
by Dosei
Book 1: Completed and rewrittenBook 2: CompletedBook 3: Completed Book 4: Ongoing Adam is no one special. He’s just an accountant standing in line at a bakery one early Saturday morning, because his craving for Jameson’s croissants finally broke him. Unfortunately, fate has other plans for him, as the black cubes show up before he can get his pastries. The cubes are the heralds and guides of the Trials of Defiance. They’ve decided that Adam, along with every other able-bodied human adult, is to become a Player in their game. Humanity’s future is at stake and it’s all but inevitable that Adam is going to die. After all, he’s no one special. Despite it all, he overcomes the first Stage. He attains some measure of power and then discovers a way to kill the black cube following him around. The only problem is that killing the cube takes him down with it. Oh, and it also gives him the power to go back in time when he dies. What to expect:- Infrequent timeloops (but no two loops the same)- Slowburn narrative- Minor romance subplots- Weak-to-strong protagonist- Clear progression- Roguelite-inspired GameLit (meta upgrades, etc.)- The existential horror inherent to time-travelling- Huge build variety (Relics, Weapon Types, Divine Boons, etc.)- Meta upgrades and recurring characters New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, & FridayBonus chapters at every 500-follower milestone Patreon is 20+ chapters ahead. Inspired by Korean SysApocs like ‘Master Hunter K’, and by Action Roguelite games such as ‘Hades’ and ‘The Binding of Isaac’ Cover art by Nick_Superhero I have a Discord group where you can connect with other readers of my stories. This story has only been made available on RoyalRoad and Patreon with my permission. If you find this story anywhere else, that is someone impersonating me.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 02:29 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 02:29 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
1%
Two or more lists
0%
Likely threshold order: Psychological → Adventure → Action → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Psychological + Adventure + Action (0%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#788 of 12,432 · 738 below RS #50
By genre
beats 70% of similar stories
beats 32% of similar stories
beats 99% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 150+ chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
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