## The Unmaking
Now that the energy crisis was over, how to begin?
The mutant genome and other optimizations were still running permutations in the background, a fascinating puzzle of complex behaviors, sure he can make one, but not one he could use right now ~ no access to that sweet, endless psionic energy or the reality-warping that comes with self-computing. He was stuck doing the math himself.
Which brought him to the problem: could he even use his normal elemental techniques here?
The answer was a hard no. This universe ran on different rules. Trying to pump the seabed full of divine essence and expecting it to obey was a fantasy. The energy wasn't sentient either; it wouldn't do the work for him.
***
Here, reality was built from the ground up: atoms are made of subatomic particles and forces, which are excitation of quantum fields, which are themselves governed by shifting probability waves that dance as the laws of reality indicate ~ the "maybe" that becomes "is." ~ that's what science will tell you. On orders of magnitude thirty-seven levels deep, below ten.
Anyway, the key to efficient transmutation wasn't brute force at the top, but subtle manipulation at this very bottom layer ~ where science and magic blur the line. The energy cost is lower, and the computational load is simpler. You're not fighting the system; you're editing the source code.
The mental effort is in doing gymnastics with soul muscle to influence that layer of reality.
All you have to do is nudge the local laws so the probability fields collapse and sustain the way you want.
Then he could dictate how they would collapse, guiding reality to reassemble into any desired form. The real energy cost wasn't the nudge ~ it was maintaining that new state until it became stable.
***
He knew the advanced elements and their scientific nature from memories gracefully provided by many engineers and staff from the TVA and lore gods met on the journey here from the void. Not to mention their fragmented information from internal world.
Mortals ability was limited to go just beyond petty tricks... Mathematics and science are born from order, and thus are powerless to describe the primordial chaos that lies beneath them.
His divine sense had already mapped the entire region. mapping the region. Hundreds of miles north of Point Nemo. The most isolated place on Earth. But isolation didn't mean emptiness.
Now, it was time to enforce new, stable patterns on a massive, repeating scale. The temporal energy he'd harvested acted as a universal translator after transformation, turning the maths of annihilation into the syntax of creation.
***
As this foundational act began, a part of his awareness kept tabs on the new timeline. He sensed the X-Men's jet was still back on its course as it would have been in original future, everyone seemingly unaware that a global crisis had just been averted.
Everyone except Jean. She looked like she'd woken from a bad dream. Of course ~ the astral plane is timeless; it records everything if you know how and where to look. The magicians were still monitoring the world with a mix of alarm and scrutiny, but he isolated his workspace once again, rendering his actions invisible to their probes.
Afterall no one visits the middle of ocean for no reason unless..... its a global emergency oh well Namor and his kingdom is still about 5000 kms away, and also fishing boats?...
***
## The Foundation - Weaving the Roots
He went forward with his plans.
His focus plunged downward, through two and a half miles of ocean pressure, and locked onto the local reality's rule-set .
He didn't simply pile rock onto the floor until it broke the surface. Tao knew better. The Land Plate wasn't a static table; it was a conveyor belt moving northwest at several centimeters a year.
Furthermore, the crust here was thin in a sense. If he dropped a billion tons of hyper-dense matter onto this spot, he wouldn't get an island; he would punch a hole in the Earth, creating a depression that would drag the surrounding crust down with it and trigger earthquakes from Chile to Japan.
He didn't force the seabed; he provided it with a new, stable instruction set.
The process was slow, tectonic. Over the course of an hour, the mantle rock, the sediment and basalt across a sixty-mile radius, began to recrystallize into a hyper-dense, interlocking matrix. Veins of vibranium woven through a skeleton of adamantium along with the usual crust. The base was as wide his scope can get.
He was careful, diluting the concentration while accounting for the volcanic undergrounds and tectonic plates. Vents to channel heat. The last thing he needed was to create a treasure trove so tempting that nations would drain the ocean to claim it.
This was just a foundation, not a vault. Tao crafted naturally-forming field fluctuations around the rare materials, masking their presence even at a microscopic level.
They absorbed the kinetic stress of the tectonic movement, converting the grinding friction of the earth into a subtle hum of energy that fed back into the fields.
He fused the foundation to the plate itself. When the Pacific Plate drifted, the island would ride with it, a diamond-hard passenger on a continental raft. He edited the foundation of crust with changes to magma layers.
He crafted vents, but not just to release heat. He shaped the underside of the foundation into a thermal scoop, channeling the geothermal gradient to power an artificial upwelling system. This would force nutrient-rich cold water from the abyss up to the surface, turning this oceanic desert into a garden.
He reduced the ocean's thrum under his efforts - alerting those curious brains. Gravitational anomalies are masked and went on...
***
Well continuous work made him a little bored.
Then he decided to have a little fun - a quick, creative artistic detour in the middle of all that heavy engineering. That massive frustum, the sixty-mile-wide cone anchoring the whole thing to the seafloor, didn't actually have to be a boring, smooth shape.
