Dungeon Crawler Fantasy GameLit LitRPG Progression Fantasy Survival

Apple’s Dungeon Adventure [Crafting Progression LitRPG]

Name: Apple’s Dungeon Adventure [Crafting Progression LitRPG]
Rating: 4.75 (273 reviews)
Author: Aimay

Aimay

4.75 273 Ratings

Ongoing Status

36.5k Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

Thrown into the Dungeon of her hometown, the tutorial quest NPC known as ‘Apple’ finds herself in an environment she never could have expected to explore. Now, having to fight to survive with no way back, Apple has to use everything at her disposal to hopefully escape this peculiar predicament.

Apple’s Dungeon Adventure will have a heavy focus on Crafting, Gathering, Dungeoneering, and our main character’s personal growth.

[Winner of the 2024 Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Books similar to Apple’s Dungeon Adventure [Crafting Progression LitRPG]

Rivera’s Repairs: Dungeon Repairwoman

★ 4.73

M.S. Davidson

Tess Rivera doesn't need a combat class to survive. She needs one that can fix a dying city.

Nineteen-year-old repair technician Tess lives on Tertius-Prime, a crumbling megacity built atop a dungeon that's been "cleared" for twenty years. The Aether barely flows. The power grid fails nightly. Her father's health is declining, and their freighter-home is one broken component away from becoming a coffin.

When desperation drives her into the dungeon's outdated tutorial system, it malfunctions. Tess fixes it herself, and accidentally gets branded with a {null} class that no one's ever heard of. No combat skills. No normal leveling. Just the ability to see dungeon code, interface with broken systems, and talk to an AI that's been alone for far too long.

Turns out the "cleared" dungeon isn't empty—it's just been abandoned. And Tess's "broken" class might be exactly what's needed to wake it back up.

What to Expect:

> Progression through crafting/repair, not combat
> Wholesome AI companion learning to trust again
> Slice-of-life repair jobs building to larger mysteries
> Found family and community building
> System-light LitRPG with custom skill creation
> Science fantasy setting (Dungeon-core meets Dune meets Culture)

Comp Titles:

Beware of Chicken (cozy competence)
The Wandering Inn (slice-of-life, found family)
Prophecy Approved Companion (sentient AI learning personhood)
Arcane Ascension (crafting progression)

[Writeathon 2025 Entry]

[UPDATES: As much as possible during Writeathon]

Ideworld Chronicles: The Art Mage

★ 4.7

OneDropRain

"Does the art ever dream of you?"

I never had a destiny.

Orphaned young and raised by a crime lord to be a daredevil thief in his image, I spent years trying to live a normal life, clinging to the rare moments of connection I could find. I was always searching for the truth of the world, and of myself.

But when my passion for art pulled me into a twisted reflection of Earth and awakened my power over Artistic Creation, I had to face a question I could no longer avoid:

Would I finally be able to paint my own fate?

My name is Alexandra May. I am the Archmage of the Domain of Artistic Creation. Eyes in the Sky. The Memory Weaver. The Angel Slayer. The Color Bender. Friend to Shadows. The Thief who stole the World.

And this is my story.

What to expect:

A sharp, flawed, and funny protagonist. A dangerous world split between modern Earth and a myth-twisted sister realm. Magic that’s inventive, unique, and deadly.

Alexa isn’t perfect. Far from it. She’s clever but burdened with trust issues, hubris, and greed. And she doesn’t start strong. She doesn’t gain her powers until a quarter into Act I, and even then, she fumbles more than she flourishes: building tools, not dominance. Her real magical growth doesn’t begin until midway through Act II, when the story’s pace and stakes surge.

The magic system is anything but ordinary. Forget fireballs. Think salt-armored warriors, flesh-twisting tentacles, or symphonies turned into weapons. Battles are fast, brutal, and surprising, with real consequences. Characters die. Sometimes even those you thought untouchable.

The world unfolds in layers: Earth as we know it, and Ideworld, where myths, dreams, and nightmares rule. The deeper introduction to Ideworld’s ruling powers and factions doesn’t fully arrive until Act II, but once it does, the scope widens dramatically.

What ties it all together is Alexa’s voice: humor laced with cynicism, keeping the story sharp even when the stakes turn deadly. The cast around her is just as layered: flawed, human, and compelling. No caricatures.

UPDATES:

New chapters on: Monday/Wednesday/Friday

Side stories: unscheduled

Read Ahead on Patreon!

Want to stay at least five chapters ahead in Ideworld Chronicles? Support the story and get exclusive early access over on Patreon:
patreon.com/IdeworldChronicles

Every bit of support helps keep the story alive and lets you dive deeper into Alexa May’s chaotic, magical world before anyone else.

*Ideworld Chronicles are posted exclusively on RoyalRoad and on Patreon. If you are reading it elsewhere, it is an unauthorized and stolen copy.

We also have our own Discord!

The Hundred Reigns [Timeloop LitRPG]

★ 4.82

Maxime J. Durand (Void Herald)

A hundred tries to get it right. No more, no less.

For twenty years, Balzam Magnos terrorized the world as its third Overlord: conquering kingdoms, slaughtering heroes, and crushing rebels under his iron boot. None could stand up to him.

But then he died, and Simon is now stuck with his Class.

Owning the most powerful Class in the world has its downsides. The paladins? They want his head. His overpowered siblings? They want his throne. His empress stepmother? She wants both. And his predecessor’s assassin is still out there.

