Chapter 123: Glorious Achievement

Lucius finally rolled the scroll closed, letting out a long sigh.

He could have never genuinely imagined Valeria possessing such profound, devastating literary talent.

Make no mistake, the themes of arranged marriages, familial poisonings, and aristocratic oppression were well-known tragedies within the Roman elite.

However, it was truly remarkable how seamlessly she wove those historical realities into a deeply personal, cohesive narrative.

Her prose made the horror of the Roman Senate immensely impactful without ever feeling melodramatic, abrupt, or historically inconsistent.

Although Lucius was intimately familiar with the extreme violence and suffering detailed in the memoir, he still felt a profound weight in his chest after reading her words.

The text detailed how a patrician daughter felt when her freedom was violently stripped away.. her absolute hopelessness, her despair, and finally, the end of her suffering through the liberation of the Syndicate.

It documented exactly how her mind was broken and rebuilt, allowing her to stand on her own two feet as a free woman.

If Lucius had not already witnessed thousands of men being blown to pieces by chemical artillery, he was certain he would be shedding a few tears for his wife right about now.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Lucius’s soul had been too scarred by the fires of industry for basic human tragedies to break his emotional composure anymore.

On the contrary, he simply felt an abiding pity for Valeria, as he knew she must have relived an immense amount of personal agony to write this manuscript...

"Thank you for your courage," Lucius whispered in a light voice. Valeria was sleeping soundly next to him, and he gently stroked her hair.

Valeria seemed to feel the protective kindness radiating from Lucius, and a soft smile touched her lips.

Lucius finally set the scroll on the nightstand, leaned down to kiss her forehead, and left the room.

The warm smile lingered on Valeria’s face as she continued to sleep peacefully.

Leaving the warmth of the residential quarters, Lucius walked down the corridor, entered his primary administrative office, and sat at his desk to inspect the pile of logistics documents that had accumulated during his absence.

He went through the reports one by one, stamping the wax seals and signing his name if he approved of the infrastructure budgets.

If he found a flaw, he drafted a paragraph detailing exactly what needed to be corrected and threw the document into the rejection pile.

"Oh," he murmured aloud in surprise.

During this tedious bureaucratic process, he suddenly came across a fascinating medical document.

It was Tullia’s detailed clinical report regarding the successful upper-bicep amputation and subsequent blood transfusion at the Alpine field hospital in Genava.

Reading the risky surgical parameters and the successful post-operative results, Lucius was impressed and satisfied with Tullia’s ruthless pragmatism and her ability to execute highly theoretical solutions on the fly in a high-pressure combat environment.

Lucius immediately drafted an executive order dispatching the document to the *Lex Medica* academies.

He commanded the senior physicians to meticulously verify the blood-transfusion methodology on dying, terminal patients with their explicit consent.

Once verified, he ordered the procedure permanently added to the academy library as a foundational textbook, mandating that all future combat medics undergo clinical training for this exact procedure.

Lucius was just about to complete his nightly administrative rotation when suddenly...

*Knock. Knock.*

Am urgent rapping on the door echoed through the office.

"Enter," Lucius commanded.

The door swung open, and Isolda stepped inside.

Lucius immediately felt a spike of anxiety in his chest.

Unfortunately, his tactical worry immediately came true.

Isolda handed him a encrypted *Oculus* dispatch. Lucius broke the seal and scanned the vellum.

The report detailed the forceful conscription of hundreds of thousands of plebeian boys across the entirety of the Roman Empire, with the patrician warlords actively operating as independent military states to build private armies.

Lucius was genuinely taken aback.

He became deeply tense and nervous, his jaw clenching as he realized the situation in Italy was accelerating far beyond his initial projections, but he continued to read on.

The intelligence report also documented the terrifying atmosphere paralyzing every major Roman city and rural latifundia, detailing multiple desperate plebeian bread riots that were being slaughtered by Praetorian steel.

Lucius let out a sigh, leaning back into his chair with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

From this single espionage report, Lucius could already clearly see that the Roman Empire had officially stepped onto the path of self-destruction.

