If Why-Man was truly dead-set on ending us and had deployed several Medusas...
I found one! A petrification device!
Seriously? Already?
Crap, we're too lucky!
Luck...
It seems it may have nothing to do with luck.
What sickening yet beautiful...
malice.
One meter, three seconds.
Sorry.
If I do get petrified, spare me some of our precious revival fluid.
One meter! One second!
That looks fun.
We should help!
One meter! One second!
I guess we should have expected this.
All these petrification devices are out of battery.
Of course they are. It may have been a while since they fired,
but these things hardly have the capacity to engulf the treasure island.
There's no way they'd last after they covered the whole planet.
What a sight indeed.
Each one of these weapons of new science shone.
That day, thousands of years ago, they turned Earth into a stone world.
So that's what happened.
They were absolutely intent on petrifying all of humankind.
Such sickening malice, and in such numbers.
We never stood a chance to begin with.
Xeno-chan.
Let's see your right hand.
I know you did a swipesies in your pocket.
A Medusa.
Look at you, sounding all profound as you stole one.
Would you really try to pull that on a mentalist?
I don't know what you're talking about.
You asshole!
Let him have it.
It's out of battery, anyway.
He can't do anything with it while we're watching.
We're better off keeping him engaged and inspecting it
so we can pick his glorious brain.
This Medusa is the only way we're ever going to survive
against an elite force like Stanley's.
But what's the point of all this if we can't use any of them?
They aren't necessarily worthless.
With so many of them in our possession, we can put them to good use.
Isn't that right, Senku?
Yeah.
Of course!
Only Joel could take them apart cleanly, but blasting them apart is easy.
We already knew that from Matsukaze's testimony.
We could never risk it if we only had one to play with.
But right now, we can take them apart as much as we want.
Am I right?
It's time for a science kid's favorite activity: a nice, chill teardown!
Where is Stanley taking us on this ship, Matsukaze?!
I apologize.
I don't know, either.
Senku and the others must have escaped safely by now.
So I bet the youth science team is probably taking it easy right about now.
I'm not so sure.
Those kids are clever.
That won't be a problem.
Judging from the bike tracks, they're most certainly headed down the Amazon River.
The kids need to build a new ship.
Given the enormous amount of time they'll lose,
we'll eventually catch up to them no matter how much of a detour we make.
If they build a new ship, won't we have trouble recognizing it?
Its appearance is irrelevant.
No anomaly can escape radio waves.
There's absolutely no escape from the eye of science—the radar.
I'd love for us to kick back and dissect the devices all day,
but we're leaving once we've built our ship.
Yeah, we'll just grab as many Medusas as we can.
True...
We're headed out to sea soon.
We're gonna need more than a raft, huh?
Though, at the same time...
What's up with the shape of this ship?!
I was thinking that, too.
Why?
It's all pointy. It's sick.
You guys really do like pointy things.
I think round things are cuter.
They're all diagonal planes facing as upward as possible.
Is this what I think it is?
Yeah.
A former sonar operator would know, wouldn't you?
If we're going to evade Stanley's radar when they arrive...
We're going to have to build a stealth ship.
A shelf chip? What?
Stealth, as in secretive.
It's a ship that's transparent to the eyes of radar.
Honestly, though, aren't we kind of far beyond science crafts at this point?
It's turning into legit modern warfare.
Ryusui's so hyped up.
Haha.
Of course!
As greedy as I am, I've never had a stealth ship before!
Well, yeah, you have no reason to avoid radar if you're a civilian.
Do you become invisible to radar when your ship's pointy?
Yeah.
That's basically right.
Remember what I said?
Radar works by watching the radio waves that bounce back.
Normal Ship
A normal ship...
Whoo! I see all!
But when it's all slanted and pointy...
All Slanted and Pointy
I can't see anything!
We're also using RF absorbing materials.
Cover the whole thing with carbon-particle-filled rubber!
Rubber's useful for everything, isn't it?
There are all sorts of designs for avoiding radio waves,
but it's a military secret, so I don't know much about it myself.
Guess we'll have to do some trial and error.
I bet NASA-sensei here would know.
I'd spare no effort in cooperating with any science that ensures my own safety.
But you can't expect me to help you escape Stanley's pursuit.
Xeno's nasty!
Stealth ship acquired!!
The pointy ship's kinda cool, too, actually!
Told ya.
It's form over function, idiot.
We're testing its stealth properties.
Is it showing on the radar?
Is it transparent?
Well...
Which is it?
Er... well, a tiny bit stealthy?
A little bit blurry for its size, maybe?
A tiny bit?!
That's not going to hide us at all!
You didn't expect to nail secret military tech on the first try, did you?
We're about to optimize the hell out of it now.
A bit blurry for its size?
So it's easier to see if it's big or if there's a lot of stuff?
Of course.
It's the same as with eyesight.
So then, that day, when a stupid number of these things rained down,
why did the 21st century peeps not notice until right before?
It isn't as though we're aware of every asteroid that approaches Earth.
But you're right, it was a lot.
I heard nothing about it, either from NASA's observatories or elsewhere.
This bizarre shape...
It isn't showing!
No radar signal!
Is it to avoid being discovered by humans?
How uncompromising.
Absolutely a ball of malice.
If it can't be seen on radar...
Yeah. It's absorbing the radio waves somewhere.
It must be those winding mystery circuits inside.
