
by Tim Curenz
The AGI fixed the world and took his job. But when this new perfect reality has bugs, someone should probably look into that… In the near future, Technological Singularity emerges and then just stays. No great war for survival or apocalypse, only a mostly helpful, slightly suffocating strong AI that knows what you need better than you do. Or so it claims. Enter Sean, a software tester whose career was made redundant because code is now flawless, so naturally he dislikes the new status quo. But when he is nudged to participate in a fully physicalized reality-game – it piques his interest. For he used to be an avid gamer, not just a tester. His mission becomes: find every glitch and issue, break every rule, and use it all for fun and profit! 100% human-written! Despite the story themes (AI/AGI/Singularity) there's no generated content inside! (cover is AI, but I'm no visual artist, c'mon, baby steps) The story is meant to be a light-hearted dive into complex topics, such as the meaning of life and humanity's future… interlaced with mistimed cultural references, bad puns, accidental innuendos and double entendres. And many more intentional, too! Also published on minkly.io in audio form and nowhere else (for now!). Oh, and I'm posting as I write - so the story may go in all kinds of wacky directions yet! :> What to expect:- a male MC to start with, slow-burn, weak-to-strong- incremental learning, self-improvement, leveling up- character-driven plot with emotional depth- no contrived harem, later on friendship/romance- detailed and complex video-game-in-real-life mechanics without drowning in numbers- JOKES! Expect a healthy (or unhealthy?) dose of puns, irony, and absurdist nonsense Note: This is a fictional work. While the title "Reality Tester" seems to match a real-world psychotherapy practice from the UK, this story and its characters are entirely fictional and unrelated to that site or its author, no endorsements whatsoever in either direction… though psychology seems very smart! PS: and yes, the cover art is a placeholder generated by a weak AI until I find some artist willing to cobble together something sufficiently silly for this! :>
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, 04:58 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 04:58 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.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 81% of similar stories
beats 84% of similar stories
needs about a week of observations
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.