Does the MTK preloader reside in the same flash as system or data? The title pretty much sums it all up, I was just curious as I don't understand the MTK preloader that much and considering if a wrong one is flashed then you are left with unrecoverable brick (correct me if i'm be wrong) so it seemed odd to me that it would be kept in the same flash as other partitions like system, data, cache etc.

I have tried checking checking some partitions directly from the phone which seem to indicate that it might be sharing the same flash memory as other partitions but the scatter files that I have seem to indicate otherwise, I also did some xda-delopers searches but it left me even more confused.

Any help will be appreciated.
It's present in the Boot ROM, not a directly visible partition in the eMMC.

Source: MediaTek details: SoC startup

The Boot ROM will be embedded inside the processor chip in generic chipsets. (read more) (no idea about MTK)

Further Technical details on working of Preloader: MediaTek details: Partitions and Preloader