Chapter 129: The Son of Rome

"Since you possess such incredibly detailed intelligence on his mining operations, I assume the *Umbrae* have already made diplomatic contact," Lucius pressed. "And what exactly are his reasons for remaining loyal to Rome? Harboring such advanced metallurgical secrets carries a risk of drawing the attention of Consul Valerian’s inquisition."

After a prolonged silence, Aulus answered grimly, "He remains loyal simply because he is a high-born Roman Patrician, and the undisputed Lord of Noricum."

"A Patrician Lord?" Lucius was genuinely startled. "A Roman noble is hoarding industrial secrets?"

"Yes. His late father, the previous regional governor, bequeathed the senatorial title and the vast iron estates to him, bypassing the appointments of the Senate. Due to his immense wealth, Flavius can easily bribe the imperial auditors to conceal his advanced forges. Thus, he leads an incredibly lavish lifestyle," Aulus explained slowly. "And, truth be told, he was the one who secretly contacted my network first. During the purges in Italy, he helped us smuggle several defecting Alexandrian engineers out of the southern provinces."

Lucius frowned heavily. "Wait a moment... He didn’t smuggle those engineers to offer them sanctuary, did he?"

"No." Aulus shook his head. "Not only did he refuse to grant them asylum, but he also demanded that my operatives remove those engineers from his province before dawn, strictly to ensure they weren’t discovered by the Senate’s spies. Prefect Flavius clearly values his ancestral title far more than the lives of fellow innovators."

His position would undoubtedly be stripped, and his bloodline executed, if Consul Valerian discovered he was harboring Syndicate sympathizers...

Unlike the war-torn borders of Gaul, Noricum was entrenched in the Roman heartland, monitored by Praetorian garrisons.

Lucius understood the man’s ruthless political calculus, but he was still disgusted.

"If an engineer is discovered in his territory by the local plebeians, will he..."

"I asked my spies that exact same question," Aulus said with a trace of disgust. "Flavius bluntly stated that if an innovator is caught by the local town watch, he will bribe the guards, swap the engineer with a condemned slave, and deport them to our borders. But if an engineer is caught by Valerian’s Praetorians... Flavius will simply stand by and watch them be crucified."

Lucius scowled and asked his Chief Auditor, "If I formally invite him to Lugdunum for an industrial summit, will he attend?"

"I would not wager any silver on that, but you are free to attempt it," Aulus threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I am merely providing the location of the permanent magnets you require."

Lucius let out a long sigh and rubbed his temples. "I will dispatch a specialized infiltration team to negotiate with him first."

Without a shadow of a doubt, he would deploy Isolda as the primary envoy.

Given her ability to bypass heavy Roman security unseen, and her expertise in interrogating hostile nobles, she was perfect for the task.

As long as she convinced Flavius that the Syndicate only wanted his magnetic ore and harbored no immediate desire to usurp his title, the paranoid Prefect would likely avoid a violent overreaction.

It generally took two weeks for an infantry column to march from Lugdunum to the borders of Noricum, but that mountainous journey would only cost Silas and Isolda three days of hard riding.

They could also bring Camilla, who possessed blinding speed, as a lethal bodyguard.

Those three operatives formed the absolute deadliest, most highly mobile strike team within the *Umbrae*.

Now fully equipped with rifled, breech-loading percussion pistols, they could easily assassinate an entire Praetorian garrison if negotiations collapsed.

After pondering the lethal logistics for several minutes, Lucius finalized his decision.

Assuming the arrogant Roman Patrician flatly refused to trade the lodestone, it was still merely a matter of time before Lucius needed to physically inspect the defenses of Noricum.

As the primary eastern gateway into the Italian peninsula, the iron-rich province was already heavily targeted in his impending spring invasion plans.

"I heard the young prodigy in the laboratory finally managed to chain the electrical lightning?"

Valeria’s voice suddenly drifted into the study.

She stepped through the doors, gracefully switching the tactical topic.

Aulus respectfully bowed his head and quickly excused himself from the room.

"Ah, you mean Gaia. Yes, she stabilized the chemical voltage," Lucius nodded. He detailed the complex, reversible sulfuric reactions of the new lead-acid accumulator.

"To forge a world of factories, we still require a rotational magnetic dynamo..."

"But her chemical battery is still a stepping stone," Valeria noted with interest. "And there is a specific point I find fascinating in the textbooks you wrote. What exactly did you mean when you wrote, *’Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is merely a lifeless transformation of state’*?"

"That is the Law of Thermodynamics," Lucius replied, picking up his goblet to take a sip of watered wine. "I assume that human labor, chemical combustion, and electrical voltage are all just different tangible expressions of the exact same force. As our industrial machines become more complex, they simply convert that raw force more efficiently. This explains why the Roman reliance on sheer muscle and slavery is obsolete. A single steam engine possesses the exact same potential as ten thousand men, stripping the ’divine right’ of the Senate to rule."

"That sounds incredibly logical," Valeria replied. "But according to your theories, if a man understands the state of the universe, he can build machines to replicate any natural phenomenon, correct?"

"Yes, precisely. Under the strict condition that his tools are precise enough."

"Lucius... are you... from a civilization that does not belong to this world?" Valeria suddenly asked, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper.

*Poof...*

A mist of watered wine sprayed from Lucius’s mouth across the desk.

He choked, hacking violently as he wiped his chin, his heart hammering against his ribs in panic.

"What... what did you just ask me?"

"I have read every single manuscript you have drafted over the past year, and I always felt an unsettling contradiction in your prose." Valeria did not blink, "I finally identified the exact anomaly after hearing you speak just now. Absolutely no Greek philosopher, Roman scholar, or Gallic druid writes like that. You use bizarre terminology and you treat them as if they are everyday words."

Lucius was stunned into silence.

He suddenly realized that he had forgotten that Valeria lived in a superstitious world where the gods were believed to manipulate the rain and the forge.

Could he blame this slip-up on a sudden influx of divine visions?

That excuse would absolutely not work on a woman as intelligent as his wife.

It was barely acceptable for him to claim he invented the steam engine through pure genius, but how in the gods’ names was he going to explain that he firmly believed in ’Megapascals’ and subconsciously separated the laws of physics from the divine will?

Was it even possible to convince her that he was still simply Lucius Cassius, the son of Rome?

Lucius swallowed hard, sweat breaking out across his neck.