I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 180: The Doctor and the Engineer

Celer’s main workshop at Vulcania was the thundering, chaotic heart of the new Roman war machine. It was a place of roaring forges, hissing steam, and the ceaseless, rhythmic clang of a thousand hammers. It was a world of fire, iron, and brute force, a place where raw elements were violently reshaped by the will of man. It was the absolute antithesis of the quiet, clean, and orderly world of Galen’s hospital.

The great physician entered the workshop, and the sudden assault on his senses made him flinch. The air was thick with noxious fumes that stung his eyes and coated the back of his throat. The noise was a physical blow, a deafening symphony of industrial violence. He looked out of place, a scholar in a simple linen tunic amidst a world of sweat-soaked, leather-clad smiths and laborers. But he was not here as a sightseer. He was a man with a purpose, a warrior from a different front, seeking a new kind of weapon.

He found Celer near the main forge, the Master Engineer shouting orders, his face illuminated by the hellish orange glow of molten steel. Galen waited patiently for the man to finish before approaching.

"Master Engineer," Galen began, his voice calm but firm, a quiet island in the sea of noise. "I require your assistance. I, too, am fighting a war. My enemy is not a barbarian with an axe. It is a foe I cannot see, a silent killer that lives in the very air and on the surfaces of things. I am fighting a war against infection."

Celer, who had been about to dismiss the interruption, paused. His mind, accustomed to the grand, visible problems of bridges and ballistae, was intrigued by this talk of an invisible enemy. He wiped a grimy hand on his leather apron and gave Galen his full attention.

"I have made progress," Galen explained, leading Celer away from the deafening noise of the main forge to a slightly quieter corner where men were assembling crossbow stocks. "I have learned through observation that cleaning wounds with wine, or better yet, water that has been boiled, drastically improves a man’s chance of survival. I have learned that clean hands and clean bandages can mean the difference between life and death. But it is not enough. The sickness, this invisible ’miasma’ as I call it, still claims too many of my patients, especially those with the deep, terrible burns from your forges, or the crushing injuries from the mines."

He held up his own hands, the hands of a surgeon. "I have observed that some of my own tools seem to hold the sickness more than others. I can clean them, boil them, scrub them until they shine, and still, a wound cut by one tool will fester while a wound cut by another will heal cleanly. I am grappling with a ghost, Celer, a ghost I cannot see but whose deadly work is all around me."

He was, without knowing it, describing the principles of bacteriology, struggling to give form and name to the world of germs, a world that would remain undiscovered for another seventeen centuries.

Celer, a man of pure, simple practicality, was fascinated. He was a man who understood materials. He left his workshop, his curiosity piqued, and followed Galen across the city to the quiet, clean sanctuary of the hospital. He listened intently as Galen explained his methods, showing him the great vats where linen bandages were boiled, the basins of carbolic soap and vinegar where the medics scrubbed their hands. He saw it not as a medical problem, but as an engineering one: a problem of purity, contamination, and material science.

Their collaboration, born in that moment, was a perfect, unexpected synergy of two brilliant minds, far from the direct command or even the knowledge of the Emperor. It was a spontaneous eruption of the very innovation Alex had hoped to foster.

"Show me your tools," Celer demanded.

Galen laid out his surgical instruments on a clean linen cloth. They were the finest a physician could own: delicate bronze scalpels, iron forceps, silver probes.

"It is the iron," Galen mused, pointing to a set of heavy forceps used for extracting shrapnel. "The wounds I treat with these seem to fester the most. But my finest bronze scalpels... they seem cleaner."

Celer picked up an iron forceps and ran his calloused thumb over its surface. He then held it up to the light, his engineer’s eye scrutinizing the metal. "Of course," he grunted, a look of sudden understanding on his face. "Look." He pointed to the surface of the iron. "It is pitted. Porous. To you, it looks smooth. To me, I see a thousand tiny valleys and caves where your invisible miasma can hide, safe from your boiling water. Your bronze is smoother, yes. A harder, denser alloy. But we can do better."

He thought for a moment, his mind connecting Galen’s problem with his own recent triumphs in metallurgy. "The steel," he whispered, his eyes widening. "The new steel we are making in the coke forges. It is the purest, hardest, smoothest metal I have ever worked with."

Their collaboration led to two revolutionary, world-changing inventions.

The first was simple. The next day, Celer’s finest master smith, working under his direct supervision, forged a new set of surgical tools for Galen. They were not made of bronze or common iron, but of the finest, high-carbon Vulcanian steel. They were shaped to Galen’s exact specifications, but then they were polished for hours with fine abrasives until their surfaces were like mirrors. When Galen held the new steel scalpel in his hand, its weight, its balance, its perfect, flawless edge, he knew he was holding a masterpiece. They had, unknowingly, just invented surgical steel.

The second invention was even more profound. Celer was not satisfied. Polished steel was better, but his engineer’s mind sought absolute purity. Boiling was good, he reasoned, but what if they used a force more powerful than water?

"Steam," he declared to Galen a few days later, his eyes alight with a new idea. "When you boil water, it turns to a spirit, a vapor. This vapor is much hotter than the water itself. What if we could capture this spirit, this steam, and use it to cleanse your tools?"

He took Galen to a small workshop where one of his apprentices was brazing bronze pipes. He began to sketch in charcoal on the floor. He drew a small, thick-walled bronze vessel with a heavy, clamp-down lid. A small amount of water would be placed inside. The vessel would be sealed and heated over a charcoal brazier. As the water boiled, the steam would be trapped, its pressure building, its temperature rising far beyond that of simple boiling water. A small valve would allow the pressurized, superheated steam to be released.

"This will be a far more potent killer of your miasma than any bath of hot water," Celer explained, his hands shaping the imaginary device in the air.

Galen stared at the drawing, his medical mind racing. He understood the principle instantly. A level of heat that would kill any living thing, delivered with a force that could penetrate every crack and crevice. It was purification by the very spirit of water and fire. They had just, without knowing it, without a name for it, invented the autoclave.

Alex, on a later visit to the hospital to check on the progress of Galen’s work, saw the new, gleaming steel tools laid out on a tray, and the strange, sealed bronze pot sitting on a brazier in the corner. He listened with a sense of profound awe as Galen and Celer, talking over each other in their shared excitement, explained their new collaborative inventions.

He realized in that moment that his revolution was no longer just about him, the man from the future, downloading knowledge into the past. It had taken on a life of its own. He had created a unique environment, a crucible of crisis and opportunity, where the most brilliant minds of this era were colliding, observing, experimenting, and creating innovations that even he had not anticipated.

The scientific method—observation, hypothesis, experimentation, peer review—was being born in the smoke and fire of his war camp. And he knew, with a certainty that thrilled him to his core, that this new way of thinking was a far more valuable, a far more powerful and enduring weapon than any repeating crossbow he could ever build.