Two crystals

* * *Eric's POV* * *
After two months of experiments Eric learned several things.

First, he couldn't create new magic spells without knowing the ancient language of Alice's world. Even so, since he had a good imagination, all he needed to do was to see a magic circle one time and he could copy it immediately.

Second, the limit of the magic circles that he could make at the same time. His limit was 30 magic circles because if he tried to make more it would be hard to control them and they will disappear resulting in him losing his mana for nothing. Although he didn't know what was the limit of normal people, he considered that 30 was more than enough in a battle.

And third, how much mana he had. Although he didn't know the limit of a normal human, he summoned swords continuously for around one hour before running out of mana and collapsing. In that one hour, he summoned around five thousand swords and he thought that was pretty good.

Now, coming back to the present, after learning so much about his limits, Eric fought with all he had against Kratos's underlings even if he was at disadvantage.

Eric was in the middle of a small glade and the moon's light illuminated his surroundings in a ten meters radius making him seem like a bright light in the middle of the darkness, his enemies could easily tell where he was while Eric needed to wait until they attacked him to strike back.

At the start of the battle he thought that he needed to fight with just two people and that would be all but after he overwhelmed them with countless swords, another several ones come. Although they weren't so strong, they were many and they knew more spells and were more experienced than him. In the beginning they just attacked from the distance but since Eric continued dodging they changed to melee attacks soon.

When Eric dodged some arrows that come straight at him, a guy appeared out of nowhere in the place where he dodged and cut his back with a sword. Eric then felt a sharp pain and how his warm blood was flowing out of the wound. Even so, he ignored the pain and quickly summoned a sword and slashed it back, cutting the stomach of the person behind him. After this, Eric left that place quickly because in a battle is harder to hit a moving target and his decision was correct because he luckily dodged at the last moment two invisible wind blades that were meant to cut him in half. He then dodged another several wind blades that this time left him with several small cuts all over his body.

Eric knew that he couldn't keep going like that and summoned 360 degrees around him several swords and shot them in every direction. He didn't stop here and changed his position and did the same move again several times. After he got tired he hide behind a tree to catch his breath.

The forest was dead quiet and no attacks come at him anymore. Eric kept his guard up but even after several minutes, no one showed. 

("Pfiu... seems like it's finally over!")

Eric thought that they were all dead and sighed in relief but he was glad too early. When he tried to move, he realized that his feets were caught by the roots of the trees and several arrows were flying toward him. He was trapped here and all he could do was to summon the swords and make a wall with them but that wasn't fast enough and 3 arrows slipped through and hit his left shoulder, right leg and scratched his right cheek. 

For someone that was never hurt so badly, the pain almost made him faint. His view become foggy and he coughed a mouth of blood. With all the strength with which he was left he stuck his sword into the ground trying to cut the roots but something unexpected happened. A magic circle appeared on the ground and started to extend until it reached two hundred meters radius and then a pillar of light come out of it and reached the sky.

The last survivors that attacked Eric were caught in the light and had their internal organs crushed because of the density of the magical power, while Eric, in the center of that magic circle, was barely conscious. He fell on his knees and the blood from his wounds dripped on the ground and was absorbed by the magic circle.

 The ground then started to shake like in an earthquake and a door opened in it. From that place, two rhombus shaped crystals come out and floated in front of Eric. While his view was still blurry, Eric subconsciously touched the crystals and they transformed into light and entered his hand. After this, the pillar of light slowly disappeared and Eric fell through the door from the ground and disappeared.

Several minutes later Eric woke up in an empty room with iron walls and ceiling. He didn't know what happened and stayed in a dazed state for a while until he took a deep breath and realized that he was still alive. He then quickly raised his upper body and looked at his hands and feets that were badly hurt before but now were completely healed, even the big cut from his back was gone.

("What in the world just happened?!")
Eric looked confused at the empty room and didn't know what to do. He didn't know what just happened and couldn't explain it either. 

He tried to remember every detail before he fainted but in the middle of that, in the room a change occurred. From the ground, a wooden pedestal emerged and the middle of Eric's palms started to become hot. Eric felt the heat and looked at his palms where the tattoos of a rhombus appeared in the middle of each palm. 

He became more confused until the top of the pedestal attracted his attention. On the top of it were two empty rhombus holes and he suddenly remembered the crystals he saw before fainting.

He got up and approached the pedestal slowly. He looked at the two holes then put his hand on them and in the next moment the tattoo started to shine and so did the pedestal.

After several seconds, I'm front of the wall behind the pedestal a hologram of an old man appeared.

The man was around sixty or seventy years old and was staying in an armchair. He was wearing plain clothes and had a warm smile like every other grandpa in this world.

The old man looked at Eric like he could really see him and started to talk with Eric for a while. After he ended all he had to say the hologram of the old man disappeared and Eric fell in thoughts for a while but he made up his mind quickly and used the tattoos to open the door and go out.

When he come out the chilly air hit him immediately and the battle that was taking place a little further caught his attention. He come out right when Alice collapsed and he quickly rushed towards her. 

After arriving he made sure that she was still alive and took her back underground after taking care of two bugs.
Down here he put her on a bed in a different room, cleaned her wounds and bandaged her but even so her fever didn't go down.

Eric looked at her painful expression of Alice and hold her hand.

"Stupid girl... I told you to not come after me if something like this happens... why can't you listen at least once?"
Eric bitterly smiled and closed his eyes praying that Alice will be alright before he himself falling asleep because of the tiredness. 

After this, as an answer to his prayers, the tattoos started to shine and the wounds on Alice started to heal at a rapid pace, and her pained expression quickly come back to normal.