Locke wasn't wearing his armour today, which was a rare sight. Instead, he wore a grey cloak, which was a common attire in the Sanctum. His froststeel armour was too eye-catching.
Locke, who had a lot of good stuff in his spatial ring, planned to visit the famous trading area outside the Sanctum today.
Two dark stone statues stood silently outside the Sanctum Academy's main gate. They were probably not just decorations. The stone statues' scarlet eyes were so lifelike that they gave people the illusion that these two dark-skinned, bat-like creatures could jump up and hurt people.
Locke's current identity was very interesting. He didn't know how the grey-robed Magister had identified him, but he seemed to be somewhere between a caster and a commoner in the Sanctum.
Most of the public areas in the Sanctum were open to Locke, but there were some places that he couldn't enter, such as where Angelina studied and attended classes.
The brown badge on his chest flashed and Locke strode out of the Sanctum's gate. This badge represented his identity in the Sanctum and stored some basic information about him.
He also needed an identity badge to enter and exit the Sanctum. Without it, he'd be knocked down by the two level-2 alchemy puppets the moment he stepped out of the gate.
There was a walkway that spanned across the forest from the Sanctum to the trading area outside the Sanctum. It made it easy for people to enter and leave the Sanctum quickly.
This walkway was mainly prepared for Lehrlings who were below the rank of Magister. Casters who had reached level-one could rely on their massive mana and strong mental power to break free from the shackles of the plane's gravity, regardless of whether they'd learned flying spells or not.
Who would walk if they could fly? Flying was the privilege of the strong. Now, Locke could only watch enviously as the casters flew in the sky one after another. He could only walk on the ground.
The walkway in the sky was also one of the surprises he'd received from the Sanctum. There was a transparent staircase made of some kind of alchemy material under his feet. Locke, who didn't know much about the material, was worried that he'd suddenly fall down.
He was more than a hundred meters up in the sky. Even with his physique, he'd definitely be smashed into meat paste if he fell.
Fortunately, his initial worries were put to the back of his mind after a while. There were many casters in the air corridor, and most of them were heading to the periphery of the Sanctum like Locke. They gathered in groups of twos and threes, occasionally pointing at a major monster below and exclaiming in surprise.
Along the way, Locke followed their gazes and saw many high-rank and quasi-rank major monsters roaming the forest below. The law of the jungle existed everywhere. It was the fate of major monsters to devour or be devoured.
He had seen enough high-level magical beasts in the past two days, and all of them were highly aggressive high-level magical beasts, so he did not make a fuss like the other mages.
Only when he encountered a base-rank or mid-rank major monster would he stop and observe for a while.
Most of the high-ranked magical beasts resided far away from the Sky Corridor. It was unknown if they were intentionally avoiding the area or if they'd been chased out by the Sanctum Mages.
It was always a long walk before one was found somewhere in the forest below.
It was said that super-rank major monsters lived in the forest below. They were powerful creatures equivalent to Erdritters or level-2 Casters, but here, they were merely captured by the Sanctum Casters and thrown into the forest as test subjects.
The forest was completely man-made. The number of plants and the major monsters that resided in it were all the creations of the Sanctum Casters. Locke felt a chill down his spine when he heard the news two days ago.
As for when the Sanctum Casters had completed the construction of the forest, it had to be traced back to when the talented Panamanian Caster had broken through to become a fourth-rank sacred-caster.
Was it two thousand years ago? Or was it three thousand years ago? It was all recorded on the brochure of the Sanctum Academy, but due to the sheer amount of information, Locke could only remember the gist of it.
He spent the entire morning walking. With Locke's speed as a high-rank Knecht, one could only imagine how big the forest was.
The Sanctum was built on a giant island, which he'd already found out on the first day he arrived. As soon as he got off the Sky Corridor, Locke looked at the white beach in the distance, the bright sky, and the flying herons in the sky. His mood improved.
He was a man who was easily influenced by his surroundings.
Giant ships were docked by the shore. There were no docks here because casters hated noise.
Only one or two of the giant ships were the floating ships that Locke had been on before. The rest were ordinary ships. Given Aomar's capabilities, it wasn't difficult for them to build such large ships.
Of course, not all of them belonged to Aomar. From the decorations and flags on some of the ships, Locke guessed that they were probably from the other two continents.
The purpose of his trip was the small trading area that was formed on the shore not far from the giant ship.
As he walked into the trading area, he could hear merchants bartering and haggling along the way.
As mentioned before, casters hated noise, so compared to the market, the trading area was more like sitting in a shop and discussing prices calmly.
No matter how otherworldly the Sanctum's mages were, they couldn't avoid the worldly wisdom of normal communication. You can see that some of the more hot-tempered mages were the first to break their rules. They were like merchants in the marketplace, chattering endlessly over a few cents.
Locke walked straight to the northwest of the trading area. He'd heard that many knights from the Hall of Knights would set up their stalls there.
News of him being trapped in the Sanctum hadn't spread yet. In order to prevent his family from worrying, he had to get someone to pass the message back to them.
As for the conscription order from the Hall of Knights, he wasn't too worried about it now. Even if the sky fell, there would be tall people to hold it up. Since the grey-robed caster had caught him, he had to take responsibility for it.
Of course, he would also inform his friend from the Hall of Knights, Xith, about the ins and outs of the matter. He believed that Xith would take care of everything for him.
The knights in the trading area were easy to identify. It didn't take long for Locke to find the base station of the Hall of Knights outside the Sanctum.
It was best to leave the task of passing messages to official staff because they could be trusted and their credibility was guaranteed.
After describing everything on the paper, Locke passed it to a young man in front of him. The young man was only a low-rank Knecht, but he was surprised that he could work in the Hall of Knights.
"Don't worry, it'll reach Princeton in a week at the latest," said the young knight politely.
Locke nodded in satisfaction. It took him ten days to arrive on the floating ship, but the Hall of Knights only took a week to pass the message back. They probably had their own methods.