Reading Order
Path of Ascension Reading Order: 12 Books, 10.5 and Book 13
Here is the Path of Ascension reading order: twelve numbered books by C. Mantis, from The Path of Ascension (October 4, 2022) to The Path of Ascension 12 (Kindle, August 5, 2026), plus a 10.5 novella on audio and a book 13 already on Kindle pre-order. The table below has each book's Kindle date and pages, the J.S. Arquin audiobook length and the ratings, all checked on October 11, 2026. No spoilers past the book 1 blurb.
TL;DR: Read books 1 to 12 in number order; audio listeners can add Book 10.5 between 10 and 11. Books 1 to 12 come to 7,287 Kindle pages or 270 hours 19 minutes of J.S. Arquin on Audible. Book 13 is on Kindle pre-order for February 17, 2027. The series is ongoing, with new chapters on Royal Road twice a week.
Key Takeaways
- 12 books out, numbered in the title: Amazon labels them "Book 1 of 13" to "Book 12 of 13"; book 13 is the pre-order.
- Two extras: a Book 10.5 novella (Audible only in our check, 4 h 43 m) and a Books 1-3.5 box set (70 h 2 m on Audible, 2,241 Kindle pages).
- One narrator: J.S. Arquin reads every audiobook for Aethon Audio, 270 hours 19 minutes for books 1 to 12.
- Fast pace: a new Kindle book every 91 to 182 days since 2022, about every 127 days on average.
- Book 13: Kindle pre-order for February 17, 2027; no Audible listing yet.
Overview
The Path of Ascension is a LitRPG and cultivation series by C. Mantis, published in ebook by Aethon Books and on audio by Aethon Audio. Audible's summary of book 1 sets it up: "Matt plans to delve the rifts responsible for the monsters that destroyed his city and murdered his parents. But his dreams are crushed when his Tier 1 Talent is rated as detrimental and no guild or group will take him." Goodreads' series page puts it in one line: "This is a mix between LitRPG and Xianxia."
On Royal Road it carries both the LitRPG and Progression tags, which is why it sits in the "both labels" group in our progression fantasy vs LitRPG explainer. It is also one of the series readers name most in the threads we save: 100 of the 4,433 comments in our data mention it by name, across 32 of the 43 threads, and it made the top 12 of our best LitRPG audiobooks tally.
Cover: Audible product page (Aethon Audio)
Every Path of Ascension Book in Order
"Kindle" is the publication date and print length on each book's Amazon Kindle page; "Audible" is the audiobook release date and length. Ratings were read on Audible and on Goodreads on October 11, 2026, and will drift.
| # | Kindle | Pages | Audible | Length | Audible rating | Goodreads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oct 4, 2022 | 812 | Oct 4, 2022 | 24 h 3 m | 4.63 (2,014) | 4.39 (9,867) |
| 2 | Feb 7, 2023 | 462 | Feb 7, 2023 | 17 h 38 m | 4.72 (1,056) | 4.40 (7,540) |
| 3 | May 17, 2023 | 725 | May 17, 2023 | 22 h 58 m | 4.80 (933) | 4.46 (6,694) |
| 4 | Sep 13, 2023 | 512 | Sep 27, 2023 | 16 h 57 m | 4.71 (2,554) | 4.38 (6,137) |
| 5 | Dec 13, 2023 | 638 | Apr 9, 2024 | 27 h 35 m | 4.81 (2,511) | 4.53 (5,683) |
| 6 | Apr 10, 2024 | 546 | May 22, 2024 | 23 h 25 m | 4.70 (2,355) | 4.45 (5,130) |
| 7 | Aug 7, 2024 | 364 | Aug 21, 2024 | 15 h 28 m | 4.62 (2,326) | 4.42 (4,902) |
| 8 | Feb 5, 2025 | 674 | Feb 5, 2025 | 27 h 23 m | 4.72 (1,996) | 4.46 (3,975) |
| 9 | Jun 4, 2025 | 546 | Jun 4, 2025 | 21 h 27 m | 4.80 (2,052) | 4.54 (3,791) |
| 10 | Oct 8, 2025 | 732 | Oct 28, 2025 | 24 h 50 m | 4.75 (1,515) | 4.49 (2,952) |
| 10.5 | (none found) | Jan 21, 2026 | 4 h 43 m | 4.73 (493) | 4.14 (278) | |
| 11 | Mar 4, 2026 | 656 | Apr 9, 2026 | 23 h 6 m | 4.80 (1,354) | 4.58 (2,386) |
| 12 | Aug 5, 2026 | 620 | Aug 12, 2026 | 25 h 29 m | 4.49 (982) | 4.39 (1,565) |
| 13 | Feb 17, 2027 (pre-order) | not listed |
The titles are simply The Path of Ascension plus a number (Amazon's book 13 page reads "The Path of Ascension 13: A LitRPG Adventure"), so the order is hard to get wrong. Book 1 is the longest on Kindle at 812 pages; book 5 is the longest audiobook at 27 hours 35 minutes, and book 7 the shortest at 364 pages and 15 hours 28 minutes. Books 1 to 12 add up to 7,287 Kindle pages, about 607 per book.
