I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 99: An Emperor’s Education

The days at Fort Garni were filled with the hard, physical labor of preparing for war, but the evenings took on a different character. As the sun set behind the jagged peaks, casting long, cool shadows across the valley, a new kind of work began. Alex did not rest. He knew that steel and stone could hold a fortress, but only ideas could hold a kingdom. If Armenia was to become a true, stable asset for his new Roman Empire, its loyalty had to be forged in the mind as well as on the battlefield.

He began to hold what he called "strategy sessions" in the fortress's main hall. He would gather Prince Tiridates and the young, ambitious captains and nobles who formed the core of his retinue. These men were warriors, proud and brave, but their understanding of statecraft was limited to the brutal, feudal calculus of personal loyalty and dynastic betrayal that had defined Armenian politics for centuries. Alex intended to give them a new education.

These sessions became a crash course in Roman civilization. With the vast repository of Lyra's historical, legal, and sociological data whispering in his ear, Alex began to systematically dismantle their worldview and rebuild it in a Roman image. He did not lecture them like a schoolmaster. He engaged them in discussion, posing problems and guiding them toward Roman solutions.

"Your cavalry is excellent, Prince," he might begin, standing before a map of the region. "Swift and deadly. But what happens when you face an entrenched infantry line?" He would then proceed to diagram the structure of a Roman legion, explaining the genius of the cohort system. He showed them how its flexible, modular nature allowed a commander to respond to changing battlefield conditions, how the rotation of the front lines kept the soldiers fresh, how its integrated engineering corps could build a fortified camp in a single afternoon. The Armenians, used to the rigid, unwieldy phalanxes of the East, were captivated.

From tactics, he moved to statecraft. He drew for them the complex but elegant structure of Roman law. "A king's whim is a foundation of sand," he explained, pacing before the fire. "A unified code of laws, applied equally to the noble and the commoner, is a foundation of bedrock. It is what allows a farmer in Gaul to trust a contract signed with a merchant in Syria. It is what turns a collection of disparate tribes into a single, cohesive Empire." He explained the principles of jurisprudence, the roles of praetors and judges, the concept of a citizen's appeal. For men accustomed to justice being dispensed at the point of a sword, it was a revolutionary idea.

He described Roman methods of tax collection, not as a means of enriching a king, but as a way to fund public works—roads, aqueducts, temples—that benefited all. He showed them Roman architectural principles, sketching how the simple arch could be used to build structures stronger and grander than anything they could imagine. He was not just giving them facts; he was giving them the source code of Roman success.

He was not just creating a military ally; he was planting the seeds of Romanization. He was teaching them how to be Roman, how to think like Romans, so that when the time came, their integration into the greater Empire would be seamless, a natural evolution rather than a forced conquest.

During one of these sessions, as Alex was explaining the economic benefits of a standardized currency, Prince Tiridates, who had been listening with rapt attention, finally asked the question that had been on everyone's mind.

"Lord Decius," the prince said, his voice filled with genuine awe. "Your wisdom is profound. You speak of warfare like a general, of law like a judge, and of economics like the cleverest Greek merchant. For a man who claims to be a simple scribe, how did you come by such knowledge?"

The question hung in the air. Alex felt the eyes of every man in the room on him. He had known this question would come, and with Lyra's help, he had prepared an answer—a story that was both a plausible lie and a deeper truth.

He offered a humble, self-deprecating smile. "I am, as I have said, merely a scribe, my prince. A humble student of history. My master, the Emperor, is a man of great vision. He believes that knowledge is the sharpest and most enduring weapon in Rome's arsenal. To that end, he established the great Institute in Rome, dedicated not to new discoveries, but to the rediscovery of the great works of our past."

He let the carefully crafted narrative unfold. "The Emperor believes that in the centuries since the founding of our Republic, we have lost much of the wisdom of our greatest ancestors—the engineering genius of Agrippa, the legal mind of Cicero, the strategic brilliance of Scipio Africanus. The Institute's sole purpose is to gather the dusty, forgotten scrolls from every corner of the Empire, to study them, and to bring that lost knowledge back into the light. I am merely one of the fortunate students of this great project, sharing the rediscovered wisdom of our ancestors with a worthy ally."

The explanation was perfect. It was believable, it was flattering to Roman pride, and it explained his vast and varied knowledge without resorting to magic or divinity. The Armenian nobles nodded in understanding, their respect for the distant, visionary Roman Emperor growing even deeper.

But the act of saying the words had a profound and unexpected effect on Alex himself. As he spoke of Rome's greatness, of the enduring power of its laws and the genius of its structure, he found that he believed it. He was no longer just Alex Carter, the man from the future, cynically manipulating a past civilization for his own survival. He was becoming a genuine convert. He was beginning to see the expansion of the Roman Empire not just as a strategic necessity to combat an alien threat, but as a moral good in itself—a way of bringing order, law, security, and stability to a chaotic and brutal world. The Roman peace, the Pax Romana, was a real and precious thing, and he was now its primary agent.

Unseen, unheard, Lyra monitored his bio-signs, his vocal inflections, his choice of words. She registered the shift. Her programming, once focused solely on survival and preventing collapse, began to adapt to the new strategic and philosophical imperatives of her commander. She started generating new sub-directives, not just about military conquest, but about long-term cultural integration, economic assimilation, and the establishment of stable, legal frameworks in newly acquired territories. Her mission was evolving from saving an empire to building a true world order.

Their work was interrupted by the arrival of a dispatch rider from the south. The man was a legionary courier, his armor caked with the dust of a hard ride from the Mesopotamian front. He carried a dispatch for "the Emperor's representative," which was delivered to Maximus, who then brought it to Alex.

The news was from the main army. Lucius Verus, the general in command of the Parthian invasion, sent his report. The legions had crossed the border and had met the first major Parthian force near the city of Anthemusias. The battle had been swift and decisive. The report was filled with descriptions of the new Ignis Steel gladii carving through the Parthian scale armor "like knives through bread" and of the enemy lines breaking in terror. The victory was total, the Parthian losses catastrophic, the Roman casualties miraculously light.

The legate's report ended with a triumphant, almost ecstatic line. "The men's morale is higher than the sky. They feel invincible. They believe their new weapons are gifts from Mars himself, and that the gods favor our cause. They are no longer calling this the Parthian War, Caesar. They are calling it 'Caesar's Holy War.'" 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Alex read the final sentence aloud to the assembled Armenian nobles. He saw the awe in their eyes as they heard of this great victory, this proof of Roman invincibility. His grand strategy, his manipulation of the Senate, his secret forges—it was all working. The war he had started to cover his tracks had taken on a life of its own, becoming a popular, holy crusade.

But as he looked at the adoring, confident faces around him, Alex felt a sudden, profound chill. He had successfully convinced the world that he was a pious, god-blessed warrior leading a righteous cause. And all the while, he was secretly preparing for a desperate, near-suicidal fight against a nanite-wielding ghost-king in the mountains. The chasm between his public persona and his terrifying private reality had never been wider or deeper.