For a moment there, it looked like Adrian had completely missed the target as the ball ended up hitting the post.
However, that wasn't the end of things as the ball just after hitting the post, hit the edge of the target before falling into it to drop into the goalpost from the other end.
"That was close." Adrian let out a sigh of relief before turning to everyone with a smile.
Most of them were stunned in disbelief; they were certain that shot was off the mark, but somehow he managed to make it.
"Did you see that?" Oscar leaned closer to Eric to whisper.
"Yes, I saw it." He responded.
"That's exactly seventeen point five seconds." Noelle smiled before turning to her tablet.
She felt there was a lot of showboating from him, but the fact that he was able to get it done faster while maintaining his control impressed her greatly.
With the drill completed, Adrian turned to Adrian Eston who quickly turned away from him the moment they made eye contact.
"Hmm." He shrugged.
Dark clouds had already begun gathering before Adrian started the drill, and right now, there seemed to be more of them.
Before long, raindrops slowly began to drop from the sky.
Initially, there were just a few of them, and they weren't that big, but it didn't take long before the size of the raindrops and the speed at which they were falling increased.
The students on the pitch didn't need anyone to tell them to take cover as some of them were already running toward the Academic building.
"Take cover!" Oscar screamed as he ran toward the building.
Quickly unzipping his jacket, Adrian quickly turned to Noelle only to see that she was already heading toward the building, Adrian Eston holding his jacket over her.
Seeing that, he slowly zipped his jacket before letting out a sigh.
While everyone was busy running toward the Academic building, he decided to walk away in the other direction.
By the time everyone made it into one of the classrooms on the first floor, it was already raining quite heavily outside.
Fortunately, none of them got seriously drenched, just some splashes.
"Thank you," Noelle said to Adrian before letting go of his jacket.
After that, she picked the desk closest to her, which was the one beside the door and sat there to continue doing what she was doing on her tablet.
Meanwhile, Adrian just stood there staring at her, his jacket hanging on his left arm.
She could very much feel his gaze on her even though she had her gaze fixated on the screen.
She ignored it at first as she believed he would leave after a while, but even after a few minutes, he was still standing.
Letting out a sigh she turned her tablet face down on the desk before turning to him.
"Is there a problem?"
"Ummm." He shook his head to call his full consciousness back. "Nothing."
His face suddenly turned a bright red in embarrassment, and to prevent himself from getting more embarrassed, he quickly walked away from her toward the back of the classroom.
"Okay," Noelle muttered before returning to what she was doing.
In no time she was immersed in her task to the extent that her ears were automatically filtering out the noise being generated by the other people in the classroom.
That was also the reason why she didn't notice Adrian Nero walking into the classroom.
He was holding a red umbrella which he locked the moment he entered the room.
Placing the umbrella against the wall, he turned to Noelle.
Oscar noticed him at that moment and was about to call out to him, but with his finger on his lips, Adrian quickly signalled him to keep quiet.
Dipping his hand into his jacket's pocket, he pulled out a pack of cream bun which he slowly opened before going around to sit beside her.
The aroma from the cream bun soon found its way to Noelle's nostrils causing her to quickly turn to Adrian.
"Oh, it's you." She said before her gaze slowly descended to the snack he was holding. "Did you visit the cafeteria?"
"Mmm." He nodded.
"If I knew you were heading there, I could have…."
"Could have what?" He asked.
"Gone with you." She said with a sigh. "Oh, forget it."
She turned her gaze back to the tablet after that but just before she could tap the screen, a pack of cream buns was suddenly in front of her.
"Huh?"
She quickly turned to Adrian to see him taking a bite from the cream bun he was holding.
"Is this for me?" She asked.
"Mmm." Adrian responded with a nod.
"Oh, I suppose I have to pay for it then." She said, reaching for her pocket.
"Huh?"
Quickly swallowing what was in his mouth, Adrian grabbed her hand before she could reach her pocket.
"You don't have to." He said, shaking his head.
"Huh? But you bought it with your money."
"True, but I didn't buy it to sell it. I just thought I would be able to finish two, but looking at it now, just one is enough so I thought you could have this one." He articulated before slowly letting go of her hand.
Despite everything he just said, Noelle seemed to be still a bit sceptical. She stared at the cream bun for a while before turning to him.
"Are you sure you don't want money for it?"
"No, you can have it."
"Thank you then."
She picked up the cream bun and opened it immediately to take a bite.
Watching her bite into it like that, Adrian couldn't help but smile.
'Saying she just likes cream buns is an understatement.'
His gaze shifted to her tablet the next second and now he could see what she had been working on.
"Um, can I take a look at this?" He asked, pointing at her tablet.
"Sure, no problem." She responded.
Getting her approval, Adrian quickly picked up the tablet.
She seemed to have drawn up a four-three-three A formation, a version of the formation that utilized a single attacking midfielder and two central midfielders who also played the roles of pivots.
She didn't just draw the formation, she seemed to have also assigned positions to everyone present for the training session.
As expected, she placed Leron Kell in the centre forward, Oscar on the right wing, and Henry Melon on the left wing.
'Oscar on the right wing, interesting.'
Looking at the midfield lineup had him facing his midfield position.
The central attacking midfield position seemed to be labelled with the name 'Adrian' without specifying which Adrians.
"Which Adrian did you mean to write here?" He turned to Noelle to ask.
"I haven't made up my mind yet." She replied.
"Oh."
'Well, I hope you do, soon.' He said inwardly before turning his gaze back to the tablet.
Other than the undecided attacking midfielder, she had Savi positioned on the left side of the midfield, and partnered with him on the right side was Noe Sentes.
The centre back positions had Normer Lino and Fredines Ramsey partnering together, and the full-back positions were left for the twins, with Leo taking the left wing and Nino the right wing.
Finally, there was the goalpost which was left in the hands of Eric Norton.
"Huh, so that's his position."
A smile slowly found its way to his face as an idea seemed to have sprouted in his mind.
_________ _________
Luckily for the team, the rain didn't last that long, coming to a full halt after about twenty minutes.
The clouds were slowly making way for the sun now, allowing a bit of its rays to shine down on the team that was now back on the pitch.
They were supposed to continue with the dribbling drill, but before that, Adrian wanted to test.
At the moment, he was standing over a ball about twenty-five yards away from the goalpost, his gaze on Eric, who was standing in between the sticks adjusting his gloves.
Everyone else was watching from the side with intrigue on their faces.
"I haven't even officially joined the school yet and now I'm on the verge of losing my meal card for a week," Adrian muttered as he slowly took two steps backwards, raising his left hand to signal to Eric that he was ready.
Eric raised his hand to affirm that he was also ready, and now it was time to see what both of them were capable of.
"No worries, just have to score and I'll be the one in possession of two meal cards."
Just after saying that, he quickly closed up on the ball and with his left foot, he lifted the ball blasting it toward the top right side of the goalpost.
Adrian wasn't really seen as dangerous just because of his usual style of play which was similar to many other central attacking midfielders.
It came down mostly to his ability to shoot from long range and the inexplicable level of shot power he could produce.
Eric was quick on his feet, diving toward the ball just in time.
However, just the tip of his gloves wasn't enough to stop a shot with that much power behind it.
The ball ended up smashing past his glove, making contact with the top edge of the goalpost before falling into the goalpost.
A series of gasps resounded in the area as Adrian raised his left hand, a bright smile on his face.
"Who is even supposed to stop that?" Oscar mumbled.
"First in the free kick list, Adrian Nero." Noelle smiled quite visibly as she typed on her tablet.