Ratings are steady: Goodreads averages run from 4.38 to 4.58 across the twelve books, and Audible from 4.49 to 4.81. The newest book has the lowest Audible average of the twelve (4.49 from 982 ratings) as of October 11, 2026; early ratings on a new book can move a lot.
Cover: Audible product page (Aethon Audio)
Step-by-Step: How to Read The Path of Ascension
1. Start with book 1, or the 1-3.5 box set: book 1 alone is 812 Kindle pages or 24 hours 3 minutes on Audible. The Books 1-3.5 box set (Audible August 23, 2023, 70 hours 2 minutes; Kindle 2,241 pages) covers the first three books plus a "3.5". On Audible it runs 5 hours 23 minutes longer than books 1 to 3 bought separately, by our sum, and we found no standalone 3.5 edition, so the box set is the way to get it.
2. Read books 2 to 10 by number: Amazon numbers only the main books, and the 14 titles on Audible's series page match the 12 books plus 10.5 and the box set, so there is nothing else to fit in.
3. Add Book 10.5 if you listen: Audible has a 4 hour 43 minute 10.5 audiobook (January 21, 2026), also read by J.S. Arquin. We found no Kindle edition of it, and the Kindle numbering skips from 10 to 11.
4. Read books 11 and 12, then wait for 13: book 12 came out on Kindle on August 5, 2026 and on Audible on August 12. The Path of Ascension series page tracks every book with a checklist for the ones you have finished.
The Audiobooks
J.S. Arquin narrates every Path of Ascension audiobook for Aethon Audio. By our sum of Audible's lengths, books 1 to 12 come to 270 hours 19 minutes, about 22 and a half hours per book; with the 10.5 novella it is 275 hours 2 minutes. Audible's series page counts 14 titles, which matches the 12 books plus the novella and the box set, and showed 24,635 ratings across them on October 11, 2026.
The audio usually arrives close to the ebook. Books 1, 2, 3, 8 and 9 came out on Kindle and Audible the same day; the others followed by 7 to 42 days, except book 5, whose audiobook came 118 days after the ebook. For the last three books the gap was 20, 36 and 7 days.
Not every listener gets on with the narration. u/BasicGiraffology wrote in July 2025: "I could NOT handle the narrators voice. He makes every character sound like they are whiny about EVERYTHING. I also just barely made it through the first half of book one, so grain of salt." (comment, July 26, 2025). If you are unsure, try a sample of book 1 before committing to a 24-hour listen.
Cover: Audible product page (Aethon Audio)
Book 13 and Royal Road
Book 13: Amazon's Kindle page for The Path of Ascension 13 is a pre-order with "Publication date February 17, 2027", labeled "Book 13 of 13", as of October 11, 2026. The Risingshadow book database gives the same date. Audible had no book 13 listing yet, and Aethon's own page for book 13 returned "Page not found". If the date holds, book 13 comes 196 days after book 12 on Kindle, longer than any earlier gap (91 to 182 days). It will go on our release calendar.
Royal Road: the story started there on March 1, 2021, and is still posted there. The page (fiction 40920) is marked STUB, and its author note says each book "has moved to Kindle Unlimited", listing the removed chapters from book 1 (chapters 5-41) to book 12 (chapters 343-376). The newest chapter when we checked was Chapter 525, posted October 9, 2026, and the note says "Chapters will now be MONDAY and FRIDAY AT 3:00pm EST." The page showed 7,785,524 views, 20,602 followers, 10,350 favorites and 6,240 ratings on October 11, 2026.
So the free chapters on Royal Road are mostly the part of the story past book 12. If you want to read ahead of book 13, that is where to go; if you want the full story in order, use the books. u/StickFigureFan made the same point to a listener in February 2026: "You can keep reading The Path of Ascension on Royal Road for free" (comment, February 25, 2026).
