13—17 Again*

Merel had chosen to enchant himself rather than the sword for the quite obvious reason that if the enchanted sword was stolen his sword skill would go with it and if it was dropped he would be as good as dead in the middle of a fight.

It was also a safety measure his runes were powerful and all the more dangerous for it and so he contained it within himself where no-one could take it to use it for their own purposes.

'If anyone's gonna use it it'll be me.'

"Could anyone take or tamper with an enchantment I place on myself?"

Merel asked the tome about something his thoughts had brought to light.

[That is possible if the one doing such a thing was powerful enough though this can be avoided by writing runes to protect your enchantment from future tampering.]

Merel consigned himself to do that as soon as possible he wouldn't take any chances he would not wave away a threat simply because it was unlikey, he'd not be so arrogant, besides there were unbelievably powerful beings in this world though he would not speak their name aloud not out of fear but because he was cautious of getting their attention.

Merel, getting off the floor and moving to the other side of cabin where he'd left the sword from the carriage, decided to test his the effect of the rune.

He thought back to the enchantment he made, he didn't keep his hopes too high for the results and reflected that even if he had the swordsmanship of a master he lacked the years and years of experience, wisdom and honed techniques that came with it.

Perhaps to a real professional his moves would come off as too robotic or something along these lines.

Picking up the sword he immediately took note of the significant weight that was absent in the dream like state he entered, in that place the sword was just the right weight.

He thought of increasing his strength as imagining the meaning was simple enough or reducing the swords weight but he threw away that idea as the weight was where the momentum to break bone came from.

He instead had the brilliant idea of increasing his age like a certain mischievous duo from a movie in previous life.

This train of though however left him curious of how old he actually was, he thought to ask the only 'person' who might know.

"Tome do you know how old I am by any chance?"

[The tome has no information on Merel besides his name.]

"So you have no idea..."

'Well no matter.' Merel thought to himself.

Merel expected it wouldn't be too hard to change his age to eighteen or nineteen as imagining himself growing bigger and taller was as simple as imagining an egg hatching.

Spending a lengthy amount of time grasping the 'meaning' of the rune he finally accomplished the task after many distractions he finally did it.

Merel quickly thought of enchanting himself with runes to increase his capacity for concentration before remembering he had to keep the meaning in his head while inscribing only reinforcing his previous conjecture.

Merel inscribed the rune into the tome with little difficulty thanks to his concentration.

Finishing the enchantment he traced a line from the page to himself to apply the changes.

As soon as the enchantment moved from the tome through the stringlike tether, floating in the air like a spider web, in the form of a small light into him he felt an immediate change.

The tome grew lighter in his hand with every passing second. The clothes he had been wearing a simple tunic and a few other peasant accessories had suddenly grown tight, Merel despaired at the idea of his clothes tearing and having to get used to the idea of being nude for a while but thankfully his fears didn't come to pass the clothes were very tight but didn't tear.

He attributed this to peasants making their clothes larger than their actual size so as to save money by avoiding a trip to a clothier every year or so.

After a couple moments he was sure the transformation was over but didn't move just incase his fears did come to fruition.

Taking a few more minutes of painstakingly holding his position he was finally ready to write a rune for 'one size fits all' taking the inscriptor writing the enchantment and applying it to himself he gasped with relief of the pressure that was just released as his clothes grew to just the right size for his new form.

Practicing some stretches he found his new body comfortable no unfamiliarity you'd expect in a new body.

'These runes sure are powerful.'

Remarking so mentally Merel tried picking up the sword one more time the second time was unsuprisingly far easier than the first.

Merel read the information from the identify rune applied to his hand.

—Velen Longsword—

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A/N: This is not one of those novels where a kid somehow beats the crop outta full grown men and has a harem at 12.

*Just like the movie... get it?

This chapter is a little early for today though I guess you guys wouldn't mind at all.

830 words without Author's note.