Well, getting used to is definitely an achievable goal. In time.

Meanwhile, back at the portal. People quickly noticed that the floating islands tend to drift away from each other and that's horrible for navigation. They're also increasingly bewildered by this bizarre world. With that in mind and given how hard creating a second portal would be. They decide to put that project on hold until they feel they have a better grasp on how things work. For all the know they could need to evacuate to either side of the portal and they'd like to be sure that both options are survivable. They start experimenting with the floating stone that composes the islands, hydrogen (which can be easily found and is highly flammable) and various magical interactions. They create a grid of glowing orbs around the portal island. They are too small and too disperse to call attention, but work as a point of reference. They try to figure out if there is a way to make more floating stone. They experiment with various ways to magically tether tiny bits of floating stone so they can have a fleet of islands that keep pace with each other.

They also keep an eye out for people coming buy.

The locals seem to use ropes and wooden timbers. Physical structures with some give and flex to them, plus a lot of careful balancing. Magical reinforcement has mixed results. The floating stone is a sort of leaving or skeleton of a form of local life. If they can encourage plant growth they might be able to get somewhere with that, but it will clearly take a while. Months, minimum.

Ship traffic and visiting flocks of floating creatures are both fairly common. Most of the ships ignore them. One small two-person rig stares at the island through binoculars for a while before leaving. Near sunset on the second day a seemingly endless swarm of ominously spike-covered reddish floating creatures drifts into their general area.

They can encourage growth, but the material is so unusual and unfamiliar they wonder if learning how to build the floating ships is more productive. They call back most of the mages that can't tap sky when the swarm becomes evident. Are the creatures aggressive? Or coming closer?

They are drifting closer. They're not aggressive - but they are pesky, sticky, and those sharp spines would be very hazardous to soft-skinned airships. They're a bit less dangerous to the mages' outpost, with its real, wooden walls.

True, but it's possible that they might need to fight these things under less safer conditions.

Well, that's a good time to figure out how hard to kill the little beasts are.

With help?

Sure! They can see how hard is to kill the creatures using various elements then.

...Not that difficult. Especially with fire. They're deathly afraid of fire, for good reason - it makes them blow up fairly spectacularly with barely a touch.

It's kind of a slaughter.

And since these things might mean the death of airship travelers they can feel no remorse about the slaughter.

Meguto wants some, figure out if they are toxic, edible or whatever. The balloon creatures are just plain fascinating. And they can be captured alive or dead.

Great! Some people are not at all suited to work on sky-sky-and-more-sky-forever world. They can use this to have fun flexing their magical abilities.

Samples and specimens can be easily collected with their broken elemental powers. The poor spiky swarm will not know what hit them.