
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?
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #22
1d
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #19
1d
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #19
1d
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #22
1d
#4
7/27/2026
Peak #17
14d
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 14:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
On Overall Rising Stars
Now on the real Rising Stars list
By genre
beats 96% of similar stories
beats 8% 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.
At this conversion, the Romance Rising Stars bar (≈4 new followers/day) costs about 327 views/day — the story currently gets ~1.4k.
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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