In my dream, I was sitting at a bar talking with someone.
"So, you're really going to drop the lawsuit?"
"I don't have a choice anymore. I've done everything I can, so I'm done with it. The company said they'd give me a settlement, anyway."
We were drinking whiskey at our usual bar.
As soft jazz played in the background, my friend let out a heavy sigh.
My old high school buddy was one of the top engineers in his field.
He worked at an R&D lab for a massive conglomerate—a company anyone would recognize by name.
But for the past few months, he'd worn the same bleak expression.
"Didn't you say the company made tens of millions of dollars off your patent? And they're trying to brush you off with just a few tens of thousands?"
"What else can I do? If it gets kicked up to arbitration, I might not even get that chump change. Better to take what I can get while it's on the table."
He swirled his whiskey in silence.
"...Giving you a measly pittance for something you invented for the company and then scrubbing your name from the patent application? Even back-alley muggers have more honor than that."
"They agreed to put my name back on the list of co-inventors. I guess I should just be grateful for that."
He sighed again, then let out a hollow chuckle.
"Don't ever pledge loyalty to a company, man. Guys like us are just cogs in the machine. The people at the top reap the rewards, and the rest of us work ourselves to death."
"Don't worry, I'm planning on quitting soon anyway."
We drank late into the night, commiserating about how miserable our lives were.
"That's just how life is. No matter how hard you try, nothing ever really changes," he slurred. "The most important thing is family. Don't become a workaholic and lose the people who matter."
"Hate to break it to you, but I don't have a family to lose in the first place."
Back then, that was true. I had no family to protect.
***
"Bro... ther...?"
The bitter, smoky taste of whiskey still lingered on my tongue.
God, I'd kill for a taste of it right now.
If I could see him again, I'd probably just laugh and tell him how absurd my life had become.
"Brother?"
I opened my eyes to see Julia standing in front of me, looking down at me, dressed in a light tunic.
"Sorry, Julia. The sunlight was so warm I must have dozed off. Where's mother?"
"She's over there talking with that man named Vitruvius."
I rubbed my face and pushed myself up from the grassy hill.
The tower was already beginning to take shape. Under the watchful eyes of the engineers, laborers were drenched in sweat as they hauled massive stones.
They had laid the foundation using gravel and Roman concrete, paved it with stone blocks, and were now erecting thick wooden pillars on top.
The actual semaphore communication apparatus hadn't been installed yet, but the parts had already arrived and were just waiting to be assembled.
Just as Julia had said, my mother was deep in conversation with Vitruvius, who was busy supervising the construction site.
"Why is everyone wearing helmets?" Julia asked, clasping her hands behind her back. "Did you order them to do that?"
"Something like that. The workers have been complaining about it non-stop, but..."
I trailed off, gazing out over the site.
From slaves to free citizens, every single laborer was wearing a helmet.
I had managed to acquire a bulk shipment of discarded legionary helmets for practically nothing. Naturally, the concept of "workplace safety regulations" didn't exist yet.
Truth be told, legionary helmets were rigid and didn't absorb blows particularly well.
But it was far safer than wearing nothing at all.
"If an accident happens, they'll thank the gods they were wearing them."
The two of us stood side by side, watching the Ostia Tower rise before us.
After seeing how much support we'd received from the citizens of Ostia, I decided to name them the Ostia Towers.
Simultaneously, each individual tower along the route would bear the name of the politician who sponsored it.
"Mother told me that the tower will send signals by moving its arms," Julia said, pointing up toward the top of the structure.
"But what is that thing?"
Mounted at the top was a large, dark hemispherical fixture. It looked a bit like a brazier used in religious ceremonies.
"At night, we'll use that to send signals."
"With the brazier?"
I nodded.
The French optical telegraph was incredibly fast, but it had a limitation.
It was practically useless at night because it relied on signals being seen through a telescope.
But that didn't mean there wasn't a workaround.
"See that mechanism attached to the brazier? By working that mechanism, we can block the light from the fire and then reveal it again."
"That's fascinating," Julia murmured, squinting as if trying to get a better look. "But how do you send a message just by doing that?"
"By standardizing the signals. You uncover the light briefly, then for longer intervals, in set patterns."
I couldn't take credit for the idea, of course.
