COTE : There is Something Wrong With Hikigaya - Chapter 196: Birthday

Imagine being forced to live, after death, as incorporeal bodies trapped in a vast space of nothingness for thousands of years, with nothing to do but exchanging past memories with other cohabitants (read: weirdos). Everybody wanted out, but there was no way to leave the Void…

Until one day, a young man was finally summoned, as a powerful but reluctant mentor, by a bubbly and motivated but completely naive young girl. Baiyi, finally out of the Void, was the only one who could save all of the other 32 souls from their prison and his summoner might just be The Key to their freedom.

However, Baiyi had to use the techniques and abilities the other souls had taught him throughout the years, and together with his own extensive knowledge of anime and game tropes from his shady and dangerous past as an otaku, to face the biggest challenge of them all: training the clumsy young girl he was forced to partner up with… into a competent sorcerer!

This is a story of heroic adventures, cunning strategies and romantic tales. How will our MC thrive in a world completely strange to him? Where will his ambitions and abilities take him in the palace?

- Description from Novelupdates

The Strongest Magic meets the Mightiest Mecha.

I have stolen Golden Mechas from the deepest vaults of the most tightly guarded fortresses in the world.

I have personally destroyed more armies than the top three superpowers have in the span of the Absolute War - combined.

I burned down the terrorist megacity of Habon.

I was expelled from the Union of Heroes at a younger age than people are allowed in.

I have talked to Ancient Gods, loved women, and devoured mechas that would make superpowers cringe in fear.

I have faced demons head on in moonless nights others fear to speak of during the day.

I am deified in a thousand cultures, and labelled as the devil incarnate in the rest.

I am the Mecha Emperor.

You may have heard of me.

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Excerpt from Chapter 1

This is where it all began.

A junkyard.

Oh no, this isn't your clean, mechas-only junkyard that was the 'starting point' of many mecha geniuses out there.

I have seen and heard my share of rags-to-riches stories, and many of them claimed that they had started from 'junkyards' and slowly grew to be where they were right now.

From Zero to Hero, they declared.

You can do it too, they said.

As long as you work hard, everything is possible, they claimed.

I call bullshit.

Life doesn't work like that.

A decade ago, the first dungeon gates appeared, but some vanished before they were ever conquered. The MC, a low-rank hunter, awakens the Lost Gate System, granting him access to these forgotten dungeons where legendary monsters and artifacts are trapped. Each completed lost gate grants him absurd power, but also reveals terrifying truths—these dungeons are prisons for ancient beings who want revenge.

Cao Shaoyang was reborn as an ordinary high school senior with the same name and surname, with a net worth of nearly 100 million. He was a regular student with no special talents, except he was granted a “Godly Rich System” that randomly triggered rewards every time he spent money on women.The stepmom accompanying the studies, a saleswoman with a charming figure, the beautiful campus flowers, and her curvaceous and sexually attractive mother. There’s also a married woman on Douyin (TikTok) and a woman on Kuaishou (another Chinese short video app) showing off her figure!This is the story of a young man with an ordinary background who aspires to live a lavish life.While the married women are his true love, Cao Shaoyang occasionally doesn’t mind keeping a few young beauties around to relieve the pressures of life.