{A/N: Sorry about the dealy but I was busy, the MC will meet up with Senku's party soon in a few chapters. Don't expect the updates to be too regular as I'm very busy. Also stones please?}
Zoe rolled out of bed as morning light filtered through the bamboo walls of her treehouse. Standing carefully, she tested her injured foot several times—it had healed more than the previous day, but the bone was still very much broken, and she couldn't manage without her crutch.
She made her way back to the riverbank where her work awaited. The metal pieces she'd fabricated earlier lay scattered across her makeshift workspace. Using a stone chisel, she began cleaning them up before smoothing each piece with a fragment of corundum.
After several minutes of painstaking work, Zoe sighed and set down the metal piece. The progress was painfully slow. She put down her tools and grabbed some spare wood instead, gently carving a pattern into its surface. After making a few adjustments, she finalized the design.
Hours flew by as she worked, carving out the small components she'd designed. The sun traced its path across the sky once, then twice, until two full days had passed.
Finally, Zoe dropped her tools and leaned back on her elbows, exhaustion weighing on her shoulders.
"Finally! That took far longer than I thought," she muttered to herself. "This should have been a short job, but I suppose it is what it is."
She stood and picked up the final piece she'd just completed, then moved toward her water wheel where a bamboo workbench sat loaded with parts.
Cracking her knuckles, Zoe grabbed more tools and began the next phase. She dug a hole in the ground and planted a thick log with small grooves carved into its surface. Then, grabbing longer pieces, she began slotting them into place to create a large frame held together by wooden pins.
The sun began to set as she finished, stepping back to admire her work with a satisfied smile.
Before her sat a large wooden bench containing multiple moving parts that spun in place. In the centre, a raised gear with equally spaced grooves sat disconnected from the rest of the system.
She grabbed a round piece and slotted it into the raised gear. When she pushed it into place, it clunked slightly before beginning to spin, revealing small chunks of corundum embedded along its outer edge.
"My lathe is finally complete," Zoe said with pride. "Now I can polish off my metalwork much easier."
Smiling widely, she rolled her shoulders and walked back toward her treehouse, her crutches clacking rhythmically against the ground.
*********************
Later that night, Zoe lay on her crude bamboo bed, listening to the quiet sounds around her. All she could hear was the faint whisper of wind through the trees and the occasional distant call of some far-off animal.
'I haven't paid much attention to it before, but it's really quiet,' she thought. 'The constant noise of the city no longer exists—in fact, there are no human-made sounds at all. It's kind of lonely.'
Rolling over, her mind dwelt on the sinking feeling of loneliness swelling in her stomach.
'I've decided—I'm going to double my efforts and make a boat so I can search the coast for signs of humanity. I can also find some rarer resources at the same time.'
With her mind set on this new goal and twice as determined as before, she slowly drifted off to sleep, her thoughts a whirlwind of plans and ideas.
********************
The next morning, Zoe got up quickly and headed to her smokehouse. Looking inside, she sighed and mentally counted the remaining meat strips.
'One, two... six...' The count was depressingly low. 'This is bad. I'm running low on food, and with my injury, it'll be next to impossible to hunt for more.'
Lost in thought, she casually munched on her dwindling supply of jerky as she walked back to the river. Sitting by the water's edge, she gazed into the flowing current, searching for solutions.
Suddenly, a bit of movement beneath the surface caught her attention. Focusing her gaze through the clear water, a small smile slowly crept across her face as she jumped to her feet.
"Of course! It's such an obvious solution," she exclaimed. "I guess my metalwork and forge will have to wait for the moment—it's time to make a net."
After finishing her jerky, she returned to her supplies and grabbed a large bundle of vines. Moving to her workbench, she used a device she'd made earlier to split the vines into smaller, more manageable pieces. Once they were all sliced, she moved back to the river and fed the vine ends into a specialized component she'd crafted for rope and twine making.
Several hours later, she'd managed to knot together a basic fishing net. She gathered some rocks and carefully added weights to its base.
With the net complete, she walked out along her bamboo pole bridge. Crouching down, she tied the loose end of the net to the bamboo before dropping it into the water below.
"Finally," she said, dusting off her hands. "Now I can get back to my metalwork. I really need some extra labour—this is exhausting."
**********************
Returning to her lathe, Zoe picked up her discarded metal components and began sorting through them to find the parts that needed greater precision. Carefully, she held each piece against the rough corundum grinder to smooth away imperfections.
Days continued to pass as she worked. Each new dawn brought her projects closer to completion and her leg closer to normal function. After almost two additional months of dedicated effort, she finally completed her masterwork.
Stepping back, she looked over her creation with deep satisfaction. It had taken considerable time—progressing well into the middle of spring—but she had managed to finish her work and even ferment some potash on the side.
The furnace itself was a masterpiece that she'd spent ages perfecting. Back before the petrification, she'd spent several weeks with one of Japan's best blacksmiths learning to forge weapons, and that experience had instilled in her a deep appreciation for quality craftsmanship.
Her furnace received constant oxygen through a large series of pumps powered by her water wheel. The pumps themselves had been continuously improved as Zoe polished the internal components and worked through multiple prototypes.
The furnace was a massive structure, roughly two meters at its widest point and built from thick ceramic blocks she'd spent weeks crafting. It towered over her with both above-ground and below-ground components.
The below-ground section housed a large combustion chamber with modified vents that carried smoke up to the top vent. The entire structure was optimized to increase airflow efficiency. The chamber itself was a large rectangular box that could hold more than enough fuel to run at full blast for multiple hours.
