamond on a bare altar and, with no stored essence of its own, it pulls blood from anyone nearby who is not carrying an Orb of Vitae. Nobody dies from this; the altar only takes what the working requires.
Once you have an Orb of Vitae, right-click it to open your veins. Near an altar, the blood flows directly into the basin. Away from one, it is stored in the orb so you can pour it into an altar later.
Keep one quirk in mind: a tenth of the altar's total capacity sits in a hidden internal reservoir used for fluid transfer. If your numbers look wrong, that unseen vessel is usually why.
Transmutation
Transmutation starts the moment an item is placed. Essence drains from the basin, and crimson motes rising from the surface show the process is running. The altar handles a single item at a time. If it runs dry, gray smoke rises and the progress is lost.
Your first creation should be the 
Novicius Orb of Vitae: a diamond offered to a Tier 0 altar along with 2,000 EV. This orb opens your Anima, the invisible network linking your soul to your vitaemantic instruments. Check JEI for the full list of recipes the altar can perform.
Slates
The altar also forges Slates, the inscribed tablets behind nearly every vitaemantic creation. Each tier needs a stronger altar and a larger offering.
Tabula Rasa: deepslate on a Tier 0 altar, costing 1,000 EV.
Tabula Robur: a Tabula Rasa on a Tier 1 altar, costing 2,000 EV.
Tabula Animata: a Tabula Robur on a Tier 2 altar, costing 5,000 EV.
Tabula Spiritus: a Tabula Animata on a Tier 3 altar, costing 15,000 EV.
Tabula Aetherea: a Tabula Spiritus on a Tier 4 altar, costing 30,000 EV.
Runes
The Rune of Capacity deepens the basin, raising how much Essentia Vitae the altar holds before overflowing. Each rune adds +20%, stacking additively, so costly transmutations are interrupted less often.
The 
Speed Rune hastens every transmutation by +20% per rune, also stacking additively. An empty altar loses progress faster with these installed.
The 
Acceleration Rune shortens the interval between pulses for operations such as the 
Charging Rune and 
Displacement Rune, which normally fire once every 20 ticks. Each one removes a tick from that gap, down to a minimum of one tick.
Redstone and Automation
The altar accepts mechanical help: items and Essentia Vitae can be piped in and out. Since the basin holds only one item at a time, a 
Hopper can feed items in one by one while the altar transmutes each in turn, as long as essence keeps coming.
The altar does not separate input from output, so without a filter items cycle in and out as fast as your transfer system permits. Routing Nodes help here.
Essence can also move to and from external tanks through a fluid conduit, letting you stockpile it. Flow is slow by default: Acceleration Runes quicken the altar's pulse, and Displacement Runes widen the channel essence travels through. Piped essence never comes from the main basin directly; the hidden secondary reservoir, holding up to 10% of total capacity, sits in between.
A comparator beside the Ara Vitae reads the essence level inside, much like a chest.
Covers the mod’s in-game guide topics: The Ara Vitae The Slates Rune of Capacity Speed Rune Acceleration Rune Redstone and Automation