It was the Morse code system, invented by an American inventor in the nineteenth century.
Using just two states—light on and light off—you could transmit any alphabet or number.
It was an incredibly simple yet a highly effective signaling system. Navies were still using it well into the twenty-first century.
"You always come up with the most amazing things, brother. These days, every guest who visits the house talks about you. It makes mother very happy."
Julia plopped down onto the grass, her eyes still fixed on the tower.
"But I think I miss the old days. You never have time to play with me anymore."
"I miss the old days too, Julia."
I smiled and sat down beside her.
My parents weren't the only ones I gained when I reincarnated into this world. My little sister, Julia, was precious to me too.
Most people—our parents included—thought of her as just a sweet, obedient girl.
But when push came to shove, Julia was remarkably bold and blunt.
That made me wonder: was this Julia the same one from the history books?
The Julii Caesares followed a rigid naming custom where every single daughter was named Julia.
As a result, my sister wasn't the only Julia in the family; most of my aunts shared the name too.
In the original timeline, Caesar's daughter, Julia, married Pompey and tragically died in childbirth. Her death shattered the alliance between Caesar and Pompey, triggering a devastating civil war.
But things were different now.
If Pompeia and I got married, there would be no political reason at all to marry Julia off to Pompey.
So, what would become of her fate?
"I heard you're going to marry Pompeia," Julia said.
"It's not set in stone just yet, but... yeah, pretty much. I can't run away from marriage forever."
"Maybe I'll be an aunt soon," she added with a bright smile.
"..."
I looked at her, feeling the cool breeze brush against my face.
Maybe it wasn't marriage itself that I was afraid of.
Starting a new family meant change.
Being born as the son of Julius Caesar had allowed me to grow up in an incredibly happy household.
I had a father who was cheerful... a mother who was calm but affectionate... and a little sister who always looked out for others.
Perhaps the goddess who reincarnated me was right. The Caesar family was everything I had ever wanted in my previous life.
But once I got married, this peaceful everyday life would inevitably change. I'll move out and establish my own household.
"I think Pompeia is a wonderful person. And you're a good person too, brother."
"But being a good person doesn't necessarily mean love."
"I think love is something that can grow over time," Julia insisted. "I hated moray eel at first, but the more I ate it, the more I liked it."
"Well, marriage is a little different from moray eel. We aren't forced to eat eel for every meal for the rest of our lives, are we?"
I chuckled, standing up and pointing toward the construction site.
"Come on, let's go. If we don't go rescue Vitruvius from mother, he's not going to get any work done today."
As a flock of white clouds drifted across the sky, the tower's silhouette gradually emerged against the sky.
The first Ostia Tower was nearly complete.
***
While the tower was under heavy construction, another group was in trouble: the publicani, Rome's moneyed class.
After Lucius Caesar made the manufacturing method for Palmolive public, countless merchants had jumped into the business.
With Caesar's assistance, they had even built watermills to power their operations.
However, crushed by brutal price competition, many had gone bankrupt or were bought out by Caesar.
A few had barely managed to survive, but they quickly ran into a massive problem.
"This is absurd! How can it be more expensive for us to build the watermills ourselves?!"
Caesar was the original inventor of the watermill. His engineers took commissions to build countless mills and handled maintenance and repairs upon request.
But for most of the publicani, outsourcing this work was only supposed to be a temporary measure.
"The watermill's design isn't some closely guarded secret. Can't we just have our own engineers take it apart and replicate it?"
They attempted to perfectly replicate the watermills already installed in their factories, but it turned out very differently than they expected.
Building a replica from scratch cost significantly more than simply hiring Caesar's engineers to do it.
And the explanation was brutally simple.
"All the truly capable engineers are currently working for Caesar. Many of them have joined his technical school."
"What does that have to do with building a damn watermill?!"
"Sir, perfectly replicating a machine isn't as easy as it looks. Analyzing the structure, sourcing the right materials, custom-forging the components... it requires a large team of highly skilled technicians."
"Even so! How can doing it in-house be more expensive than commissioning Caesar? It makes no sense."
"It's actually cheaper to just buy the individual components from Caesar's than to forge them ourselves. And honestly? It's even cheaper to just hire them to build the whole thing rather than buying the parts piecemeal."