Above that were two metal hatches that sealed the system. The bottom hatch led into the combustion chamber while the top opened to the smelting area. The two chambers were separated by a thin layer of long ceramic bricks that channelled heat into a controlled environment, ensuring she could keep her materials free from contamination.
Finally, the furnace was topped with three separate chimneys that carried smoke up and away from her working area.
Zoe grabbed a clay crucible and filled it with crushed hematite before placing it inside. Moving to her work area, she lit a stick from one of her standing torches and tossed it into the combustion chamber.
After waiting a few minutes for the spark to catch, she connected the pumps to the water wheel. As they began forcing air into the chamber, the flames roared to life with violent intensity.
Nodding with satisfaction, Zoe sealed the forge and stepped back.
"Okay, now it's just a waiting game."
********************
While the furnace did its work, she ventured deeper into the forest. Grabbing her newest axe, she searched between the trees until she found what she was looking for—a large, straight oak with a thick trunk.
Steadying her feet, she raised the axe and brought it down hard against the wood. Swing after swing, the reasonably sharp obsidian blade bit deeper into the trunk. After several swings, the tree began to creak, then tilt as she struck again.
Stepping back quickly, she watched the massive oak fall, taking out several branches as it crashed to the forest floor with a thunderous impact.
Smiling, she stepped forward and began chopping off the smaller branches. She selected the roundest sections and sliced them into logs about a meter in length. After laying them on the ground, she tied a rope around the main trunk.
Using the rope and a pulley system, she began the arduous task of hefting the heavy tree onto her makeshift rollers. After several minutes of hard work, she finally got the trunk positioned properly.
Grabbing the rope, she began pulling the massive log back toward her workstation, stopping occasionally to reposition the rollers beneath it.
By the time the moon rose high into the night sky, she'd managed to get the log back to her camp. Setting it aside, she began mentally designing a processing station.
Nodding to herself, she grabbed some bamboo and started constructing a frame. Beginning with the support posts, she hammered the strongest bamboo rods deep into the ground.
Using her axe, she cut the tops until they were all the same height—roughly two meters above ground level.
She worked through the night, making the most of her limited tools to build the best device possible.
********************
Several days later, Zoe finished her construction project. Grabbing her newly forged saw blade—roughly two meters in length—she headed back to her assembled structure.
Over the past few days, she'd continued building up the frame. The final product featured four latches along its length to hold logs securely in place.
Along the support pillars, she'd created a moveable frame that could be raised and lowered. Finally, attached to this moveable frame was her newest saw blade. The device was pinned in place but could easily rock back and forth to cut through logs as needed.
Smiling with pride, she began dragging a ten metre section of the oak log into position before adjusting the clamps to hold it firmly.
Stepping back, she moved the blade to the end of the log and adjusted its height carefully.
"Okay, from what I know, the first beam I cut will be rounded in part, so I can make it fairly thin," she said, talking through her process. "Then I can rotate the log and cut it again, repeating this until I have a nice square log to work with.
Afterwards, I can cut some thick beams out of the wood to act as the frame of my boat. From my calculations, the beams should be roughly ten centimetres by twenty centimetres so I can bend them properly."
Nodding with determination, Zoe began her work. Grabbing the saw's wooden handle, she began rocking the two-meter blade back and forth. As she slid it along, the blade began biting into the wood with satisfying ease.
After cutting a few centimetres, she stopped and pulled the blade back to check her progress. The cut quality was impressively high, with only small splinters marring the otherwise clean surface.
Smiling, she settled into the long task of cutting through the first of her ten-meter log sections. She fell into a steady rhythm over the following days, dividing her time between finding suitable trees, cutting them down, processing the wood, and working on forging new items from iron.
By the end of the second week, she began running low on raw ore. She'd accumulated over a hundred ten-meter-long boards, but her iron supply was nearly depleted.
*********************
It was early morning on the last day of the second week when Zoe woke from a brief two-hour sleep. After strapping her new backpack over her shoulders, she donned her cloak. As she adjusted it, she felt something shift in one of the inner pockets.
Her mouth opened in shock, and a flash of guilt crossed her eyes as she reached into the well-padded pocket. Inside, her hand gently wrapped around two small objects about the size of chicken eggs.
Taking them out carefully, she looked at the two crow eggs as they shifted gently in her palm.
Setting down her backpack, she started moving back toward her treehouse, a more pressing concern now occupying her mind.
Climbing up into her shelter, she used some of her spare clothes to create a makeshift nest for the eggs. As she worked, the larger of the two eggs suddenly developed a small crack.
Setting the egg down gently, she watched as the crack continued to spread, the shell flaking outward as a small beak pierced through.
Her eyes brimming with excitement, she watched eagerly as the little chick slowly freed itself from its hard confines.
Breaking through the remaining shell, the tiny bird's head emerged, followed shortly by the rest of its body as the egg cracked apart around it.
Smiling widely, she observed the baby bird as it fumbled around, still uncertain about this new world. As she shifted slightly, the wooden floor groaned under her weight. Turning in her general direction, the bird opened its mouth and began chirping loudly.
Her expression softened slightly as she sighed and prepared to leave the treehouse.
"Looks like I'll have to put off getting more materials for now," she said, looking at the demanding little creature. "I've got to take care of these baby birds for the time being."
With that, she climbed down to search for insects, her plans for resource gathering temporarily set aside for this unexpected responsibility.