So, he got to work shaping the cooling magma and dense sediment into a giant, high-relief sculpture. He carved out a massive miles long Saint Jiao dragon coiling its way up the island's underwater base.
This wasn't just for looks, though.
Those jagged spines along the dragon's back were actually load-bearing buttresses designed to handle the millions of tons of pressure pushing down into the crust. Even the way the body spiraled acted as a dampener to keep the structure steady against shifting forces. There are numerous cilia like structures extending and holding the land together.
He finished the head right under where the water level need be. The dragon's open mouth and flared nostrils served a real purpose, too - they weren't there to look scary, but to act as the main exhaust vents for the thermal system. Instead of heat leaking out through random cracks, the geothermal pressure would shoot out through the dragon's mouth in steady, controlled bursts of super-heated bubbles. Down there in the dark, it looked like a secret guardian literally holding the whole world up.
Any way the artistic inspiration of sculpting sped up the real work. At least it did pass time instead of just mental effort in piling things up.
Above, the ocean began to groan, the water churning as the seafloor started its inexorable rise. To any satellite, everything looked normal; he'd crafted an illusion barrier to prevent a global panic under any chance.
Half a day had passed.
***
## The Emergence - Sculpting the Form
Then, the emergence. A circle of water five miles wide simply… inverted. The seafloor rose not with volcanic violence, but with the slow, inexorable certainty of a continent awakening.
The surface tore open, a mountain of black rock breaching the waves in a surge of white water and hissing steam. The air filled with the smell of ozone, hot stone, and shattered ocean depths.
He sculpted with a thought. A central highland rose over the next half-hour, its peaks carved to catch the rain. From its shoulders, seven river valleys radiated like spokes on a wheel, their gradients perfectly engineered to channel water to deep, subterranean aquifers.
Then a vast plain field around in its shadow carrying those across. A livable habitat.
On the leeward side, the land fell away into deep, sheltered fjords. To the windward, cliffs of storm-resistant rock rose like a fortress wall. A chain of smaller islands emerged in a protective ring, their shelves engineered to dissipate the ocean's energy.
Stability was the first principle. The composite core made the landmass tectonically inert. The soil, synthesized from the transmuted water and microbes and enriched with engineered mutant microbes, was instantly fertile and rich.
The land emits subtle radiation that is very beneficial to mutant gene that can enrich their potential just by being on the island.
## The Finishing Touches - The Breath of Life
As the sun began to set on the first day, he seeded higher life. He didn't impose it; he invited it. He guided currents to carry plankton and fish larvae into the new bays.
The wind brought spores to a land eager to receive them. A green blush spread across the raw stone ~ first mosses, then hardy grasses, then the first shoots of deep-rooting trees, their growth accelerated by the lingering nurturing energy.
The knowledge for cellular transformation had been a useful byproduct of researching too deeply into mutant genomic variation.
***
The process ended as quietly as it began. The temporal potential was nearly spent, its debt now a permanent hum in the structure deep below. The island stood complete ~ a geographically perfect, stable landmass.
A sovereign entity born from precise intent.
About 25% of mass was newly created from direct energy & rest was used for transmuting element of water. Island covers about 8 miles wide inside and outer layer crosses 12.8 miles considering the smaller rocks that form a natural barrier.
The main land include a single central highland 3,269 meters tall, seven radial valleys spilling from its shoulders like spokes, a ring-shaped mid-plateau at 300 meters elevation spreading across considerable distance, and an outer rampart of storm-breaking cliffs. A broken chain of smaller islands formed a protective reef two to four miles offshore.
Beneath all this a frustum of land gradually widening to over 60 miles as it touches the sea bed.
***
Tao hovered before it, the salt spray cooling on his face. The drain was a hollowing in his mind, a reminder that even he had more to grow and learn.
The process also him many insights and even improving his cognitive abilities after activation of prime adaptation ability. The island waited, silent, wide above ocean. It wasn't yet immense enough to hold millions nor was designed as such, but that was a project for the future.
## A Vacation Home
He didn't return to a world of prying eyes. Instead, he ascended. His form flickered to the highest peak of the central highland, a summit crafted 3269 meters above the sea.
Here, the air was cool and thin, and the black, adamantine-reinforced rock still radiated a gentle, creation-born warmth.
***
An island was one thing, but an architect needs a workshop. A sovereign needs a throne. And frankly, he needed a place to put his feet up that wasn't a windswept mountain peak.
His gaze turned inward, towards the heart of the central highland. With a thought that was both precise and grand, he defined a space within the mountain. The reinforced rock flowed away like water from one side, and he descended into the heart of his creation step by step.
A natural cave.
The entrance was a grand archway, but it was the doors within that set the tone ~ twelve -meter-high panels of what appeared to be solidified moonlight, inlaid with a wood and metal grain of shimmering, array structures designed to be conduit of magic he plan to include. They swung open without a sound.
A cavernous hall within. The scale was immense, but it was the details he paid attention to.
