Chapter 127: A Captured Star

January 7, 222 AD, The Academy of the Forge, Lugdunum.

The doors of the praetorium study slammed open.

Gaia, a sixteen-year-old metallurgical prodigy handpicked by Decimus from the slum-forges of Massilia, bolted into the room.

Her tunic was severely singed and her face was smeared with soot.

"Why did the carbon explode? It flared brighter than Apollo’s chariot for two seconds, and then it just shattered! I tried feeding it more acid, but the wire just melted into slag!" she blurted out in a single breath, throwing a charred wooden battery box onto Lucius’s desk.

"You managed a two-second sustained ignition... that fast?" Lucius blinked, genuinely taken aback.

He slowly set down his stylus, picking up the scorched remnants of the copper wiring. "I calculated it would take you at least three days just to balance the zinc and sulfuric acid ratios."

Gaia leaned across the desk, her chin resting close to Lucius’s inkwell. "Forge Master, what exactly was that blinding light? It wasn’t fire. Fire flickers and breathes. This was... angry."

"That was electrical resistance," Lucius smiled, pointing to the melted copper. "You forced lightning through a bottleneck."

"Lightning?" Gaia whispered the word as if it were a curse, shaking her head. "But Jupiter’s lightning is instantaneous. It strikes and vanishes. This light was a continuous white line. It held steady until the glass cracked."

"The electrical current heated the bamboo carbon filament until it radiated visible light," Lucius explained, opening a box on his desk.

He extracted a perfectly blown glass sphere, sealed at the base with pine-resin. "The problem, Gaia, is oxidation. When carbon gets that hot, and there is oxygen in the air around it, it combusts. It burns itself to ash."

He handed her the glass sphere. "Decimus used a pump to suck all the air out of this bulb. It is a total vacuum. Connect your battery leads to the iron pins at the base. The current will flow, the filament will heat up, but without oxygen, it cannot burn."

Gaia’s eyes widened to the size of denarii.

She watched his hands with unblinking reverence, terrified of missing a single detail.

"Now, take this back to the Academy laboratories," Lucius instructed, hiding a smirk behind his hand. "And Gaia? Make sure you barricade the windows and extinguish all the oil lanterns before you connect the acid."

"That is all?" She looked at the bulb, disappointed by the simplicity of the instruction.

"That is all," Lucius confirmed.

***

Back in the dormitories of the Academy, Livia — a cfourteen-year-old *Umbrae* acolyte currently cross-training in chemical espionage — was sitting on her cot, sharpening a trench-knife, when Gaia kicked the door open.

Livia sighed, raising a suspicious eyebrow. "Since you are already awake and moving like a rabid dog, go to the mess hall. Bring me a bowl of salted oats and flatbread. Do not bring the boiled cabbage, or I will hide your calipers."

"I refuse to fetch breakfast for a glorified assassin," Gaia grunted, setting the acid-battery on the workbench.

She immediately moved to the windows, pulling the curtains shut.

"Hey, what in Tartarus are you doing?" Livia frowned. "I am sharpening steel here."

"I am initiating an industrial experiment," Gaia declared, dropping to her knees by the workbench. "The Forge Master explicitly commanded absolute darkness."

"Fine, by the gods," the young assassin groaned, sliding her knife into its sheath. "I will go practice throat-slitting forms in the courtyard."

"No, wait! You are forbidden from leaving!" Gaia hollered.

"Why?" Livia shot back. "I cannot practice lethality on an empty stomach, and you are denying me oats."

"Um..." Gaia hesitated. "I will go fetch the salted oats. But you have to sit right there and watch."

"What?" Livia snorted with amusement. "Is the great prodigy of the forge terrified of the dark?"

"I am not terrified!" Gaia puffed out her cheeks. "I just... I require a witness."

The truth was, Gaia desperately wanted an audience.

If she actually managed to capture a continuous star in a glass jar, she wanted someone there to be terrified by her genius.

And if the acid exploded in her face again, she wanted someone there to drag her to the *Lex Medica* ward.

But she would rather swallow a cup of liquid mercury than openly admit that vulnerability to an *Umbrae* killer.

"Fine. I will remain as your witness, because you sound so pathetic right now," Livia yawned, leaning back against the wall. "Oats. Immediately."

