![Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith [Book 5 stubbing July 23]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.royalroadcdn.com%2Fpublic%2Fcovers-large%2F60277-irwins-journey-the-cardsmith.jpg%3Ftime%3D1711823517&w=640&q=75)
by Carrarn
Progression, magical cards, weak to strong, card reforging! The young, sickly Irwin has seen nothing but bad luck in his short life. When his brother finally returns with a magical card for him, his luck is about to change. But will it change for the better? Irwin is sent off together with another group of youths to placate a group of sorcerers. With just a weird utility card granted by his brother, he can only pray to stay alive long enough. This is a card-gathering story. Crafting is not the main focus at first, but as the story progresses, it becomes increasingly important to the MC. Slow-paced, starts dark, weak-to-strong (but slow) For those who like to know these things, the story is currently about 12 books long and will likely grow to about 15 before completion. I will very likely write more in the same universe after that, though I will be letting my Patrons help with that decision. Release schedule: [Fri and Sun] Roughly 22:00 - On Patron [Fr,Sa,Su] Books one, two, and three have been stubbed! They are now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited! More books will be removed as they are released. Future chapters will still be released on RoyalRoad first. The Audiobook for book one is also finally up! I am still a non-native English speaker (hard to change), so even with the edits and rewrites, you might find some oddities. Let me know, and I'll fix them right up.
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, 03:18 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 03:18 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 5% of similar stories
beats 93% of similar stories
beats 92% of similar stories
Readers arrive, few stick
Traffic is strong, but conversion trails comparable stories. The usual suspects are the blurb, the cover and the opening chapters — fixing the hook multiplies everything the existing traffic brings.
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 over the recent window.
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