After a bit of thinking, Amy decided that the best way to make the floating island was to use hollow pieces of ice. It would not be just one of three large pieces of hollow ice, but many small hollow pieces of ice that were tied together by strings of her mana until the mangrove oak tree’s roots would hold them into place.

So, she decided to try this to see if it would work. Amy created two layers of ice, each made of over 50 pieces of ice around 20 or 30 centimetres that were tied together with mana strings. When she finished creating the two layers of ice pieces, she lifted one layer and placed it on top of the other layer. Amy made sure that the two pieces were layered almost perfectly so that when the dirt and mangrove oak trees were placed and grown, the island would be balanced. The ice layers were circular and were 10 metres by 10 metres in length and were about a metre in width.

Once Amy was done with the ice part, she let it go from her grip to see if it would float and float properly. And it did.

So, she went to the next stage of her plan, transplanting dirt from the island to the floating ice. Amy weaved a very tight net made of mana threads and started scooping dirt from the island and duping it onto the floating ice. The first time she did this, about half the dirt fell through the cracks before Amy moved the two layers of ice, so there were not as many cracks that led directly into the water, as well making small barriers made of mana strings to prevent the dirt from falling back into the water. She tested it again with another batch of dirt, and it worked a lot better than nothing.

Soon, Amy layered about 20 centimetres of dirt onto the island and was happy with that. The island that she took the dirt, stones, and sand from had indents from what she took from the island, but she was okay with that, and she could figure out what to do with that later if she wished to.

With the dirt and the ice steps completed, it was time to grow the mangrove oak tree. Amy grabbed the seed from where she had kept it and brought it over the floating island before burying it into the soil in the middle of the island. She then placed a mana string into the seed and pushed mana, increased growth, also reproducing when it was at the age to.

Quickly the mangrove oak tree sprouted and grew. It grew five metres with branches with bright green leaves sprouting all over the place, while the roots grew thick and tangled together, tying the two layers of ice together. The thing was that the barrier that she made for the dirt was specifically for the dirt so that the mangrove roots could grow and reach into the water.

Once the mangrove oak tree reached maturity, it produced seeds that Amy took and placed around the island and grew them. After doing this a bit more, she had then 10 trees on the island. That was all the island would be able to hold.

Now came the test. While Amy was working on the floating island, she was holding it upright, so she did not know if it would float. So slowly, she started releasing the mana threadings holding it to the surface, and it started to sink. Holding her breath, Amy watched as the visible ice started disappearing into the water, but just as it began to hit the dirt, it stopped sinking, and she let out her breath.

‘Thank goodness it’s floating,’ murmured Amy.

But she was not done with the island. Amy’s idea for this mangrove island was to have it float in a particular area of the second floor. So, she decided to fiddle with her mana strings and do the same thing she did with preventing the dirt from falling from the cracks of the floating island but letting the mangrove roots still grow down.

Amy started weaving a very long rope of mana strings and continuously inserting the intention of not letting the mangrove island go past the ropes. Once she threaded a long enough rope to cover the entire southeast section and parts of the northeast and southwest sections, she connected both ends of the rope together and shaped it so that rope had a slight c-shape facing her core reef. As the rope of mana strings floated on the surface of the water, Amy hardened it, and like all of her mana strings, it was invisible.

All that was left was to test out if it actually worked. So Amy pushed the floating island to the nearest part of the rope and gave it a push to the rope. It just slightly bounced off the rope and did not cross over the rope. She was pretty happy that this worked and took a step back to observe the second floor.

Amy observed the shoals, the kelp forest, the coral reefs, and finally, the mangrove tree. She was quite happy with the base of the second-floor environment. But, she was not done with planting the floor yet. While the base features were there, she still had many plants that she wanted to include. So, she got back to work.

Amy had ideas for the shoals and shallower areas of the western, and these involved the acid seaweed and shard grass. So, she searched for one of these species on the first floor, pulled them into the second floor, and started growing them around the shoals and on the misshaped shoal on it. She also placed one of her new plants, the trench seagrass, all around the shallow areas of the western side.

She then focused her attention back on the coral reefs. There were three plants that Amy wanted, the fire coral, red seaweed, and trench seagrass. She pulled a whole fire coral from the first floor through the barrier, broke it into four pieces before placing it into the already growing reefs and letting it grow. The red seaweed she placed on the thicker sections of the coral reefs and the trench seagrass she placed on the more clear areas of sand.

The last plant that Amy wanted to place is the arctic moss that she wanted to place on the mangrove island. So she grabbed a piece of arctic moss from the first floor from a piece of floating ice, and dragged it through the barrier and tore it into a couple of pieces before placing it on some of the trees and exposed roots of the mangroves.