
by RJFlippo
Star quarterback Alex had a plan: win multiple state championships, become a five- star recruit, and earn bank playing college football at a blue blood program with a massive NIL budget. Then his dad got cancer. With two more years until he is backing up Brinks trucks, Alex is desperate for cash to pay for his dad's treatment. When a shady recruiter for The Realms, a Programmable Pocket Dimension Game, approaches Alex with an offer to circumvent the age requirement in return for a cut of his earnings, he has no other option than to say yes. To bypass the age verification system, Alex must access a dormant account by pretending to be that former player--his own father, Emmett. Soon, the recruiter alters the deal, demanding Alex hunt down mysterious objects in game that could have serious implications for the real world. Alex must uncover the objects hidden importance to have any hope of saving his dad without dooming himself. WHAT TO EXPECT - Soulslike System - Quests - Dungeons - Overarching Mystery Publishing Schedule: Once a week. Started this for the community magazine contest so I'm working on this in addition to other projects.
No streak history
Rank updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#2285 of 7,637 · 2235 below #50
By genre
beats 91% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 15% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
At this conversion, the Mystery Rising Stars bar (≈1 new followers/day) costs about 49 views/day — the story currently gets ~3.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 5–9 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.
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