CHAPTER 11: TRAILS AND MORE TRIALS

(An eternity later...)

Ethan's blood was getting more and more pumped the closer he got to the trial date so he took it as a sign to train even more harder, and so he doubled down on his training even more and was able to get one of the special quests.

[STAMINA TEST: RUN 150 KM IN ONE RUN ACCOMPLISHED]

REWARD: 2 low grade Stamina potion ]

[REWARDING MISSION COMPLETION..]

Ethan's eyes lit up as he looked at the transparent words that appeared on his iris.

Ethan already knew how the rewards worked by now but even though he readied his mind for what was to come he still felt a little stunned when he saw the 2 bottles of stamina potion appear out of thin air.

He looked at the bottle closely, it had a deep blue colour and carried a serene aura, a deep blue light circulated around the bottle making it look like some kind of crazy special effects.

He took a deep breath, it all looked so serene and magical, he shook away all distracting thoughts and quickly gulped one up straight away.

He immediately felt the effect, it felt like his body was being pumped with adrenaline which moved through his body and into his lower abdomen.

He decided to keep the other one for later, according to Hercules, the Stamina potion is used mainly for stabilisation of energy after training, so that the energy gained throughout the week wouldn't dissipate over time.

But the lower the grade, the less energy it can retain as permanent stats.

Ethan quickly entered the shower and bathed tomorrow was the fateful day, and he needed to get some rest, get up early and make his dreams come true. He cleaned himself and jumped on his trustee bench to sleep…. But there was one problem—he couldn't sleep.

It was sunrise and Ethan was at the gates of the Liverpool youth academy stadium, aka Anfield. He looked up at the letters wielded at the top of the gate, twisting in a graceful art with each other to form words and words to form the sentence…

YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE

Ethan smiled as he walked through the gates, he could see several youths gathered at a part of the field, it was pretty obvious that this was the trials group.

He made his way towards the crowd quickly joining it, he could see some people who were chatting with each other, while some were on their own like him there were even some who had haughty looks on their faces as they stayed a bit away from the crowd.

Some of the remaining participants quickly arrived and by the time 7am reached we were already over 200.

One of the coaches in charge of the event jogged towards us a bit after 7am, his well polished head did a honestly good job in grabbing our attention.

"Good morning everyone, as you all know we are having our annual trails today. It's usually a time for younglings to crossover from street football to professional football" he gave a 'you know what I'm saying' look towards the crowd before continuing

"Some use this as a time to show their skills, others as a free playthrough on a leaked FIFA console game, I'm not gonna judge" the whole crowd burst into a fit of laughter

"But one important thing I want you all to know is out of all of you standing before me…. Only 10 lucky guys will be chosen"

The rowdy crowd filled with young blooded teens turned deathly silent.

"Heh, now you understand how hard it is to become a footballer" the coach looked at the crowd with disdain.

"Alright let's begin by giving numbers, line up for your numbering and start your warm up immediately afterwards"

We all lined up and quickly got our numbers. Mine was 70.

We started our warm up round the pitch, more than 200 guys running round the greenery of the youth pitch.

Some people were feeling hyped up or maybe they just wanted to show off to the coaches this early on in the event so they started running faster, it was pretty obvious how it was going to end.

'hah, why are these guys so hot blooded' I shook my head

"Fools" I hear a voice from beside me and upon looking left only to see a tall red-headed guy with red coloured eyes scoffing.

Ethan's face fell 'hey buddy why the hell are your eyes and hair a unique red colour? This isn't a cosplay show you know'

"Hmmph, leave them, they are nothing but ants. If you have some guts you'll face me like a man" another guy came close to us, and to Ethan's despair he had long blonde hair and the same coloured eyes

The yellow cosplayer took a glance at you but nothing more, he treated you like you were air.

"Fuck off, how many times do I have to beat you before you get it in your head" the red head fired back

As he said that he increased his speed trying to get rid of his unwanted arch enemy.

The blonde headed guy gritted his teeth and followed.

….

"Gather around everyone!" The bald coach yelled

Soon the track and field runners lined up in front of him panting out of their minds. They were probably expecting some kind of praise, but the coach only snubbed them looking at the rest that were coming, making them feel a pain in their hearts. (Guess someone just got a heartbreak)

The red headed guy was the next to come closely followed by the blonde haired guy, they looked like they were on a normal morning jog. The coach looked at them and nodded, he went on to ignore the rest of the guys coming afterwards including you.

"Okay, now we will move on to the next segment of today, we'll have everyone choose a vest from either the red or the yellow coloured vest on that bench over there, though you'll be choosing your vest right now, we can still decide to switch you to any colour we see fit."

The crowd of guys quickly went to choose their vests, mine was red, together with the red headed cosplayer who unsurprisingly seems to like red a lot.

While the overbearing blondy over there chose the yellow vest, also matching with his cosplay attire. He kept on looking over to my side as if looking for someone. (probably redhead)

By the time everyone had fitted into their clothes the coach was already in front of a goalpost with a ball under his arm.

"We are going to do the classic crossing and heading practice, I believe everyone is familiar with that. We do a rotation format. The midfielder who would play the ball through, the winger that would receive the midfielders pass and also cross the ball and finally the striker that would head it into the net"

There were a couple of murmurs in the crowd. "Easy right? Well, maybe you didn't know but the ball shouldn't be allowed to touch the ground throughout the play" the crowd went silent once more and the coach smiled as if expecting it (it seems like the coach enjoys face slapping hormonal teens a lot, *sigh* he was just born as the wrong character in the wrong web novel)

With the sound of the coaches' whistle we began the training, the players were much so I had to wait a while for my turn. As a random guy missed a beautifully curling ball by a few inches, I jogged into my position as midfielder, normally we get three tries on every rotation.

My first through ball went accurately towards the winger, I experimented a bit and made the ball curl anti clockwise, the winger was in a bit stretch but he got the ball in the end, his cross was a poor one due to his balance making the ball move in between the red haired player who was the header at the time, and the post but it was tilting towards the goalie's angle.

The red haired cosplayer remained calm, lifted himself up horizontally, kind of like lying on air right before he moved his head a little to the left, changing the direction of the ball and leaving the goalie hanging. The sound of the ball hitting the back of the net resounded in everyone's ears.

The red headed guy didn't even react to the winger's poor cross; his face remained as stoic and cold as ever. The winger felt his face go red seeing as a lot of players were staring at him.

"Hey, you, what sort of ball was that? Even my grandma can play a better ball than that, get your head out of the shit hole and give me something good" The winger said, trying to place the blame on me.

"It's your fault not his" redhead intercepted before I could give him a piece of my mind "He played it in a way that you would easily have trapped the ball if you had enough control" he said coldly before walking away.

The winger was speechless, he had just been humiliated in front of a crowd of potential teammates how could he take this lying down

"Like you're the one to talk-"

"What's all this ruckus, I don't think I gave you a break did I?" The coach butted in when he saw the gathering.

He stood there with anger in his eyes until the crowd slowly dissipated, he looked angry on the surface but in his heart he was worried out of his mind.

Noone knew how much trouble he's taking in order to push those two monsters to his side.

'phew, at least they settled peacefully'

The coach couldn't be more wrong. As we all went back to our positions, something seemed to have passed through us, connecting three of us in a singular wave of state, something born from anger but blossoming into a different thing entirely…