Runeblade
Maxim Holms aka Bacon Macleod
Kaius just wanted to unlock his class — instead, he restarted the apocalypse. After years of training to awaken his family's forbidden Legacy Skills — powerful, vanishingly rare skills whose creation method wars have been fought to obtain — Kaius has barely merged the first two. A bandit ambush forces him into the Great Depths, a world-spanning mega dungeon where exits are sealed by ancient Guardians. Trapped without a class, he must slay a Guardian to escape — a feat no classless has survived — while using the Depths' crucible to collect his merged skills before class selection and reignite a forgotten trial that nearly ended civilization. Runeblade is a LitRPG delving and skill-merging epic serialized on Royal Road (4.62/4081 ratings) and published as Kindle/Audible volumes, praised as a love letter to classic LitRPG with long arcs, gratuitous fights, fast-paced progression and worldbuilding.
Progression: Explicit LitRPG progression is central and quantified every chapter. (1) Legacy Skills: Kaius's family possesses forbidden, vanishingly rare Legacy Skills forged through secret merging methods; years of training are required to merge the first two, with each merged skill representing a discrete tier-up. (2) Class System: Survival in the Great Depths demands a class; Kaius is classless at entry and must earn class selection through crucible delving, with Runic-Tattoo Wizard/Spellblade as the eventual path in a world of sorcerers. (3) Mega-Dungeon & Guardians: The Great Depths is a world-spanning dungeon with Guardian bosses sealing exits — slaying a Guardian is the gating progression milestone. (4) Skill Merging & Evolution: Skills merge and evolve through combat and delving, with later volumes (e.g., Fourth Skill Evolution in Book 5) marking measurable power jumps; Royal Road tags list progression, LitRPG, strong lead and numbers-go-brrrr. Each volume centers on a dungeon tier, Guardian kill, or skill evolution, making advancement the engine of plot.
Royal Road
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