Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

But if Hayasaka herself isn't here… did she realize something was wrong and stop before following me into the shrine? That's possible, but she couldn't have just stayed outside doing nothing. Even the slightest contact with the Fox Queen's or Blood Flower's power could cause trouble, but given Hayasaka's personality, she would never do nothing. Besides, even Ichiri's clone followed me in; there's no reason for Hayasaka to stay alone. So she must have encountered some unexpected situation…

Where is she now? What happened?

"Hoo... Uh..."

Gao Hai's body, covered by blood-red vines and the fox queen, trembled slightly.

No, I can't move.

Although the mountain god's power protected his consciousness, it didn't solve the problems with the fox queen and the blood flower. He could only barely hold on for a little longer; his current predicament remained unchanged.

What should I do?

In this state, I can't even activate my mental power to detect what's going on outside the ancestral hall. How can I get out of this situation?

Both the Fox Queen and the Crimson Flower are completely uncontrollable forces; I cannot alter the behavior of either of them. In contrast, only the Mountain God can be influenced by me to some extent, but the connection between us is not strong enough. If I issue simple commands, the Mountain God might help, but problems easily arise in more complex situations. Ultimately, to properly utilize the Mountain God's power, firstly, a certain flesh-and-blood sacrifice ritual is needed to deepen the connection; secondly… yes, the second point is that the person communicating with the Mountain God needs to establish a personality template within the Mountain God, thereby ensuring that the Mountain God, in accordance with their communication, will favor them and act in their best interest.

Gao Hai definitely couldn't complete the sacrificial ritual, since he had no idea how to do it correctly. But if it came to creating a personality template, there might be a way. Now that the mountain god was responding to him, if he concentrated his mental energy and tried to feed a complete personality template back to the mountain god, he might be able to achieve results.

So, what to do next?

Gao Hai closed his eyes, trying his best to stay conscious, and under the influence of the Blood Flower and the Fox Queen's power, he tried to concentrate on finding a personality template that he could use.

First, Gao Hai's own personality template cannot be fed back to the Mountain God.

It's not because of any possibility of creating a clone, but mainly because Gao Hai has now caught the eye of the Blood Flower, and his personality and thoughts will cause the Blood Flower to react abnormally. The Mountain God is the main force suppressing the Blood Flower, so if Gao Hai's personality template appears in the Mountain God, the Blood Flower that He is suppressing might react abnormally. Therefore, this matter must be avoided.

Maki, Kaguya, and Miko, having merged with Takami, also possess their personality templates, but this is definitely unacceptable. For the same reason, the Mountain God has a close relationship with the Blood Flower, so any personality template that might be connected to a living person in reality cannot be used indiscriminately. This is especially true for Miko; she is currently bound by the Blood Flower, and who knows what chain reaction her personality template might trigger.

In that case, Gao Hai would have no choice but to create a personality template for the mountain god based on a dead person.

So, which dead person's personality template did he have in his possession?

So far, this person has had a fusion of personality and memories with Gao Hai, coexisting with him in terms of thought. Therefore, he can reproduce Gao Hai's personality and thoughts. And now that Gao Hai is dead, he can no longer come back to life and can no longer harm anyone. Who could this person be?

what?

Gao Hai was stunned.

If that's the case, then there's only one candidate left, right?

But if you do that, will the mountain god continue to help you?

No, that's not right. My thinking is wrong. I don't need to perfectly replicate the personality template. As long as the basic logical structure of the personality template is normal and can cooperate with the mountain god's mechanism to help me, that's enough.

Moreover, if you think about it this way, an extremely unique personality template might actually be helpful. After all, under normal circumstances, someone like me with a weak connection to the mountain god would hardly receive much help, so a unique personality template might achieve unexpected results in this situation.

Great, let's go then.

Although he still felt the idea was somewhat crazy, Gao Hai had no better choice at this moment.

"Please listen to my plea, Mountain God, establish contact with me, and accept my prayers."

At this moment, spiritual power coalesced, and under Gao Hai's will, it called out to the being that had been projected and realized.

I could feel the other person's gaze.

Even though there was no emotion in that gaze, even though it was only mechanically cold, it did respond to Gao Hai, and that was all it did—it only responded to Gao Hai.

So if you want to deepen the connection further and get more help, this is the only way.

Gao Hai's mental energy was rapidly depleted. At this moment, he retrieved a fragment from his painful past memories, made some modifications to it, and then turned his gaze back to the Mountain God.

"Then, Lord Mountain God."

The last soft call faded away.

Gao Hai no longer hesitated and released all the mental power he could muster, casting his gaze toward the mountain god of Xiaoheishan and the ancestral hall.

"From now on, please become Alice for the time being!"

hum-

The next moment, Gao Hai, who had lost much of his mental energy, felt dizzy and almost fainted under the power of the Fox Queen and the Blood Flower.

Or to be more precise, his spirit had shattered at that moment. After actively consuming some of his spiritual power and losing the protection of the mountain god, he was directly brain dead under the combined power of the fox queen and the blood flower.

However, Gao Hai is now much harder to kill in one go. Although the blessing of immortality is not powerful enough in the face of divine power, it is enough to protect Gao Hai's life. Therefore, despite experiencing the feeling of death again, Gao Hai is still stubbornly alive, and he cannot truly die for at least 10 minutes.

This small amount of time gained was enough for Gao Hai.

hum-

The connection with the gods was re-established.

A connection, more intimate and clearer than before, penetrated deep into Gao Hai's soul at this moment, building a bridge with the gaze of the Mountain God of Xiaoheishan.

He saw a blurry image in that instant.

Crimson flowers spread across the land.

Then, from the soil, from the rivers, from the mountains, from the sky, from all parts of the planet, power gathered and clashed with the blood-red flower.

