How Sky Pride Hit #1 on Royal Road Without Reinventing a Single Trope

The common advice for standing out in a crowded genre is to reinvent it. Subvert expectations. Put a fresh spin on tired tropes. Be different.

Sky Pride ignored all of that.

Warby Picus wrote a xianxia cultivation novel with sects, pill refining, flying swords, cultivation realms, face-slapping, and a ghostly grandfather trapped in a magic ring. Every trope you've seen before. Nothing you'd call innovative.

It's now the highest-rated ongoing story on Royal Road. #4 all-time. 10.5 million views. 21,427 followers. An estimated $18,000/month on Patreon. All in under a year.

We went through the reviews, the Reddit threads, and the author's public strategy to figure out how. The answer isn't what writing advice typically tells you.

The Numbers

Metric	Value
Overall Rating	4.81 / 5.0 (96.72%)
Total Ratings	4,656
Total Views	10,545,733
Followers	21,427
Chapters	256 (5 volumes)
Release Schedule	Mon-Fri, ~2,000 words/chapter
Time to Top 4	Under 12 months

For context, the three stories above Sky Pride on the all-time list are Mother of Learning, The Perfect Run, and Super Minion. All completed or on hiatus. All have been on the platform for years.

Sky Pride got there while still publishing.

The Author's Growth

This isn't Warby Picus's first story. He previously published Slumrat Rising on Royal Road.

Metric	Slumrat Rising	Sky Pride
RR Followers	4,540	21,427
RR Views	177,000	10,545,733
RR Rating	4.62	4.81
Patreon Members	--	4,717

That's a 4.7x increase in followers and a 59x increase in views. Same author, same platform. The difference is what he did differently.

What Readers Actually Praise

We coded reviews and discussions across Royal Road (44 pages of reviews), a major Reddit thread on r/ProgressionFantasy (261 upvotes, 73 comments), external reviews from Bardic Planet and James Davis Nicoll, and fan analysis posts.

The findings challenge the assumption that genre innovation is what readers care about.

Character Growth Over Power Fantasy

This was the most cited strength across every source.

"Sky Pride is, genuinely, one of the best things I've ever read." -- Masked_Charade (RR, 5 stars)

"I love this with an irrational love... the humanness of everything." -- Easton Mulholland (RR, 5 stars)

Tian Zihao, the protagonist, is a boy abandoned in a dump with diseases, missing fingers, and a fate the heavens decreed catastrophic. He doesn't become a power fantasy. He becomes wiser.

Bardic Planet's review captured it precisely: "Character work is where Sky Pride shines, with Tian's naivety, kindness, and gradual maturation making him easy to root for, and the supporting cast -- sect brothers, mentors, rivals -- reinforcing that growth rather than overshadowing it."

In typical xianxia, characters gain power mechanically. In Sky Pride, characters become "wiser alongside stronger." Readers noticed the difference -- and it's the single biggest reason they recommend it.

Authentic Philosophy as Narrative Engine

The most distinctive quality. 8 of 10 detailed RR reviews mention it. Every external review highlights it.

"Many stories have tied gaining power to 'personal growth' and 'insight' in a token sense, but none other insists that the spirituality element take center stage over the power element." -- starvingsloth (RR, 5 stars)

"The Daos feel like something that comes from within the characters, influencing how they act and sometimes leading to their downfalls." -- u/OwlrageousJones (Reddit)

Warby Picus did genuine research into Daoism, traditional Chinese medicine, and five-element theory. This isn't surface-level. Bardic Planet noted that the story "highlights how other authors haven't done the same."

Most Western cultivation fiction uses Daoist concepts as a thin veneer over generic power scaling. Aligning with the Dao is shorthand for power up. Sky Pride makes the philosophy the actual engine -- the thing that drives plot, character decisions, and consequences.

There's a gap here. Call it the "spiritual depth gap." The audience wants genuine philosophical substance in their cultivation fiction. Most stories give them Eastern aesthetic dressing on Western power fantasy structures. Sky Pride gives them the real thing.

