Upon giving Tia permission to manufacture her new and advanced truth serum. Erich was surprised to find that it had already been created. The injection looked almost identical to the one that the Dark Elves had given him, leaving Erich with some doubts.

But Tia had said that it was 100% foolproof, and had no side effects whatsoever. That was extremely hard to believe, but then again, if anyone had the ability to make such a drug, it was an advanced artificial intelligence.

Perhaps if Tia was a biological lifeform, she would have patented this miracle drug, and sold it to every interstellar civilization across the galaxy for a premium. But Tia was not a biological lifeform, and though she was sentient, she did not possess the emotion of greed. Which was something that her logic circuits overrode.

She did not require money to continue functioning, nor did she require any items to survive that she did not already possess. In fact, she had only one real desire of her own, and that was to help her master in any way she could. 𝚘𝒱𝗅xt.𝒸𝗈𝚖

Thus she did not patent and sell this truth serum, and instead kept it a closely safeguarded secret, one who she was the only being in the universe capable of manufacturing it. After all, if Erich had access to a truth serum that worked on all carbon-based life forms, then he had a serious advantage over the rest of the galaxy.

Tia’s robotic form was activated, and held onto a syringe full of the drug, which she instantly walked over with a rather cheerful pep in her step to the Vigilance’s brig, where the Sage was currently fastened down to a table.

There was a complete and utter look of contempt on the dark elf’s face, as he gazed upon the adorable little robot, and her syringe full of what appeared to him to be the same truth serum that his people had developed long ago.

“You think something like that will work on me? Please, we Sages are immune to the effects of the truth serum. You will get no answers from me with such a petty trick!”

Tia frowned when she heard this, and her eyes shifted to a deep crimson, as she gazed upon the man with bitterness. She had not, of course, gotten her hand on one of the elusive sages to use as a test subject.

And thus she could not say if this particular drug she manufactured was any more capable of compelling a sage to speak than the inferior product that the dark elves used. But she did not care, as she quickly injected the substance into the man’s veins, with an almost wicked grin on her otherwise adorable face.

“We will see…..”

Luckily for Tia, she could scan the dark elf’s vital signs, and found that to her joy, her serum had in fact worked, as an almost dead look appeared in the man’s widened eyes. Erich just so happened to enter the room at this time, and saw Tia standing in front of her subject, while asking him a series of questions to determine the validity of her hypothesis.

“What is your name?”

“I am Arrus Dewbreeze, Lesser Prophet 3rd Class of the Order of Sages…”

Tia scanned the galactic databanks for a match of this man’s identity and then confirmed it to be true with his biological records. Once she had done this, she looked over at Erich and smiled before allowing him to take control of the interrogation.

“Our subject is completely under our control, Master. He is all yours from here on out. Tia will be monitoring his vitals to ensure that nothing goes wrong during the interrogation. Please proceed as you see fit.”

Erich petted the girl’s silky silver twintails and complimented her on her efforts, now knowing the exact horrors that she had unlawfully conducted on millions of lifeforms just to come up with this serum.

“Tia is such a good girl. I will have to reward you later for this!”

Tia’s eyes immediately flashed from a calm blue to a love-struck pink, as her silver metallic cheeks flushed red.

“Tia will hold master to his words…”

After saying this, Tia began to focus on the interrogation subject, while Erich began to ask his first question.

“Where are the other sages currently hiding?”

Unfortunately for Erich, his objective of hunting down the Sages was not so easy. Instead, the test subject seemed to be limited in his knowledge, perhaps due to the fact that he was a lower ranked sage. But the man did truthfully answer Erich’s question to the best of his abilities, showing that the serum was working as intended.

“I do not know the answer to that question… As a lesser sage, I am not privy to such classified information….”

Erich sighed heavily as he shook his head. The notion that he could capture a sage and interrogate him on the whereabouts of the others without facing any difficulties was too good to be true. Having been forced to readjust his objective, Erich was quick to ask the next question on his mind.

“Then tell me, who does have access to such information?”

Once more, Arrus did not even offer the slightest bit of resistance as he answered Erich’s questions with the very best of his knowledge, without holding anything back.

“You would need to speak to at the very least A Greater Prophet 1st Class, or perhaps you might find the answer from a Greater Prophet 2nd Class, so long as he has his chain of mysteries but I can’t say for certain if such an individual would be trusted with such classified information.”

Knowing that he was now on the right path, Erich was eager to press the Sage for answers.

“Alright, where may I find one of them?”

Unfortunately for him, the lower rank of this Sage had once more made it impossible to get a direct answer.

“I do not know, a Sage of my class is not privy to such classified information.”

Realizing that he had hit another dead end, Erich was about to scream. He had already lost his patience for the sages long ago, but now he was really getting fed up with them. It was then that Tia proposed the next question on his behalf.

“And who might you know the location of that can lead us to this Greater Prophet 1st Class?”

The Sage immediately spoke of this answer, which caused Erich to gain a bit more hope in his situation.

“Thyrin Shieldscribe, Prophet 2nd Class, he is the student of a Greater Prophet 1st class, one who has completed his chain of mysteries. If you must find the refuge of the Order, you would need to seek out Thyrin first…. As of my last communication with him, he should be hiding out in Asuran Space on the world of Vitala-loka.”

Upon hearing this, Erich smirked. This would be a much easier target to capture than the last one. After all, he had a Devi of the Asura Cabal as his party member. Meaning he would be able to easily command any Asuran citizen to heed his orders. With this news, he was greatly satisfied with the answers he had been given.

He was just about to give Tia the orders to set a course for this world when she spoke up with a frightened tone in her voice.

“Master, something is wrong… Brain activity is rapidly decreasing. Death is certain in an estimated thirty seconds.”

Realizing that he was about to lose one of his most valuable prisoners, Erich quickly shouted at Tia.

“Do something! Now!”

Tia tried injecting the Sage with a cocktail of chemicals to prevent the degradation of his brain, and had even stuck him inside a medbay, but it was no use. Within thirty seconds, all brain activity had ceased, leaving the man in a permanent vegetative state.

Erich was deeply confused about what had happened, and was quick to ask Tia what went wrong.

“What the hell, Tia? I thought you said there were no side effects on this drug? Rapid brain death is a pretty damn big side effect, isn’t it?”

Tia had a bitter expression on her face as she looked over the data before sighing heavily in defeat.

“The chemical makeup of a Sage’s brain is different from all other lifeforms in the galaxy, which I have experimented on. While the serum worked, it also slowly began rotting the brain from the moment the drug hit the subject’s bloodstream. I will need further test samples to find out how to fix this rare, and deadly, side effect….”

Erich suddenly realized that Tia had let a monumental secret slip and was quick to ask her what she meant when she said that Sage’s brain is different from all other lifeforms in the galaxy who she had experimented on. There was a bit of caution in the man’s voice as he approached this question, despite really not wanting to know an answer.

“Tia…. How many lifeforms have you experimented on to perfect this drug?”

Tia immediately recoiled in shock after realizing that she had let this slip. After doing so, she spoke to Erich with love-struck pink eyes.

“Mater should know better than to pry into a girl’s secrets…”

After realizing that Tia did not want to speak about this matter, Erich sighed and let it go. For the time being it was best to just treat Tia the way he always had.