There was another reason for it too, and it came down to a single order Caesar had given.
***
"You're saying it's become difficult to hire engineers in Rome?" I asked.
"Is that really so surprising? You've practically monopolized hundreds of them, Young Master," Felix replied with a heavy sigh.
The meeting room was littered with maps and papyrus scrolls—the chaotic aftermath of Pompey's brainstorming session.
I knew Pompey was the right man for the job, but I hadn't expected him to be this passionate about it.
Thanks to him, Felix looked even more exhausted than usual.
"Between installing, maintaining, and repairing the watermills, we're now handling the streetlights and the construction of the Ostia Towers," Felix pointed out.
"It would've been impossible if we hadn't proactively recruited so many engineers," I nodded in agreement.
Whenever I thought about it, it truly was amazing.
There was no shortage of brilliant engineers in Rome right now.
These were the men who marched alongside the legions, raising forts, siege engines, and colossal works of architecture on the fly.
They took my modern technological concepts and turned them into reality at an astonishing pace.
"And this 'standardization' concept you introduced... it has proven far more efficient than expected," Felix said, clearing his throat. "I'll admit, I initially thought it was a complete waste of money."
"In business, scale is everything, Felix," I replied with a grin.
It was simple: the more we made, the cheaper each unit became.
Even if something was expensive at first, the price plummeted the moment a mass-production system was established.
Henry Ford's Model T was the perfect example.
By introducing the conveyor belt and the division of labor to automobile manufacturing, Ford successfully mass-produced the Model T.
And naturally, I'd used the same approach to the production of Palmolive and our watermills.
You didn't necessarily need electricity to create a conveyor belt.
Watermills could transfer rotational power to other mechanisms using gears and axles, enabling highly efficient, continuous production lines.
For the watermills, we bought timber and iron in bulk, and mass-produced the most commonly used components using standardized dimensions.
Most people didn't realize it, but nothing improved productivity and quality more dramatically than standardization.
By standardizing screws, gears, and fittings, not only did mass production become possible, but assembly speed skyrocketed.
If you made every part to the same standard, they became perfectly interchangeable across multiple different products.
"But scale doesn't solve everything. If we want to invent new things, we need the brilliant minds to design them."
"You're referring to the streetlights. I heard a former legionary engineer designed them... I believe Vitruvius has already promoted him."
"A simple promotion isn't enough. Sure, generous bonuses were one way to reward them, but..."
I trailed off, lost in thought.
Come to think of it, I'd dreamt about something like this not long ago—a memory from my past life.
An old high school friend had been dragged into a patent dispute with his company.
He received next to nothing for an invention he created.
The corporation used every dirty legal trick in the book to avoid paying him his rightful dues.
Ironically, he ended up getting headhunted by a rival firm, where he developed an even more efficient technology, causing his original employer to suffer a massive market loss.
In their greed to save a few bucks, they had killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Fair compensation was critical.
Giving bonuses to exemplary laborers and engineers obviously boosted morale. We were already doing that.
But it was too basic.
If I wanted to secure the loyalty of Rome's best engineers, I needed a different approach.
A system that ensured they would only ever want to work with me.
"People are always weighing their own interests, Felix."
"What do you mean by that?"
"When it comes to their own self-interest, everyone weighs the odds very carefully."
Back in the twenty-first century, the brightest minds from India, China, and Europe flocked to Silicon Valley in the US.
Why? Because Silicon Valley was the one place where they could chase their dreams and turn their talent into wealth.
Anyone with true talent had a legitimate shot at becoming a millionaire.
So, why shouldn't I just replicate that model right here?
"We've already established a trademark law. What if we created something similar for technology?"
"You want to grant legal protection to inventions? Are you serious?" Felix furrowed his brow.
"Even if you somehow managed to draft such a law, Young Master, no Roman would ever follow it. And we have absolutely no means to enforce it."
"Exactly. And That's the whole point."
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table.
In this era, passing a trademark law was one thing, but patent law was virtually impossible.
Not only was the concept of "intellectual property rights for technology" too alien for them to accept, but enforcing it was completely unfeasible.
But that was the beauty of it.
"It's impossible for the Roman Republic. But that doesn't mean it's impossible for me."