Humor That Evolves

This was the most-discussed element on Reddit. And the commentary reveals something more interesting than "it's funny."

The top Reddit comment (95 points) described how Tian's humor changes over time: initially he's amusing because he genuinely doesn't understand economics or metaphor -- a child raised in a dump navigating a world of immortal cultivators. Later, he starts to understand social norms and deliberately pretends he still doesn't in order to mess with people.

"I like humor, but the jokes need to build a character, not ruin them." -- u/DetroitInHuman (Reddit)

This is the opposite of the "quippy MC" syndrome that plagues web fiction, where every protagonist delivers the same snarky one-liners from chapter 1 to chapter 500. Sky Pride's humor is a progression system in itself. You can measure Tian's growth by what he finds funny and how he uses comedy.

If the jokes your character makes in chapter 200 could be swapped with chapter 20, the humor isn't doing narrative work. In Sky Pride, it is.

The Crossover Effect

Here's the finding that matters most for authors thinking about audience growth.

Multiple reviewers explicitly stated they don't normally like cultivation fiction but love Sky Pride:

"I love this with an irrational love... I don't typically enjoy cultivation stories." -- Easton Mulholland (RR)

"This isn't some edgy revenge story... one of the best examples of cultivation written." -- Archdragon (RR)

One Redditor bounced off the story for years because of the blurb, only to now consider it "one of the few stories on RR that I can't see myself ever dropping."

The consistent pattern: readers who try Sky Pride despite genre skepticism find that the character work, humor, and philosophical depth override their usual objections. The story doesn't hide the xianxia elements or tone them down. It embraces every trope -- and executes them well enough that the execution itself becomes the draw.

Stories that pull readers from outside their genre's typical audience have disproportionate growth potential. Sky Pride suggests the mechanism isn't minimizing genre tropes. It's layering genuine craft on top of them.

The Only Cultivation Story in the Top 10

To understand why this matters, look at what surrounds Sky Pride on Royal Road's best-rated list:

Rank	Story	Genre	Status
1	Mother of Learning	Fantasy/Time Loop	Complete
2	The Perfect Run	Sci-Fi/Superhero	Complete
3	Super Minion	Sci-Fi/Superhero	Hiatus
4	Sky Pride	Cultivation/Xianxia	Ongoing
5	Mr. Penn	Fantasy/Romance	Complete
6	Game at Carousel	Horror/LitRPG	Stub
7	The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon	Fantasy	Ongoing
8	Sublight Drive	Sci-Fi/Fanfic	Complete
9	Ghost in the City	LitRPG/Cyberpunk	Ongoing
10	The Legend of William Oh	LitRPG/Comedy	Stub

No other traditional cultivation story. The next closest is Beware of Chicken at #13, and its entire premise is rejecting cultivation culture in favor of farming and community.

Western cultivation fiction has carved out distinct niches -- Weirkey Chronicles with its architectural soulhome system, Cradle with its Western-accessible progression, Virtuous Sons with its Greco-Roman transplant. But Sky Pride is the only one that plays traditional xianxia completely straight and sits in the top 10.

The audience for sincere, well-executed Eastern cultivation fiction in English is large. The supply is thin. Sky Pride is filling that gap with nothing more radical than doing the genre well.

Six Things Warby Picus Did Right

The reader response explains what works. The author's strategy explains how.

Before Sky Pride, Warby Picus (Mat Haz) worked as a lawyer, home brewing store clerk, snow remover, private historian, and political canvasser. His first serial, Slumrat Rising, was published through Podium Entertainment with audiobooks narrated by Todd Haberkorn.

Sky Pride is his second story. Here's what he did differently from most serial authors.

1. He validated the genre with his audience

Sky Pride originated from a Patreon poll where existing readers chose "classic xianxia cultivation novel." The author didn't guess what readers wanted. He asked, and then delivered -- with the craft level of someone who had already completed a full serial.

Genre selection informed by audience demand, executed by a practiced writer. Simple strategy, rarely followed.

