So yeah, I was going to make floating islands. How? Well, that was surprisingly simple, all things considered. In fact, I had two possible ways of pulling this off. There were probably far more ways to do this, but hey, these were the simplest I could think of.
The first was the simplest: mess with gravity. It was that simple, really. Thanks to the control the system granted me over the sanctuary, I could pretty much create an island in the sky and then alter the gravity around it to keep it airborne.
Of course, this was the unnatural method, it was also the method I didn't really want to use if at all possible. Why? Honestly, it's because I really don't want my followers believing that I can alter reality. I had enough problems with some of them thinking I'm a god without adding more fuel to the fire.
The second method, the one I was planning on using, was just as simple really but would probably cost me more overall. Thankfully I still had a good chunk of RP left that I didn't mind spending some of to get this done. This method used glowing yellow crystals that could be bought through the system's sanctuary store page, or whatever you wished to call it. These crystals apparently acted kind of like a more magical version of helium in a way, although I couldn't know for sure how they worked until I tested them.
You see, the system allows you to buy basic, non-rare materials to fill your sanctuary with, although it's not as simple as you may first think. The system has "basic materials" from all over the omniverse, materials that I can access despite them not being from my original world. The problem? Because I had no prior knowledge of them before this point, they cost me more to purchase than they would have if they had been present in my original universe.
Now, I'm sure you're asking, why was I doing this? Why not just create an island in the middle of the ocean and be done with it? Well, for one it was cool as hell to do it this way; however, the main reason was ecological separation. For example, I wanted to finally make use of all those alien plants and animals from my trial, but said ecosystem definitely needed be separate from everything else. In the end I couldn't exactly release a bunch of alien organisms into the biosphere that I was planning; however, I could place them all on an isolated floating island.
Additionally, there was the fact that I might be able to use the islands in the future. Imagine I'm in a war zone and I open a portal that spits out a massive floating fortress covered in guns and other such defences. Another reason to use the crystals and not gravity manipulation: the moment said fortress leaves my sanctuary, the effect of the altered gravity would immediately disappear.
Now wouldn't that be embarrassing, this law-defying floating island immediately crashing into the ground the moment it leaves my sanctuary. Anyway, doing something like that is still a long way off; after all, I need to be able to open a portal big enough before I can even think about doing that.
Moving on, I was quick to get things going, deciding to start with something basic. Of course I made sure to do a few tests to see just how these crystals worked before I jumped into anything mind you. And so I sat there in the darkness of the sanctuary command space as I began planning and creating a place for the Lekgolos, a place for them to multiply and establish themselves without having to worry about being bothered.
Getting to the point though, the first thing I did was manifest a massive amount of metals and minerals to make the core of the island before surrounding the whole thing in dirt and rock. I made sure to harden and compress the rock on the bottom and edges so the whole thing wouldn't just fall apart on me, of course.
I then repeated this process several times, creating several floating structures that I connected via large land bridges to create one massive, fragmented land mass. It kind of looked somewhat like spiderweb if you looked at it from the right angle.
Once that was all done I turned my focus back to the top of the island where I got to work. I mainly kept it as a rocky landscape with no plants to somewhat mimic the place they came from; after all, from what I remembered they originally lived on asteroids orbiting a gas giant before joining The Covenant. Additionally, I fully expected the Lekgolos to eat most of the place over time and I'd rather not have to constantly replace all the plants when I eventually had to repair it.
Either way though, I worked on shaping the landscape somewhat next. This might have been pointless, all things considered, but I didn't really care. Honestly, I just enjoyed the work overall; even if it would more than likely get ruined in the end, it didn't really bother me all that much.
Once I was finished I took a moment to look over everything before nodding to myself. It wasn't perfect, but nature never was after all. Overall the island was far bigger than I had intended it to be. All the different connected land masses varied in size, but altogether they were roughly around ten thousand kilometres in area.
Me going a bit overboard aside, up until this point I had been manipulating gravity to keep the thing in the air; however, that was about to change. This was the moment I finally added the crystals, placing small shards of them all over the underside of its surface.
Then, with the system's assistance, I rapidly accelerated their growth before stopping a few moments later once i was fully satisfied. The crystals that had grown upwards into the rock and dirt had spread out like an intricate root network, while the parts that grew downwards formed a beautiful golden field that pulsed with a mesmerising glow.
Some of the crystals were only a few centimetres in length while others rapidly expanded to the size of a small house, and thanks to the system's help none of it looked artificial. Anyway, the one side of the island now looked like a field of glowing, somewhat translucent rocks that pulsed rhythmically as pale golden mist began leaking out from them, creating gold, nebula-like clouds that seemed to hold the island in the air.
Overall it appeared rather mystical, to put it mildly; the way it just hovered there was quite enchanting all things considered. It slowly began to glide across the sky, something that I found fun to just sit back and watch.
"And done!" I cheered as I finally relaxed and looked over my work, happy with what I had done.
(And it looks great as well.) I thought to myself. (A floating island hovering on golden clouds, how magical.)
"I can't wait to see everyone's reaction to this."
Unfortunately, there was still one task left that I needed to finish, a task I was not looking forward to. I had to add the several thousand Lekgolos to the hive mind, something that would probably take hours if not days of nonstop work to complete.
The idea of spending hours indoctrinating definitely soured my mood somewhat. "Welp, you can't have the fun part without the boring-as-hell part..."
"Thankfully, the Lekgolos shouldn't be that hard to indoctrinate so long as I don't let them form a colony," I said out loud.
(Although that does make me wonder what a Lekgolo colony's mindscape would look like...) I mused curiously.
"Thoughts for later, I suppose. For now, let's just get the annoying part over with..."