There was absolutely no way to turn back the civic damage the patricians were inflicting upon their own people.

In fact, even if the Syndicate did nothing, in its current fractured condition, the Roman Senate would inevitably collapse into a bloody civil war within a few years, disintegrating from within.

Unfortunately, because Lucius was the existential threat causing this panic, the dying Roman Empire was preparing to drag the Syndicate into the abyss alongside it.

"It looks like Commander Valerius will be facing significantly more than the initial projection of one hundred and fifty thousand legionaries," Lucius muttered to himself, his face turning dull, fully expecting the deaths of millions of people.

However, his nervous expression did not last long.

He immediately slammed his fist on the desk and ordered the guards to summon Aulus, his Chief Auditor.

"Aulus, send my order: starting today, all engineering and administrative students within the Academy of the Forge will undergo compulsory military training for a minimum of six hours a day. Academic courses will be minimized to core battlefield subjects like ballistics and applied physics. Train these young men as artillery officers; ensure they possess the knowledge to manage infantry squads."

Aulus, despite being ripped from his bed, understood the seriousness of the matter.

Because the Forge Master was mobilizing even the military strength of the Academy students it proved the existential threat facing the Syndicate.

Consequently, Aulus did not speak a single word of protest or interruption.

He simply gripped his stylus and diligently recorded the dictatorial commands.

"Furthermore, the local Gallic militia units in every single province must increase their combat readiness. I mandate a minimum of thirty hours of intense training per week. Under the direct supervision of veteran *Custodes*, they will begin live-fire practice with the repeating arbalests and chemical firearms," Lucius stated.

That was not all.

Lucius was preparing to arm hundreds of thousands of conscripts, and he needed the industrial throughput to match.

"Finally, clean up the banks of the minor Gallic tributaries and irrigation canals. Prepare to construct hundreds of new iron smelting and weapons manufacturing foundries along those waterways," Lucius commanded.

Aulus paused.

He was certain the gentle water current in the minor agricultural tributaries possessed nowhere near enough force to turn industrial water wheels.

But since the Forge Master commanded it with such certainty, Aulus kept quiet...

Lucius naturally knew the stagnant agricultural canals lacked the hydraulic pressure to turn iron wheels, but he already possessed the solution.

He would simply install steam boilers in the new factories, bypassing the need for rushing water.

So, the worry was not necessary...

These dictatorial orders, issued without a single moment of council discussion, were transmitted through the Syndicate over the following week, leaving the entire Gallic sphere shocked.

...

"The Forge Master suddenly ordered such things. What do you think happened in Italy?"

"I don’t know. It must be something deeply serious, or else why would the sovereign react with such terrifying force?"

"I guess things are getting very serious, and we are heading into the final stages of the war far sooner than anyone could have imagined."

Such panicked discussions were prevalent throughout the bureaucratic circles.

As for the young Gallic students, the majority were thrilled.

Serving as an artillery officer in the Forge Master’s mechanized army was considered the glorious achievement in this new era.

Naturally, there were a few dissenting scholars who deeply opposed the draft and wished to avoid the bloodshed.

Unfortunately, their opinions simply did not matter...

At this critical juncture, where either the Syndicate or the Roman Empire would survive to claim Europe, the pacifist thoughts and opinions of sixteen-year-old boys did not matter.

The illusion of democracy was directly thrown out the window in this situation, and Lucius formally assumed totalitarian command of the Syndicate.

Directives were no longer debated by civilian ministers; they were passed by Lucius himself.

Not a single minister dared to question the draft, aware that Lucius would only trigger total war if the Roman threat was truly existential.

Aulus and the military logistics department rounded up civilian laborers and began the construction of hundreds of new factories.

This time, all the factories were incredibly small, designed to mass-produce only a single weapon part before shipping it to a central assembly hub.

At the terrifying speed at which the industrial progress was moving, the mass construction would be fully operational within two months...

Once completed, the Syndicate’s military-industrial capacity would explode once more, providing the backbone and confidence necessary to annihilate the Roman legions!