The Parsius lay anchored in a sheltered bay off the rainforest coast, its hull rising and falling gently in the sea breeze.
The makeshift research bench inside the cabin had long since been assembled. Piles of inactive Petrification Devices were neatly arranged on it, their silver metal casings glinting coldly in the daylight.
Senku and Xeno stood side by side at the workbench, carefully dismantling the internal structures of the devices, one on either side.
The Petrification Devices stockpiled in the valley were extraordinarily complex. One look was enough to tell that they were not products of modern technology, which only deepened the two men's interest.
After dismantling more than a dozen devices,
they found a tiny diamond-shaped crystal embedded in the innermost layer of every Petrification Device.
Strangest of all, these diamonds were not clear and colorless. They were blackened, with slight cracks leaving them dull and lusterless as they sat embedded in the mechanical cores.
The black diamonds were minuscule and extremely well concealed, fitted snugly inside the devices. Without a careful inspection, they would have been impossible to find.
Xeno held a fully extracted little black diamond between his fingertips, examining it closely in the daylight by the window. There was no way he would abandon his research simply because they stood on opposing sides.
Senku tapped his fingertips against a dismantled mechanical casing, his brow slightly furrowed.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away at their base in the Americas, the same scene was unfolding.
Joel had thrown himself into dismantling and studying the Petrification Devices, probing their cores with his exquisitely precise craftsmanship.
After several attempts, he too successfully located the black diamond at the center of a device.
But it seemed someone had taken notice of his actions.
Far away aboard the ship off the rainforest,