In that case, why don't we just plaster the whole freaking ship with them?
We've got a radar-dodging future science stealth ship!
Futuristic stealth ship acquired!!
This is our first post-21st century new world craft.
And so we step into future science!
Science is...
elegant indeed.
I can't believe we're using the Medusas to cover the ship.
Senku's nothing if not efficient. I'm sure he's mighty pleased.
Hell yeah!
Science is all about efficiency.
We gotta make use of anything we can.
Not that we have any idea how it works!
Yeah, we're about to find out.
Lucky for us, we have a crap ton of samples.
Yes! If we can analyze these Medusas and reboot them...
We can go head-to-head against Stanley.
Victory is literally within our grasp!
Am I right?
That's the plan...
but we're analyzing a dangerous weapon that we're going to use to freeze Stanley.
Are you sure you want to be a part of this, great Doctor Xeno?
To fall behind in fundamental scientific prowess for political reasons
seems even more of a danger to me.
Of course, if I make a discovery that you don't seem to have,
I won't bother to share it with you.
Suit yourself.
I'm happy to share everything.
That'll get things moving faster.
Every Medusa has a charred diamond.
Just as Joel said in his report.
Each part is tiny after we destroyed it,
but knowledge is critical.
Without watchmaker Joel's elegant disassembly and analysis,
we might not have noticed it.
Knowledge is indeed energy.
Maybe it looks charred
because the crystalline structure's been altered, changing its refractivity.
Any pattern to the charring?
Not a smidge.
We took apart around a thousand, but every diamond is stupidly different.
So it isn't by design.
They change in a disorderly way.
In order words, simple decay.
Crap, look at this.
There's a diamond that isn't blackened at all!
This...
If the diamonds are like batteries, maybe this one's brand new?
All right, let's keep searching.
Look for a Medusa with a pretty diamond inside!
One meter. Three seconds.
Maybe it isn't exactly new.
It could have been a dud to begin with.
It's cracked.
Likely a cleavage.
It's broken along a plane of weak atomic bonds.
You're right.
All of the untarnished diamonds have a flaw in them.
Are you sure you want to share your observations with us?
I don't mind.
There's no way you wouldn't have noticed, Senku.
All of the other clean diamonds are either chipped or slightly small.
In other words, these are brand-new Medusas
that ended up being duds because of slight defects.
Meanwhile, all of the used, blackened diamonds are flawless.
They're all perfectly identical in shape, too.
Which means...
This is just a hypothesis, but...
Plug in a perfect, brand-new diamond that's ten billion percent undamaged...
and the Medusa might boot right back up.
And so...
Alcohol Tungsten / Electricity / Filament
We're making diamonds!
Diamond / Technician
Infinite petrification devices!!
What?!
That's as absurd as ever.
How the heck are we going to make diamonds?
You'd be filthy rich in the old world if you could do that!
Wait...
Maybe Senku could make it happen, though.
Crap!
I shoulda made friends with Senku in the old world.
Professional technician Joel will polish them and figure out how to get them working.
You all are making the diamonds.
How do you expect us to do that?
We don't have any scientists here.
We have neither you nor Doctor Xeno here, Senku.
No.
Specialists don't have a monopoly on science.
Anyone can do it.
Whether you're a saint or a murderer.
No matter who does it, you'll get the same result.
That's science.
What you'll need for making diamonds...
is alcohol. That's it.
For real?!
You can use whatever booze you've got on hand, if you have to.
Although it'll take some work.
Found some in Doctor Xeno's room.
We've got alcohol!
Heat the hell out of it and that's it.
Is that seriously it?!
We need to make a tungsten filament to heat the hell out of it.
Tung...?
That sounds familiar.
Wait! That's the rock I dug up!
Right. It's the ultimate heat-resistant metal we used to make light bulbs.
If we coil tungsten wire, we'll have heat-resistant filament.
Put the alcohol in hot water to turn it into vapor...
And superheat it with that filament from earlier.
All we gotta do is hook it up to electricity and heat it? Piece of cake.
What was that explosion?!
I don't understand... Why?
Yo, just have that enemy mechanic dude Brody do it.
That won't work.
There's something behind Senku's diamond making.
We can't give the production line to the enemy.
Remember what Senku said. Science doesn't belong to geniuses.
We nobodies have to be the ones to make the diamonds.
Maybe it exploded because there was air inside.
Yo, it's coming out.
Not yet.
Not until the alcohol vapor pushes out all the air.
There.
That should leave no more air inside.
All right, here we go.
It's working.
For real?!
It's making charcoal.
Perhaps it isn't hot enough.
Let's add more power.
Will this do it?
Here we go!
Now we aren't getting any power.
Why?!
It looks perfect!
Is it broken?
I don't know! I don't get it anymore!
The connection thingies are stuck together.
You might think that's stupid,
but "the connection thingies getting stuck together" happens all the time.
Yo, here it comes.
Nothing's getting stuck together this time.
Everything's good here, as well.
Hook it up.
They're tiny, but could these sparkling specks be...
Yeah.
I give you my word as a pro.
This is definitely a diamond!
Diamond acquired!!
We did it, Senku.
This is what you wanted, right?
Next Episode
This is a work of fiction, but the plants, animals, and production methods described are based on reality. Foraging and making things on your own accord is extremely dangerous and, in some cases, illegal. Please do not imitate without expertise.