2. He finished Volume 1 before publishing Chapter 1

The entire first volume -- 50 chapters, 100,000+ words -- was complete before chapter 1 went live on Royal Road.

This gave him a buffer for consistent daily releases and allowed for revision before publication. Most serial authors write and publish the same week. Warby Picus gave himself a runway.

The result: Sky Pride hit the front page of Rising Stars within 6 days of launch and never looked back.

3. He made explicit promises

The story page prominently features commitments: no harem, earned power progression, balanced protagonist (neither hero nor psychopath), daily releases Monday through Friday, power system rooted in actual Daoism.

For a genre plagued by abandoned stories, harem bait-and-switches, and inconsistent quality, these function as a social contract. Readers know what they're getting. More importantly, they know what they're not getting.

In our Defier Paradox analysis, we showed what happens when authors lose reader trust over time. Warby Picus built trust from day one by being transparent about what the story would and wouldn't be.

4. He writes complete chapters

A Reddit commenter noted that Sky Pride's chapters "usually feel complete rather than leaving readers hanging, unlike some daily-release serials that feel like they cut chapters in half just to maintain the pace."

This is a discipline issue. At ~2,000 words per chapter on a Monday-Friday schedule, Sky Pride publishes roughly 10,000 words per week. Each chapter functions as a satisfying reading unit, not a fragment of a longer piece chopped up for release cadence.

Readers on Reddit called the consistent daily schedule "a rare treasure." The combination -- reliable schedule plus chapters that feel complete -- drives retention in a way that either factor alone doesn't.

5. He did the research

The genuine Daoist research isn't just a narrative choice. It's a competitive moat.

Readers can tell when an author has studied the philosophical traditions underlying their cultivation system versus when they're recycling tropes from other web novels. Multiple reviewers noted that Sky Pride takes "coming into alignment with the dao" seriously as a narrative mechanism -- not just as flavor text for power-ups.

One fan analysis praised the author for "studying the genre to write authentically rather than relying on surface-level tropes." The Bardic Planet review said the story "highlights how other authors haven't done the same."

That last line is the competitive dynamic. Every author who doesn't do the research makes the ones who do look better.

6. He built on a previous audience

Sky Pride didn't launch cold. Slumrat Rising's 4,540 followers and Patreon base gave it a warm start. The 4.7x follower increase shows the new work massively exceeded the existing audience -- but having an existing audience gave Sky Pride the initial momentum to hit Rising Stars fast.

This matters for the author strategy conversation. Your first serial isn't just a story. It's audience infrastructure for your second one.

Execution Over Innovation

Here's the thesis: Sky Pride's success contradicts the most common advice given to aspiring serial fiction authors.

The standard guidance is to differentiate. Find your unique angle. Put a fresh spin on the genre. Subvert expectations.

Sky Pride embraces realms, pills, flying swords, sect hierarchies, face-slapping, and a ghost grandpa trapped in a ring. The full xianxia toolkit, played straight.

What's different isn't the ingredients. It's the craft:

• Character psychology is real. Tian grows emotionally and philosophically, not just in power level.
• The philosophy is researched. Daoist concepts function as narrative engine, not window dressing.
• The humor evolves. Comedy tracks character development instead of running on a single gag.
• The organizations make sense. Sects function as plausible institutions, not just stages for bullies.
• The mentor is supportive. Ghost Grandpa Jun genuinely helps Tian, inverting the bitter/withholding mentor trope.

None of these are innovations. They're execution choices. The difference between a xianxia novel that gets a 4.3 and one that gets a 4.8 isn't the tropes it uses. It's how seriously it takes them.

Bardic Planet's bite-sized review captured it in one line: Sky Pride "succeeds through character-driven growth rather than genre reinvention."

Readers don't need new tropes. They need familiar tropes treated with care, intelligence, and emotional authenticity.

What This Means for Monetization

Sky Pride has roughly 4,700 Patreon members. Based on publicly available member counts and typical tier distributions for Royal Road fiction, that translates to an estimated $18,000+ per month.

