"A tent?"
Zarek frowned as he realized what it was he was looking at.
The boy-man had tossed over an orb of some sort that had a reflective quality to it and countless geometric shapes making up the center. However, sending something like this over didn't make any sense.
Why would the boy-man want a tent etched onto his body? Just logically speaking, it didn't make sense.
Sure, theoretically, if Zarek managed to graft it onto his skin, the boy-man would be able to circulate his Godsfall in order to project the abilities of this tent, whatever they might be.
But what then?
The greatest weakness of the tattoos was that they had to be perpetually sustained—meaning, Godsfall had to be supplied to them continuously in order for them to maintain their form.
Depending on the tattoo in question, it could take more to activate and far less to sustain, or it could take more Godsfall depending on whether it had to repair itself or not.
This was why Zarek hadn't just completely given up on treasures altogether and had brought the katana with him. The only reason he hadn't bothered to bring the crossbow shield's real body and had left it with Priya and the others instead was because it was only E Class.
Using that crossbow shield in battle would just be asking for it to be immediately shattered. If Zarek was in a position to use a crossbow shield—meaning he had no other choice but to defend—it could only mean that whatever attack was coming wasn't something an E Class shield would withstand, especially since the dual offensive and defensive capabilities of the crossbow shield made it so that it wasn't particularly excellent at any one of those things.
This was all to say that Zarek chose to use the tattoo instead because of the advantage a continuous healing effect on the shield would give him. If not for this, the shield would be worthless.
All that aside, this tent was the exact opposite. There was no worth to tattooing it at all.
Zarek's first reaction was that the boy-man was messing with him, or maybe he was overly cautious. Despite having a confident advantage over Zarek in strength, the boy-man was probably still exercising his caution because Zarek's abilities were still peculiar to him, and there was no telling what trump card Zarek had.
There was also the elephant in the room: that Zarek had somehow managed to control the teleportation, and there was no telling what sort of ability he had used to do that. As weak as Zarek seemed, many a cornered beast had managed to turn their situations around on their attackers.
It could also be that this was simply the weakest treasure the boy-man had and he was using Zarek to test it out, being unwilling to send over a more powerful treasure.
Maybe, to the boy-man, if Zarek somehow had a method of escape—or a rare spatial Talent that had allowed him to control their teleportation—then even if Zarek suddenly vanished now, the item he had handed over was something he was willing to lose.
Any one of these explanations made perfect sense, and any one of them could have been the answer. But after Zarek gave the crystal in his hands another glance, his eyes flashed.
'I see… Should I?'
Zarek weighed his options for a moment before he activated Inscribe.
A scroll appeared before him, and his eyes glazed over for a moment as he grabbed a golden quill from thin air. His arm flashed and he began to draw.
The vague form of a tent took shape, and then came something more. It broke down, condensed, grew more complex, and then became levels simpler.
Decode worked its magic as the gaps Zarek couldn't fill in himself became clearer and clearer.
And then he began to erase, simplifying things further until everything was laid out so simply before him that they practically seemed to be an extension of his limb.
Once he was finished, he tossed the crystal back over along with the scroll. The boy-man caught it.
There was a flash in the latter's eyes, but then he asked something slowly.
"What is this?"
"I was wondering why it was you sent me a tent of all things to graft for you, but I figured you just didn't trust me with anything more valuable. Still, I made it work."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"I stripped the tent of its actual form and left behind only the protective and defensive Matrices. If I Infuse the tattoo onto your body, you'll be able to connect with the tent in a way you couldn't before, activating the protective and defensive mechanisms with much greater speed." Zarek grinned. "Not bad, right? Now you'll be even more protected while you sleep. You gave me something useless not thinking I'd be able to turn it around, hm?"
Zarek did look particularly proud of himself. There were a few more flickers in the boy-man's eyes before he pressed the scroll to his chest.
There was a subtle flash in Zarek's own eyes and the scroll vanished. Who said that the boy-man had to know exactly how it worked? Without Infuse, the scroll wouldn't just work on its own.
"Okay. For the time being, you can follow me. But only if you continue to make yourself useful. I have no intention of coddling a child."
Zarek allowed himself to feel the amusement of a man with a child's body saying such a thing. But he didn't speak it aloud. He had a smart mouth, but part of having a smart mouth was knowing what to say and when to say it.
"Follow me. We have much to do."
As the boy-man continued to fly into the air, shooting off into the distance, Zarek's eyes became more calculating.
What he had done just now was certainly not what the boy-man was looking for. But he also didn't need to know that Zarek was aware of that either.
'Might come in handy.'