
by DamonRex
The Cypher gives everyone a path. And everyone is expected to follow it. As the refuse manager’s strange son, Emrick has spent his life being underestimated because of his patched clothes, strange inventions, and finding worth in things other people throw away. With his Awakening growing close, all he wants is a class that will let him build, invent, and finally leave his old life behind. Instead, the World Cypher gives him a class no one has ever heard of, a system that punishes him for doing what he thinks is right, and an opossum companion who is the first animal to gain the ability to think and speak in over a millennium. Now every act of compassion threatens to push him closer to becoming what everyone fears most: a Pathbreaker, someone severed from the Cypher itself. Left broken and barely able to function. He never set out to rebel.He only wanted to help the people in front of him.But if doing what is right can break his path, then the path may be wrong. What to expect: • A character-driven progression fantasy with LitRPG/GameLit elements• Classes, skills, quests, stats, and system notifications• An underestimated inventor with a strange hidden class• Earned growth, clever problem-solving, and nontraditional uses of abilities• A loyal, sarcastic opossum companion• Unlikely companions, hidden truths, dangerous faith, and a system that may not be what it seems• No harem New chapters every Monday / Wednesday / Friday I have close to 180,000 words already written and a comfortable backlog of over three months at my release pace, plus books two and three completely outlined. Cover Art by DamonRex
Current
8/26/2026
Peak #18
36d
Current
8/24/2026
Peak #14
38d
Observed Royal Road ranks are authoritative for lists where the story is active. Other eligible lists retain their Shadow RS ranks.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#430 of 12,416 · 380 below RS #50
By genre
beats 97% of similar stories
beats 66% of similar stories
beats 91% 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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