Goodreads also lists a separate The Path of Ascension (Light Novel) series with an illustrator credit. We did not confirm how it relates to the main books, so it is not part of the order above.
Cover: Audible product page (Aethon Audio)
What Readers Say
One warning that comes up is about the start. u/Skettles1122, in a September 2026 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl thread: "The path of ascension is fire. Not gonna lie the first book is a bit of slog but by the end I was all in. I'm on book 3 now and I can't stop" (comment, September 21, 2026).
Others talk about its length and drift. u/theweerstra: "It's long enough that it goes outside the original premise and continuing on that long might not be for everyone but you should at least give it a listen for the first part of the series!" (comment, March 13, 2026). On the genre question, u/nkownbey called it "more Cultivation with skills than pure litrpg but definitely progression" (comment, April 29, 2026).
Tips Before You Start
- Consider the box set. It is the only edition with the 3.5 story we found, and one listener called it "1 credit" for the first 3.5 books (Audible lists it at 70 hours 2 minutes, not the "60(?) hours" that comment guessed).
- Do not hunt for a Kindle 10.5. In our check it existed only as an audiobook; Kindle readers go from 10 to 11.
- Expect a slower book 1. A reader quoted above calls it a slog; on Goodreads book 1 (4.39) ties book 12 for the second lowest average of the twelve, after book 4 (4.38).
- Spoilers: later blurbs give away earlier plot turns. Read only the blurb of the book you are about to start.
Our take
Based on the facts above, The Path of Ascension is one of the easiest long series to keep up with: twelve books in under four years, one narrator, audio usually within weeks of the ebook, and book 13 already dated for February 2027. Its two quirks are the extras: the 3.5 story is, as far as we found, only in the 1-3.5 box set, and 10.5 is an audiobook with no Kindle edition we could find. The readers quoted here point to the first book as the hurdle and say the series grows past its opening setup. If you came from books like He Who Fights with Monsters, where it ranked fifth, it is one of the longest picks on that list; if you want something with an ending instead, pick a finished series from our LitRPG reading orders.
How we checked this
On October 11, 2026 we opened the Audible series page and the Audible product data for all 12 audiobooks, the 10.5 novella and the 1-3.5 box set; the Amazon Kindle pages for all 12 ebooks, the box set and the book 13 pre-order; the Goodreads series, author and book pages; the Royal Road fiction page, its chapter list and author note; Aethon Books' pages for books 1, 12 and 13; and the Risingshadow series page. Reader comments were copied from Reddit thread data saved on October 10, 2026. Totals, averages and day counts are our own arithmetic. A site-agent then compared every number in this article with our source table before publication.
Related Reading
- Books like Cradle: The Path of Ascension is one of the ten series Cradle readers named most.
- Arcane Ascension reading order: another long progression series with one narrator.
- Defiance of the Fall reading order: another long series that mixes LitRPG with cultivation.
- All reading-order guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Path of Ascension reading order? Books 1 to 12 in number order, with 10.5 between 10 and 11 on audio.
How many Path of Ascension books are there? Twelve numbered books, plus a 10.5 novella and a 1-3.5 box set, as of October 11, 2026.
When does Path of Ascension book 13 come out? February 17, 2027 on Kindle (pre-order); no Audible date yet.
Who narrates The Path of Ascension audiobooks? J.S. Arquin, on every book.
Can I read The Path of Ascension for free on Royal Road? Only the chapters past book 12; books 1 to 12 moved to Kindle Unlimited.
Is The Path of Ascension finished? No, book 13 is on pre-order and chapters are still posting.
References
- Audible: The Path of Ascension series
- Audible: The Path of Ascension (book 1)
- Audible: The Path of Ascension 12
- Amazon: The Path of Ascension (Kindle)
- Amazon: The Path of Ascension 13 (Kindle pre-order)
- Goodreads: The Path of Ascension series
- Royal Road: The Path of Ascension
- Aethon Books: The Path of Ascension
- Risingshadow: The Path of Ascension 13
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The LevelUpShelf desk reads the store pages and the reader threads so you can pick book 1 with the numbers in front of you. Every count is dated and linked.
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About this article
LevelUpShelf is independent: no ads, no sponsored posts, and nobody pays to be on a list. Some store links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you buy through one, and it never decides what we list (affiliate links). Book counts, release dates, audiobook lengths and ratings are snapshots from the date we checked them; publishers and stores change listings, so check the store page before you buy. Recommendations come from cited reader discussions, not from reading we claim to have done. Articles are researched and written with AI tools, and every fact is checked against its source before publishing. See how the desk works and how we use AI.