Days bled into weeks within Master Borin's dusty sanctuary. Alaric, seemingly content to sit quietly by the ancient scholar's side, was in fact an eager sponge. He absorbed everything. Borin, at first merely tolerant of the silent child, soon found himself subtly captivated. Alaric never asked for childish tales; instead, his infrequent, precisely worded questions delved into the intricacies of maps, the lineage of kings, or the obscure properties of rare herbs. Borin, starved for intelligent conversation in his reclusive existence, found himself sharing more than he ever intended.
Aizen cataloged every detail: the political leanings of the Northern Kingdoms, their shifting alliances, the long-standing feuds. He learned of Nilfgaard, its vast, organized empire, and its methodical expansion. He learned of the mages, their fractious Lodges, their power, and their disdain for mundane authority. He learned of the Witchers, their mutations, their codes, and their peculiar neutrality – a concept Aizen found inefficient, yet fascinating. These were the pieces on his new chessboard.
His nascent Kyōka Suigetsu continued to be his subtle scalpel. Borin, a man of meticulous habits, would often find himself misplacing a specific scroll, only for Alaric to "innocently" point to its true location, subtly guided by Aizen's will. Conversations with local villagers who occasionally visited Borin were easily swayed; Aizen would sit nearby, appearing utterly absorbed in a book, yet subtly guiding the flow of their thoughts, ensuring they left with the desired impression of Borin's wisdom or a particular piece of gossip that could serve a future purpose. It was all a game of fractions, of imperceptible nudges.
One chilly evening, as a storm rattled the windowpanes, Borin recounted an old legend about a powerful sorceress who could draw power directly from a forgotten ancient nexus. "They say her presence alone could cause crops to wither and men's minds to break," Borin mused, tapping a gnarled finger on an old map. "Such power... a destructive thing, untamed."
Alaric's eyes, normally calm, held a flicker of intense interest. "Is it possible," he asked, his voice low, "to take that power? To channel it, without being consumed?"
Borin chuckled, a dry, papery sound. "Fanciful thought, boy. Magic demands a price. A focus. It's not something you simply... take." He dismissed it as a child's idle musing, but Aizen filed the information away. Power is always taken. It merely requires the correct method.
His days were a structured pursuit of knowledge. He devoured texts on the properties of different monster types – their biology, their weaknesses, their magical resistances. He absorbed treatises on ancient curses, rituals, and the peculiar forms of alchemy practiced on the Continent. He began to discern the common threads, the underlying principles that, while crude compared to the precision of Kidō or the vastness of spiritual energy, still pointed towards a fundamental flow of force. He practiced simple meditation techniques described in Borin's scrolls, not for spiritual enlightenment, but to better feel the currents of life and magic around him. He discovered that by focusing, he could extend his perception beyond sight and sound, sensing the faint auras of living beings even through walls, identifying strong magical signatures.
The villagers, while still seeing him as quiet, now perceived a flicker of something more. They would seek Borin's advice more often, vaguely remembering the insightful observations the child had made, attributing them to Borin's wisdom. Aizen carefully cultivated this image, content to remain the unseen catalyst.
He rarely spoke of his past, simply hinting at a traumatic event that rendered him withdrawn. Borin, respecting the unspoken grief, never pressed. He saw a child marked by tragedy, with an unusual intellect. Aizen saw a useful, unsuspecting resource.
The true nature of this world, with its volatile magic and often-mindless horrors, fascinated him. It was a chaotic, disorganized system. But chaos, Aizen knew, was merely order awaiting the correct hand to impose it. And he, Sōsuke Aizen, was precisely that hand. The process of assimilation was complete. The time for subtle observation was transitioning to calculated action. He had learned enough of the pieces. Soon, he would begin to arrange them.