
by StayAdventurous -Harmon Hamlin
Some bonds make you stronger. Some force you to choose who you’re willing to lose. And some secrets refuse to stay buried. JT and Avi have been friends for years, but they couldn't be more different. Avi is brilliant, ambitious, and determined to prove himself inside MIT’s elite product foundry where the next generation of corporate tech is born. JT prefers to stay invisible. Then the foundry’s secure research vault is breached. Student projects vanish overnight, including Avi’s breakthrough encryption system. The administration immediately pins the theft on him, and with corporations demanding answers, Avi’s future begins to unravel. Desperate, he turns to the one person he trusts completely: JT. Searching for the stolen tech drags them into a conspiracy of corporate espionage, hidden organizations, and people willing to kill to protect what was taken. As the danger escalates, JT is forced to use abilities he’s spent years hiding—drawing the attention of exactly the kind of people he never wanted to face again. With enemies closing in and their friendship pushed to its limits, JT and Avi must decide who they can trust…and how far they’re willing to go for each other. Neither can walk away. What to expect: – A grounded, character‑driven thriller set in the modern tech world – A steady, suspense‑first opening in Book 1 that lays the emotional and conspiratorial foundation (Slow Burn that picks up the pace after the first third of the novel) – A rise in action and intensity as JT steps into the abilities he’s been hiding – Multiple POVs told through 3rd‑person limited Release Schedule: Starting 3 August, Chapters will be release M-F at 7:25 EDT Author Note: Short chapters will be paired with additional releases that week. Book 1 is complete at 66 chapters + 2 Epilogues
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.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
4%
Two or more lists
1%
Likely threshold order: Contemporary → Action → Main.
Leading bundle: Contemporary (3%).
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
#11103 of 12,129 · 11053 below RS #50
By genre
beats 13% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 20% of similar stories
Both levers trail the field
Traffic and conversion are both below comparable stories. Cadence is the first lever — stories posting near-daily reached 25 followers 17% of the time; stories posting every few days almost never did. Get the flow going, then re-check conversion.
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.
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