That's a remarkable outcome -- and it happened on a platform that can't answer the most basic question about serial fiction performance: which chapter converts free readers into paying subscribers?

Think about the crossover effect we identified. Readers who don't normally like cultivation fiction picked up Sky Pride and stayed. Somewhere in those 256 chapters, there's a conversion point -- a chapter where readers go from "this is interesting" to "I need to read more of this." There might be several.

Warby Picus doesn't know which ones they are. Patreon can't tell him. It has no concept of chapters, reader progression, or the emotional beats that drive fiction subscriptions.

In our Defier Paradox analysis, we showed how Patreon's lack of fiction-specific analytics contributed to a quality decline that the author couldn't see coming -- because the tools he was using had no concept of reader drop-off, chapter-level engagement, or conversion attribution. Good intentions, bad visibility.

Sky Pride is the opposite case: an author doing everything right despite his tools, not because of them. The growth strategies -- validated genre choice, completed volume before launch, explicit promises, complete chapters -- compensate for the absence of reader analytics through sheer craft and discipline.

But imagine what an author like this could do with visibility into the data. Which chapter is the conversion chapter? Where do non-cultivation readers get hooked? Which of the six strategies is actually driving the most subscriber growth? Right now, the answers are invisible.

Actionable Takeaways for Authors

1. Execute Before You Innovate

Before inventing a new magic system or subverting genre expectations, ask whether you've executed the existing ones at the highest level you can. Sky Pride's success suggests the ceiling on good execution is much higher than most authors realize.

2. Invest in Philosophy, Not Just Power Systems

If your story has a metaphysical framework -- cultivation, divine blessings, mana theory -- research it. Treat it as narrative substance. Readers notice the difference between decoration and depth, and it's the single biggest quality differentiator in the cultivation space right now.

3. Let Humor Do Character Work

Funny protagonists are common. Protagonists whose humor evolves are rare. Make the comedy track the character's growth. If a reader can measure how far the protagonist has come by the kind of jokes they make, the humor is doing double duty.

4. Write Complete Chapters

If you're on a daily release schedule, each chapter should feel like a complete reading experience -- not a fragment chopped off for cadence. This is the unglamorous retention advantage that readers consistently praise and rarely articulate until someone asks.

5. Build Audience Infrastructure

Your first serial isn't just a story. It's the audience base for your second one. Warby Picus went from 4,540 followers to 21,427 -- but having those first 4,540 meant Sky Pride hit Rising Stars within a week of launch.

6. Make Promises and Keep Them

Explicit commitments about what your story will and won't be (no harem, earned progression, consistent schedule) function as trust signals in a genre where trust is scarce. State them publicly. Then deliver.

---

Methodology

This analysis draws on:

• Royal Road data: Story stats, 44 pages of reviews (10 detailed reviews analyzed in depth), author notes, and best-rated rankings as of February 2026
• Reddit: r/ProgressionFantasy thread on Sky Pride (261 upvotes, 73 comments)
• External reviews: Bardic Planet (full and bite-sized reviews), James Davis Nicoll, Neocities fan analysis
• Author context: Patreon posts on growth milestones, creative process, and career background
• Comparative data: Royal Road top-20 best-rated stories, Western cultivation landscape analysis

Revenue estimates are based on publicly available Patreon member counts and typical tier distributions observed across Royal Road fiction authors. Actual revenue may differ.

Related reading:

• What Western Cultivation Authors Can Learn From Weirkey Chronicles' Soulhome System
• The Defier Paradox: When the Author Who Wrote the Book on Monetization Became the Cautionary Tale
• I Analyzed 244 Cyber Dreams Reviews. What Hooks Readers Isn't What You Think.

---

At Chapter Chronicles, we're building fiction-native analytics for serial authors -- reader progression tracking, chapter-level conversion data, and drop-off analytics that platforms like Patreon were never designed to provide. If you want visibility into how readers actually experience your story, learn more about publishing on Chapter Chronicles.