After sprinting to the hall and back, Gaia finally centered herself in front of the workbench...

Livia swallowed a bite of flatbread and asked, "So, what exactly is the objective? Are we brewing explosive Greek Fire?"

"No. I am going to alter the chemical state of these zinc and copper plates," Gaia said, her hands hovering over the bulb. "The Forge Master says it will produce sustained lightning."

Livia froze, a piece of flatbread hanging halfway to her mouth. "Lightning? In a glass sphere?"

"Yes... now."

"Wait, hold on!" Livia suddenly shouted, sliding backward on the floor until her spine hit the door. "Alright. The blast radius is clear. Proceed."

Gaia exhaled a long breath. She poured the diluted sulfuric acid into the battery box, submerging the alternating zinc and copper plates.

Previously, she would have panicked at the bubbling chemical reaction.

But the Forge Master had redesigned all the laboratory equipment to neutralize random sparks, allowing her focused control over the connections.

She felt the responsibility of Lugdunum resting on her small shoulders.

She clamped the conductive leads onto the base of the vacuum bulb.

At first, there was nothing. Just the sinister fizzing of the acid in the box.

Then, a faint crimson glow appeared inside the glass vacuum.

Like a dying ember buried deep in a hearth, it was incredibly weak and fragile. But then, the chemical voltage stabilized. The crimson shifted to a bright orange!

Then, in a fraction of a second, the bamboo carbon filament erupted into a blinding halo of yellow-white light.

There were no popping sounds, no explosions, and no smoke...

"By the weeping gods, what is that?" Livia whispered from the door. Her eyes were wide with genuine awe.

The light was insignificant compared to the explosive chemical artillery the Syndicate fielded on the frontlines, but it made Gaia shiver with profound excitement.

This was her creation!

In comparison to the unpredictable explosions she usually caused in the forges, this steady glow was under her control...

Gaia slowly stepped back from the workbench. She unclipped one of the iron leads. The room instantly snapped back into darkness.

She clipped it back on. Blinding daylight instantly returned.

She finally understood the infinite potential of the Forge Master’s teachings.

***

Up in the central praetorium, Lucius kneaded his aching neck, a stylus clamped between his teeth.

"Do you require logistical assistance, Dominus?" Valeria’s soft voice floated into his ear.

"Ah, the gods bless you," he nodded. Valeria getly laid her hands on Lucius’s shoulders, massaging the knotted muscle tissue with just the right amount of firm pressure.

Lucius half-closed his eyes, enjoying this fleeting moment of serenity.

In order to draft the *Codex Industrialis* the foundational law of the Syndicate that would replace the corrupt jurisprudence of the Roman Senate... Lucius had been awake since long before the morning watch for three consecutive days.

It wasn’t until this exact afternoon that he finally finished the legal framework...

Because Lucius was an engineer in his past life, not a legal scholar, he had simply distilled the complex laws of human rights into ten plain-language articles, spanning no more than two scrolls.

Nonetheless, these ten articles contained the explosive ideology of the modern era.

With this specific constitution as its absolute foundation, his new industrial republic would indubitably, separate itself from the rotting corpse of Rome.

"Forge Master!"

The office doors were suddenly kicked open.

Gaia rushed in, her face stretched into a manic grin.

She was carrying the battery box in her arms, with the glass sphere resting on top.

"I finally chained the lightning!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Lucius snapped his eyes open. He watched the young girl set the battery on the edge of his desk.

"Look at this!"

Gaia didn’t even touch the glass. She slammed the iron clip onto the copper lead.

Instantly, the candle-lit study was flooded with a blinding white light.

It drowned out the oil lanterns, casting alien shadows across the Roman architecture of the room.

Looking at this incredible scene, Lucius, the ’Ashen Demon’ who had slaughtered thousands without a second thought, lost his composure.

The stylus slipped from between his teeth.

What exactly am I looking at?

Lucius stared at the glowing bulb, his mind racing.

The standard Voltaic pile he had sketched for the apprentices was flawed; the sulfuric acid would eat the metals, causing the voltage to drop after mere minutes.

But Gaia’s wooden box wasn’t his design...

She had added a new chemical property to the galvanic loop, using a reversible reaction to sustain the electron flow!