The walls were not merely polished stone; they were exotic murals. He hadn't carved them ~ he had convinced the rare stone to grow in these impossible patterns obeying his imagination ~ its structure rewriting as his thoughts deepened.
With each step, murals blossomed on the surfaces: memory and thoughts translated into matter. Celestial maps emerged where his focus lingered; continents and battles formed where his curiosity brushed against history.
One entire wall depicted the structure of multiverse, the birth of the universe here, not as a painting, but as a topographical relief where nebulae were made of crushed pearl and amethyst dust, and stars were minute points of captured stellar light that pulsed with a soft, eternal rhythm.
Other side was earth, the history he saw from its beginning through divine sense - oceans, empires, aliens, extinction, renewal, struggles.
Why made it so? The design was not mere vanity. A glimpse of Citadel had provided the initial spark ~ a lesson that a sovereign's seat must be a statement.
But his true motivation was curated for a more discerning audience. The walls were meant to tell a better tale of this universe for his company of ladies. They would not be satisfied with a home in New York with its noise and smog - An unthinkable squalor, living in a mundane apartment.
Their easy-going natures around him were a courtesy and based on relationship, a veil over standards forged in celestial royalty of their own powers. Expecting them to live in a square flat among mortals?
He knew their true caliber. To offer them anything less than his own artwork itself, would be an insult to their very essence. They could explore the gritty universe, yes, but at the end of the day, they deserved a sanctuary that matched their caliber.
The floor was a single, seamless sheet of obsidian so pure it was like walking on a night sky without stars. Yet, with each step, faint, glowing sigils ~ reminiscent of the universal translator's script ~ would bloom underfoot before fading away, a subtle interaction with the sanctum's occupant.
The heat of earth is transformed flowing through the conduits within the walls and lighting the whole place.
And at the far end, statues arose of two humanoids holding up the cave wall on their back with arms, with one knee on ground, on either side of centre. At its centre, he raised the thrones.
They were not merely carved. They were cultivated from the mountain's heart. They were forged of the same adamantine-vibranium matrix as the island's core, but its surface capable of swirling energy of respective laws, a display of two realities coexisting without tearing.
But a throne room alone was still impersonal. He needed utility and luxury in equal measure.
Behind the great hall, the mountain opened into a series of ancillary chambers. Here, his control over quantum fields became personal. These spaces were not fixed. The very matter of the walls and floor was programmable. With a thought, a section of the floor could flow upwards to form any tool, a desk, a workbench, or a bed as needed.
Another area could hollow out into a deep, placid pool fed by a trickle of fresh water from the aquifers above and heat from geothermal vent below. Shelves could form from the walls to hold artifacts, then recede back into seamless stone when not in use.
It was a home that was also a tool, a fortress that was also a sanctuary. It was spartan in its aesthetics, but infinitely adaptable in its function. Every comfort was available, but nothing was permanent unless he willed it.
Satisfied, Tao let the last of the excess energy drain from his shoulders. He walked to the hall's center and before the four seats paused his steps. He sat on the central seat and felt the exacting comfort of materials that no money could buy.
The only sounds were the filtered whisper of rain and the almost-silent hum of the island's core.
He lay back on the obsidian, gaze up at the starfield. Noise and gathering powers felt a universe away. Calculations stopped. For the second time he simply… ceased. His consciousness detached from his body and drifted into a guarded, dreamless rest within the shield close to his skin.
***
## Dawn: The First Rain.
Hours later.
He was woken not by light, but a soft, pattering whisper filled the air outside as the first Pacific rain began to fall.
He opened his eyes. His divine sense, now refreshed, gently expanded to observe the system he had built coming to life.The sky was a canopy of low, grey clouds outside.
The water behaved exactly as programmed. The highland's sculpted peaks acted as a perfect catchment, channeling the rain into the seven radial valleys.
He watched as the engineered impermeability of the bedrock forced the water to flow laterally. Rills became streams, carving their first paths down the predetermined gradients.
Thanks to dozen meter long elevation he'd engineered for all valley floors and the raised deltas, there was no saltwater intrusion from the ocean. There is already a vast natural reservoir built within already; The rivers that began to flow just hours after their birth were already 100% fresh.
He left the castle. Standing effortlessly in air, took a bite from the first fruit formed artificially, enjoying the flesh crisp and bursting; mused. " Taste like temporal energy, radiation, water and sweet."
The sound was everywhere ~ the hiss of rain on stone, the murmur of flowing water, the soft gurgle as it spilled over the deltas into the sea. A green blush was already spreading across the slopes.
He didn't dissipated the illusion barrier. The last thing he wanted is his creation being visible to the rest of the world and they coming disturbing his peace.
Besides the most effective natural cover would be a constant, dense atmospheric shield generated by the island's engineered height and heat, combined with the masking of any unusual material signatures through natural-looking field fluctuations.
All seemed well.
***
Then suddenly sensing something in his divine sense, he remembered he has one promise to fulfill shortly.