
by Owlacrity
Street magicians perform fake miracles every day. Evel needs a real one. Frail, hungry, and on the run, his only chance at a better life is to enlist. He's got one advantage: Eth. An invisible hand that perfectly obeys his will, bound by a single rule: it will not harm. Even indirectly. Evel is thrown into a deadly recruitment trial, where fighters clash for a place in the military's ranks, and a chance at real power. He needs to overcome nobles with decades of training and commoners as desperate as himself armed with a pacifist's ability. They expect a clash of titans; he will give them a masterclass in deception. And nobody is watching the hand. What to expect: ♠ Bluffing, scheming, improvisation ♦ Evolving abilities and progression ♣ Magic tricks, circus acts, P R E S E N T A T I O N ♥ Evel will try his best, despite how terrible his circumstances Schedule: MTTF Patreon is at 30+ chapters ahead Fan art and further discussions in the discord. Cover artist: @mangokiller If you're sailing the seven seas, please consider reading it for free on RoyalRoad.
#18
7/19/2026
Peak #50
0d
#17
7/10/2026
Peak #19
1d
#16
7/3/2026
Peak #32
5d
#15
6/29/2026
Peak #36
4d
#14
6/26/2026
Peak #46
1d
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 04:26 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 04:26 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
2%
Two or more lists
1%
Likely threshold order: Drama → Action → Adventure → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Drama (1%).
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
#214 of 11,998 · 164 below RS #50
By genre
beats 74% of similar stories
beats 79% of similar stories
beats 97% 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 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
+47 more