
by JuliusA
Jude Ace died the way nobody expects to die at twenty-two. Not in a dungeon. Not fighting monsters. Not saving anyone. He worked himself to death trying to survive medical school and a job at the same time. Then he woke up in Seoul. Same body. Same memories. No documents, no money, no legal identity—and absolutely no explanation for how a Caucasian man who officially does not exist appeared in South Korea. There is, however, one problem far worse than being homeless. Jude knows this world. Gates. Hunters. Magic Beasts. Sung Jin-Woo. He has read both the novel and the manhwa, and if his memory is right, the Double Dungeon is only a few months away. Knowledge should be an advantage. Unfortunately, knowledge does not buy food. Then Jude discovers something else. If he personally kills a monster inside a dungeon and consumes its Essence Stone, he can take something from it. Strength. Speed. Resistances. Skills. Perhaps even things he does not yet understand. There is only one problem. Jude is not a registered Hunter. He is barely a registered human being. If he wants to become strong enough to survive what is coming, he will have to enter dungeons he has no right to enter, kill monsters that belong to someone else's raid, steal their Essence Stones— and eat the evidence. Sung Jin-Woo has the System. Jude Ace has hunger.
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 22 Oct 2026, 17:48 UTC
Entry forecast updated 22 Oct 2026, 17:48 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.
Not enough recent follower history to estimate a shadow rank yet.
beats 95% of similar stories
not enough data yet
beats 9% 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.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.