Efy looked around slowly, examining the room he was in. His vision was still a little blurry but he felt no more pain. The walls surrounding him glowed a perfect white with many hospital beds neatly situated. The only human in sight was a woman sitting next to him in medical clothing, resembling the colour of the walls. She looked to be in her 20s. “Did I make it!?” he shot up. The last thing he remembered was the agonising pain from the swordsman’s foot and then he passed out.

“Yes, you’ve passed your examinations. Welcome to Port Of Black Fountain Academy,” the nurse smiled, her eyes closed and with her thumb up. Efy felt a tingling sensation rapidly expanding inside of him. He jumped up onto the bed with his arms up, “I did it!”

He then took the nurse’s hand and aggressively shook it. “Thank you for healing me!” he happily exclaimed. The nurse looked at him and laughed, “Orientation begins soon, you’ll be explained the system of the school and your classes. As soon as you leave that door, you’ll find it, trust me.”

Efy looked over to the door, excitement filled his heart and mind. He knew that once he stepped through, his journey would officially begin. He ran towards it energetically and exclaimed, “Thank you again!” and left.

To Efy’s confusion, he stepped out into a significantly smaller room that looked to fit only one human at a time. His confusion was interrupted by the display of many words dancing around the air. When he read the words, he finally understood, this was a transportation system. “This is so cool! A school as great as this one actually has these!? Do these really work? Orientation please!”

…

Nothing happened. “O-orientation please..!” Efy tried again nervously. Yet again, nothing happened. “Oh, right, this system works on the user’s Xor…” he came to an unfortunate realisation. He looked behind him to return to the medical room but the door disappeared. Am I stuck here? How long will I be here for? This can’t be happening! Efy was covered in murky thoughts. He started hyperventilating, his head started feeling light, his heart rate was increasing!

Just when he thought his day was ruined, a familiar boy with red hair entered the room. In response to his arrival, the room suddenly expanded to fit two people comfortably. “Audrin?” Efy had not believed his eyes, “What are you doing here?” he continued. Efy was almost certain he was the only one who would arrive late, he was the only one in the medical room as well.

“I had some matters to attend to.” Audrin replied. He spoke with a calm but certain voice and was unbothered with Efy’s presence. “Orientation,” he commanded, using Xor in the process. Efy felt relieved he had been so fortunate to have Audrin save him yet again. He stared at Audrin with curious eyes, the swordsman acted quite differently than the others.

His curiosity was promptly broken by a doorway appearing out of thin air from one of the walls. It was the orientation room, They both exited simultaneously and the open doorway returned to a wall within an instant. Efy was baffled when he noticed this, however he could not stay in his moment of shock for too long, as he had an orientation to attend.

…

“Greetings all! Your attendance within this hall represents the victory you achieved during the entrance examination earlier. “ the same woman in the cloak spoke, it was Miss Zeon.

This school symbolises the expertise in basic xor usage, however it will take much more than the basics to graduate from this establishment. Without further ado, let me explain to the uninformed how our system here works.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

You will all be selected into two classes: Xor Theorem & Xor Usage. At the end of every week, there will be a competition. As you may know, the peak of Xor expertise, Xoria, has the largest and most reputable ranking system in the world, however, it is not the only place that utilises this function.

There are precisely five thousand and one students enrolled here after the examination, and you each have been assigned a rank based on your performance. To view your rank, simply imagine the concept of a leaderboard and Port Of Black Fountain, this will envision the current leaderboard standings into your head, Xor is not required unless you want to conjure it into a visible picture. ”

She momentarily paused her dialogue to let her passionate students view their rank standings.

“Wow! I’m rank #409!”

“Lucky! I’m only rank #2359..”

“At least you’re under #4000!”

Regardless of their rank, the students all cheered. After all, they had made it into the school at the very least, and could simply raise their rank via the weekly competitions. However, Efy was totally bummed out!

I’m ranked 5001? Aw man! Even after all that progress I made, I’m still not good enough. I guess I still have some work to do, sensei Boha. In reality, Efy had done exceptionally well, using another opponent during a deathmatch as practice, and then facing off four opponents at the same time was impressive, yet he ranked at the bottom of the well.

“Now that you all have itched your curious brains, I will continue to explain.

You all have probably realised, no matter how hard you try to change your name on the leaderboard, it does not work. This is because of a Xor Fragment, repelling your Xor usage from the leaderboard. Similarly, you all are also probably wondering why you do not require Xor to envision the leaderboard. These topics will be explained thoroughly during your Xor Theorem class, so I will leave it at that.

You will all be divided into groups of three, and situated within the many dorms we have here at the academy. The people whom you are grouped with will be your main teammates for the next year, however, to balance this system, the best combatants will be matched with the worst.

I hope you all find this academy splendid, your first class starts in an hour. Bye bye!”

Miss Zeon then waved her hands and yet again, a freakishly huge portal appeared beneath our feets. In the next moment, everyone was stationed inside their dorms, with their two fellow teammates for the next year.

Efy looked around the room, it was very spacious. The walls wore cream skin and the roof was a shimmering white.

Wow, there’s even room for a desk underneath the window. And there’s two beds, one being a bunk bed. This is so cool, Efy was justifiably amazed. And there’s even–

“Audrin??!” Efy’s wonderful exploration was quickly stopped by the boy he seemed to keep running into everywhere he went. Audrin did not look surprised at all. “Wait, if you’re here then that means–”

“He ranked #1.” Another familiar face appeared, Efy’s face churned with rage. “Xander!” he angrily exclaimed. “You left me out there to die, you jerk!” Efy continued belittling the liar. Efy had almost lost his life on the battlefield, meanwhile Xander not only took the flag Efy earned himself, he made an empty promise to return, but he never did.

“Calm down, idiot. Why would someone ever return to help a person like you. I mean, look at you!” Xander made his rebuttal. “This two-faced liza–”

“Enough.” Audrin stepped in, breaking the squabble immediately. “We are a team now, I do not want such idiotic internal battles within this environment.” he stated clearly. Efy, clearly frustrated, turned his back and leapt onto his bed. It was the lower half of a bunk bed, with a single bed next to it, only separated by a rug.

“Audrin, I didn’t know you liked dark-rats, how the mighty have fallen.” Xander taunted, expecting an answer from Audrin, but Audrin only turned around and unpacked his things from his Xor orb.

Efy’s exasperation was soon dissipated with the thought that his first class was in roughly twenty minutes. He could not wait to learn more about Xor.