
by F.G. Smith
An engineer in a world of magic. The most dangerous combination imaginable. Noah Calder didn't plan on falling through an ancient portal into Tenebrae — a world where Fae magic shapes reality and the men who can't wield it are considered nobody. But Noah has something better than magic: thirty years of engineering knowledge this world forgot it ever needed. Ball bearings. Levers. A crossbow that actually works. And the growing attention of a pink-haired Fae scholar, a white-haired smuggler captain, and an entire tribe of wild Fae who are starting to wonder if this strange traveller is the most useful person they've ever met. But finding the brother he came looking for is pulling Noah deeper into a world of ancient ruins, Fae politics, and a shadow growing in the east — a masked warlord called the Iron Lord, whose reach is longer than anyone knows. If you picked up a hammer in a world full of magic, what would you build first? IMPORTANT NOTICE: BOOK 2 WILL BE STUBBING ON NOVEMBER 13TH TO BE REPOSTED ON AMAZON ON NOVEMBER 15TH!
#9
8/21/2026
Peak #50
0d
#8
8/11/2026
Peak #22
9d
#7
8/11/2026
Peak #18
9d
#6
8/11/2026
Peak #18
9d
#5
8/11/2026
Peak #22
8d
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 05:38 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 05:38 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.
A confirmed Rising Stars eligibility removal excludes this story from the Shadow queue.
beats 77% of similar stories
beats 39% of similar stories
beats 92% 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 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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