
by BD Booker
Salvation comes with terms and conditions. When a bad salvaging job turns into a bloodbath, The System doesn't give Mayne time to grieve his fallen crew: It hands him the bill. Forced into an indentured contract, Mayne ends up trapped in a corporate hellscape engineered to squeeze him to his last cent, breath, and click. Life in the galactic "Wilds" is nasty, brutish, and short. This makes perfect high-octane streaming content for the trillions of lazy consumers watching safely from the so-called "Civiled" Worlds. After all, their clicks make the galaxy go round. Alongside an AI intern living in his headspace, an adorable alien battle-beast, and a budding crew, Mayne will learn to monetize and leverage the corporate dystopia that binds him. To survive, Mayne and his crew have to do battle not only on exotic, dangerous Wild planets, but also in boardrooms, nightmarish corpo labs, and eventually, across financial markets and shipping lanes. Every breath is a battle. Every decision, a possibility for victory or defeat. No shortcuts- Every dollar, level, and skill is earned the hard way. LitRPG- Phased leveling, classes, jobs, a nanite pool, magic-like technologies. Paywalled dystopia- A darkly funny, dystopian universe where everything is monetized and gated. Dynamic Duo- Mayne’s fully sentient AI intern often means well. You can judge the execution. High Stakes Satire- While there's a healthy dose of humor, the stakes are high, the dangers are real, and the consequences hard to bear. Companion- Mayne will have to raise and train an adorable alien battle beast. Chaotic Action- He may be a rogue sniper, but Mayne spends lots of time fighting close and personal. No harem. Ultimately, the universe is vast, but the rent is due. Cover art assembled and licensed from Shutterstock: Tithi Luadthong
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #35
2d
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #10
2d
#4
7/17/2026
Peak #33
25d
#3
7/3/2026
Peak #6
38d
#2
7/3/2026
Peak #48
0d
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#3192 of 7,531 · 3142 below #50
By genre
beats 97% of similar stories
beats 50% of similar stories
beats 87% 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.
At this conversion, the Adventure Rising Stars bar (≈7 new followers/day) costs about 458 views/day — the story currently gets ~147.
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 over the recent window.
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