"It was probably yesterday morning."
Shiller knit his brows, which means, when Aran came looking for him, he had already apprehended Rocket Raccoon and succeeded in extracting some secrets from him. This made Shiller doubt Aran's ostensibly casual visit to him.
Yesterday morning, Aran caught Rocket Raccoon and then tortured and interrogated him throughout the day, extracting several secrets from him.
Aran might plan to use these secrets, but he couldn't verify the veracity of the information obtained. So, he decided to use the intelligence network of the Holy Sanctuary to confirm whether the things whispered by the Raccoon were true or not.
When Aran came looking for Shiller, he claimed he was searching for the Supreme Magician but couldn't find him. From the current situation, Aran's target seemed to be Shiller instead.
Of course, Aran didn't know what Shiller was up to. He knew only that the Supreme Magician was not to be trifled with, whereas Shiller, who appeared erudite and gentle, seemed more affable.
He found Shiller and confirmed from him that the interstellar pirate, Yondu, was indeed hunting an animal. The Ravagers were a gang of ruthless villains who only sought profit. If they didn't have a significant mission, they wouldn't linger around Centaurus for such a long time.
The fact that Ravagers were hunting so aggressively suggests that the secret Rocket Raccoon exposes to them was indeed of great importance and was likely to be true.
"So, why were you chased by Yondu? What kind of secret are you carrying?" Shiller asked Rocket Raccoon, fixing his gaze on his eyes, posing the critical question.
Rocket Raccoon closed his eyes, releasing a sigh. He licked his lips and snorted, "Do you think I'm carrying some significant treasure, and that's why they are desperately chasing me?"
"Cut it out. I am not like those unprincipled and greedy Ravagers who value money more than life. There is nothing more important than life. If handing them the goods would save my life, I would have done it by now!"
Shiller frowned, looking at Rocket Raccoon, and said: "So, this secret...is it about you?"
The surprised Raccoon raised its head, Shiller gently shook his head, "It's not that difficult to guess. No one would go through the trouble of using genetic modification technology to create a mechanical raccoon unless for some extraordinary purposes."
"I am not a raccoon!" Rocket Raccoon wrinkled his nose, "But you're right. I am the secret."
Without waiting for Shiller's question, Rocket Raccoon showed a reminiscing expression and began to recount his life story.
"Due to the modifications, I can no longer recall my distant memories. The earliest memory I have is living in a hospital, an insane asylum located on the brink of the universe. They called it 'Half-World'."
"Initially, there were quite a few mentally ill patients there, and my owner was a little girl who had just been admitted. Her name was probably Angelil...or Angelina? I don't remember. Anyway, at that time, I was her pet."
"Back then, there were doctors in the hospital, and the mental patients were pretty normal. My owner suffered from an illusion disorder, a common mental illness in her race. After about two years of treatment, she was almost recovered and could be discharged anytime."
Rocket Raccoon displayed a sad expression, he said, in a deep tone: "I remember her holding me under a big tree in the yard, fantasising about life after discharge."
"But then, disaster struck one day."
"Doctors who had taken care of us started to evacuate, while more terrifying patients poured in. They weren't mentally ill, or at least they weren't initially. They were driven mad by others."
Rocket Raccoon clenched his eyes and furrowed his features as if recalling some horrible memories. He said in a trembling voice, "The mentally ill patients brought here were all driven mad by inhumane experiments and torture."
"A few doctors stayed behind due to their conscience. They chose not to evacuate with the majority but stayed back to continue caring for the patients here, including my owner's attending physician."
"After the uncontrollable madmen got in, he tried his best to protect his patients. But it didn't work. This wasn't a hospital that wanted to heal patients anymore. It had become a testing ground."
"A group of advanced alien civilisations dumped those mentally ill experimental products here, hoping to acquire the final results of their experimental subjects."
Rocket Raccoon trembled all over. He felt a hand stroking down his head and back, all the way to the tip of his tail, which made him feel comfortable. He flicked his ears and looked at Shiller who had just touched him, and continued.
"But the advanced civilisations knew they needed someone to take care of these madmen. They were too lazy to find more doctors, so they created a batch of robots directly. But that was just the beginning of the disaster."
"The order given to those robots was not to control the chaos here, but to make things more chaotic. They wanted all the madmen to kill each other until the final winner emerged. Amid the chaos, my owner and the doctor who protected us were killed."
"Not long after, a star exploded, and the radiation awakened the self-awareness of the robots. They also quit their jobs. They directly modified the pets of previous patients using gene modification technology inherited from advanced civilisations. Those subjects were us, a group of innocent and ignorant creatures."
Rocket Raccoon slowly looked up, "But they didn't know that an animal's wildness would not disappear with mechanical transformation. On the last day that the robots planned to evacuate the planet, I found the culprit who killed the doctor, a security robot, and successfully destroyed it."
"Then I incorporated his basic protocols into my system, thereby inheriting his combat abilities and gun-use skills. After another riot, I took the opportunity to use these skills to escape from the insane asylum."
Rocket Raccoon looked at Shiller and said:
"But when I had the chance to examine my codebase, I found a diabolical plan recorded in the basic protocols of the security robot."
"They called it the 'Universal Life Fusion Plan'. The initiator of this plan was the Shi'ar Empire, one of the Three Great Empires of the Universe."