That seems like a very, very long time ago.

So ancient that history had not yet begun to be written, civilization was still in its infancy, and writing and language had not yet been born.

hum-

Gao Hai opened his eyes again.

The blurry image vanished without a trace, like a mirage.

At this moment, what he could sense was the mountain god's aura, which was more than ten times stronger than before, and the voice that the other party clearly transmitted into his mind:

[Hehe, Teacher is really in a sorry state right now, but Alice likes her even though she's about to die. So, does Teacher miss Alice?]

Chapter 76: Regarding the situation outside the Alice version of the Mountain God and the shrine

Hearing that voice again, that malicious, mocking laughter, Gao Hai had to admit...

His fist hardened again!

Even though he knew that the person speaking to him now was not the Alice from Fujika Middle School, but the Black Mountain God with Alice's personality, Gao Hai still had a lot of psychological trauma from this voice, to the point that he would subconsciously want to punch someone as soon as he heard it.

[Really? Really? Is the teacher really going to beat Alice up? Alice is helping the teacher right now! Alice saved the teacher's life, and the teacher is going to repay kindness with enmity? Waaah, the teacher is such a naughty adult~]

Damn, you even clamped it up! Can you shut up?

Alice can't do that, after all, she's no longer under the teacher's control. Of course, since she's now a kind mountain goddess Alice transformed by the teacher, she'll help the teacher, not be the teacher's enemy. How about it, teacher? Aren't you touched? Do you like this version of Alice? Alice really likes the teacher, so let's become good friends and walk hand in hand this time!

Damn it, can you please stop using that high-pitched voice? I don't remember Alice being a character who likes to speak in a high-pitched voice!

Gao Hai was very angry.

However, he wasn't so easily swayed by the appearance of this fake Alice that he lost his temper. After all, it was ultimately Gao Hai's own decision that she appeared. It was just that the psychological trauma he suffered at Fujika Middle School was too great, so he couldn't help but want to punch her.

Okay, now is not the time to think about such things.

What he needs now is to use the power of the mountain god to get out of his current predicament, ensure his own safety, and then check on Hayasaka's situation. That is the most important thing.

Buzz—creak—creak creak—

While he was pondering, both the Blood Flower and the Fox Queen continued to exert their power, further eroding Gao Hai's body.

For a moment, Gao Hai’s consciousness, which had barely recovered, almost completely collapsed, but in the end he stubbornly held on, struggling on the edge of death for a while like a drowning person struggling to surface for air.

{Help me break free from the conflict between the Fox Queen and the Blood Flower}

Enduring the pain, Gao Hai spoke to the mountain god, who had been imbued with Alice's personality, through his mental power.

No, Alice won't help the teacher!

Then he was immediately rejected.

what?

Gao Hai was stunned.

What's going on? Why is she refusing? Didn't I modify the template for this Alice personality? Logically, even though her personality is similar to the original Alice the Monster and is extremely wicked, she should still be able to help me normally.

Could it be that this personality template changes on its own and doesn't completely follow the pattern I gave it? How could this be? If this were possible, we should have noticed it before. Why hasn't any related information leaked out?

[Hmph, has the teacher become stupid, or is it that the teacher cares too much about Alice and has even lost the ability to think normally? Whatever Alice has become, don't forget the proper procedure for getting help. You should say, "Please, lovely Miss Alice, save me!" Then Alice will be able to help you~]

Amidst the mocking voice, Gao Hai seemed to feel Alice's small body pressed against his back, whispering in his ear.

It was through the other person's words that Gao Hai realized the connection between the mountain god and humans wasn't as simple as casual conversation like with the fox goddess; it involved a certain ritual. Therefore, he had to verbally invoke the mountain god's help, to express his needs clearly in words. Simply shouting through the mental link wouldn't be enough for the mountain god to provide assistance.

Oh, I see. It seems I was so angry with Alice that I overlooked this detail.

Thinking this, Gao Hai wanted to call out, but then he realized that as the new personality target that the mountain god was carrying, Alice might have changed the normal process of asking the mountain god for help. Therefore, if Gao Hai shouted "Mountain god, save me" as before, he probably wouldn't get any help.

"Well, teacher, have you figured it out? Alice is really looking forward to seeing how you're going to say that!"

Almost at the same moment Gao Hai realized the problem, Alice's wicked laughter rang out once again.

{...Find a different sentence; the previous one won't work.}

Gao Hai remained silent for a moment, then offered his opinion.

No, that's the sentence Alice wants to hear her teacher say.

But as Alice herself said, she is now beyond Gao Hai's control and has become the template for the mountain god's personality. Therefore, without changing the mountain god's underlying logic, it can indeed be slightly modified if it's just the standard use of one or two sentences.

{Why does it have to be this kind of sentence? Aren't you an individual manifestation of my spiritual power? You're not actually the Alice who was destroyed and annihilated. There's no need to imitate her so perfectly, is there? Why do you seem so keen on tormenting me? Am I your enemy?}

Gao Hai was speechless.

【You should ask the teacher, after all, I am the Alice in your mind, this is the Alice you want, it has nothing to do with Alice~】

The girl's laughter echoed in Gao Hai's mind.

It seemed as if the other person was constantly whispering in his ear, repeating things like, "Shout it out, shout it out."

The power of the Blood Flower and the Fox Queen clashed fiercely once again. Gao Hai frowned, finally abandoning his petty pride, and following Alice's version of the Mountain God's lead, gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, and shouted with all his might:

"Please, dear Miss Alice, please save me!"

Buzz-buzz-

The next second, accompanied by a piercing noise, the mountain god's power, which had originally only been protecting Gao Hai's consciousness, began to intervene on a large scale in the predicament within the ancestral hall.

[There's just no way to deal with the teacher, so Alice will help her out.]