But the Overlord Class has a secret: its user can turn back time to their coronation up to a hundred times, reliving their reigns until death.

Simon has a hundred reigns to grow strong enough to fulfill his dreams. Not one more, not one less.

Better make each one count.

What to expect:

- 100 loops, each wildly different — from crafting and dungeon crawling to intrigue and empire-building.

- 5 chapters a week from Monday to Friday.

- Hard-won power growth.

- Epic battles, wicked plans, and world-shattering family feuds.

- Dragons, demon magic, and punching arrogant princes in the face.

Chloe the Zombie: A Monster Evolution LitRPG [Book 1 Completed]

★ 4.67

Evil Lemon

Chloe is coming for all the tasty brains in the world!

Being a zombie used to be super boring. Chloe just walked around in the dungeon, got chopped up by adventurers, then respawned. Over and over again.

Until one day… she woke up.

Now she’s got smarts and a taste for freedom. Why stick around some stinky dungeon when there’s a whole world out there to explore?

Sure, the gods are out there, stirring up chaos and treating the world like a game. And yeah, some big players are itching to put a stop to their meddling.

But Chloe? She's just here to eat brains.

What to expect:

- Monster Evolution

- LitRPG with few stat blocks

- Brains being eaten

Gunwitch [LitRPG]

★ 4.65

Goroella

Burn the witch? Good luck.

Hecate has never done anything wrong in her entire life.

Sure, she was supposed to pick the same class as her mother. Obey the rules. Keep her head down. So what if she picked [Gunwitch] instead. So what if she shot the Archon’s son.

Totally undeserved, they threw her into Silesia—a place where they burn witches. Then came the bounty, worth more than a small town, and now half the country wants to cash in.

But Hecate is no regular witch. She has two guns, magic bullets, and nothing left to lose. Every head she claims only adds to her power.

How long until she’s unstoppable?

What to expect:

* OP MC (power fantasy)
* LitRPG progression & level-up mechanics
* Community-building
* Loot system inspired by Diablo II: LOD (runewords included)
* New chapters every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday

Patreon - if you want to read 24 chapters ahead.
Discord - if you feel like talking about it.

Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

★ 4.58

Arawn Frostguard

What would happen if Mana touched a Realm thus far deprived of it?
Well, the people of Earth are going to find out, and it's not going to be pretty.

The moment the barrier that kept supernatural powers out collapsed, the only thing keeping the little pieces of floating rocks and the tiny people living on them intact, was the System’s intervention.

Mia, being one of those tiny people on the little floating rocks in the middle of the void, had much bigger problems though. Like goblins trying to get a nibble out of her guts.

It’s not all bad though, she might have monsters trying to eat her, have disturbingly pointy ears and an obnoxiously pink mane of hair, but she seemed to have some talent for magic.
Everything is going to be just fine. Right?

Expect:
- Female, Gay MC
- An MC that doesn't miraculously take to fighting goblins to the death like a seasoned murderhobo.
- Arcane Magic! UNLIMITED POWAH!(not really)
- A mostly benevolent System.
- I'm still figuring out the rest, so that's about it for now.
- MC starts out as a bit of a doormat. She slowly starts getting better at around ch 12 though. It's called character development, even if my MC is dragging her leg a bit too much at the start.

Schedule: Monday 6PM CET and bonus chapters on Friday 6PM CET (if there are any)

Re:Cursed

★ 4.75

Joroboros

As the perfect sacrifice, it is only natural that Nix be sacrificed to the ancient gods lurking in the depths of the black hole.

But she didn’t die.

Finding herself seven years in the past — to the day of her first cursed mutation — Nix is determined to correct her regrets, enact vengeance on her murderers, and simply live the life that she never got to. But even with this second chance, freedom from the cults remains a pipe dream. To achieve everything she never could in her previous life, there is only one path before her.

Nix will twist the curses that once bound her into the very source of her strength.

The cults will regret sacrificing her… without ever knowing they already succeeded.

What to expect:
- A regressor revenge story with a heavy focus on character.
- Eldritch monsters, gods, and cults.
- Body horror. Mutations. Mouths in tongues, mould instead of hair, bonus limbs; that sort of thing
- Progression.
- LitRPG-lite system focused on the power of names.

[Cover art by Misty/@lil_mistake]

Storm Strider [Book 2 Stubbing Dec 25th]

★ 4.57

Maradina

Five thousand kilometres from shore. A sea of leviathans snapping at her heels. Marisol has never felt more alive.

Nearly a century ago, rifts opened and giant magic-blooded bugs descended upon humanity. They were named the ‘Swarm’ for their fierce, insatiable hunger for human flesh—but born and raised in a small desert village, Sand-Dancer Marisol wants nothing to do with them. All she wants to do is sail to a legendary island city and bring a vial of healing seawater back to her sickly mama. Who has time to care about some distant war?

But just when she earns enough to pay for her once-in-a-lifetime trip to the city, a swarm of leviathans attack her ship and strand her in the middle of the sea, forcing her to pick a class from a system.

Three out of four classes will save her life and bring her home, but only one will let her stand on water, move forward, and save her mother.

So what if her system tells her she has a less than one percent chance of making the journey?

Marisol will skate to the city or die trying.

Update Schedule: Story completed! No more updates!

NOTE: Volume One has been stubbed!

Volume One Amazon link here: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0FP2RR7F3