by MalcolmTent
Heroes, Villains and those in between constantly struggle in a world where the race to the top of the food chain can be brutal and unforgiving. For people like Shane, though, sometimes you get a leg up on the competition. Maybe he can be one of the few that can actually make it to the top. Or maybe that's just Wishful thinking. New cover courtesy of Aes! M-F daily updates. Edit: Book eleven has officially been stubbed for Amazon! You can find the first book on Amazon or on Audible if you want to check it out, and book eleven on Amazon now!
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:28 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 08:28 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 95% of similar stories
beats 89% of similar stories
beats 1% 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 150+ chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views lifetime.
