When Chelsea learned that everyone had come to venture into the heart of the Amazon Rainforest and investigate the truth behind petrification, she immediately volunteered to guide them.
"I can take you into the central region, but you can't imagine how dense the vegetation is in there."
"There are lots of swamps deep in the forest. Ordinary straw sandals won't hold up at all, and they can tear up your skin, too. If we want to get in safely, the first thing we need to do is collect natural rubber and make waterproof rubber boots by hand."
Everyone nodded, understanding how important this was.
Next, Chelsea carefully explained to everyone how to obtain natural rubber.
She pointed to the rubber trees native to the rainforest, explaining their identifying features, how the sap flowed, and how to tap them safely so no one would damage the trees through improper handling or get sap stuck to their skin and hurt themselves.
Senku added an explanation of the manufacturing principles, walking everyone through the full production process.
They quickly settled on a division of labor, and everyone got to work.
Ryusui, Tsukasa, Hyoga, Maguma, Taiju, and the others handled the heavy labor.
Kohaku, Nikki, Yuzuriha, and Watermelon formed a processing team with the girls to handle the delicate steps.
They filtered impurities from the sap, spread it out to shape it, repeatedly kneaded it until it set, trimmed the boots into shape, and stitched and bound the edges, patiently tending to every detail.
Everyone worked up a storm, but one person was missing from the group.
Where was Li Xiang?
Li Xiang had quietly slipped away to slack off.
Li Xiang had a little hobby: she liked collecting all kinds of unusual little bugs. Every sort of insect was on her collection list-except