As Nick took his group into the gym, he could immediately spot the differences in the newly upgraded building, which had already been rather impressive. The one-story structure with large windows and the guild logo had stood proudly as one of the first buildings created in the new realm base. However, after all of the upgrades, it was now much larger and more impressive. It was now four stories tall while occupying the same footprint on the base’s grid. There were also large windows on all sides of it with a single thick heavy chimney against the back, steam coming out the top and pillaring upward into the sky.

  Outside of the gym, there was a girl bundled up to the point that only her face was visible. She was handing out smoothies to the people entering the establishment.

  As Nick walked up to greet her, taking the beverage, which had a little note on the side that said, “Glacial Sunburst (container property of the Daedalus Guild),” he couldn’t help but stop those around him.

  “Hold up,” he said, preventing anyone else from grabbing a drink as he looked at the beverage.

  “It’s made with the special sap from the Winter Tombs Dungeon. It increases your endurance gains when working out” the girl explained to Nick like he wasn’t the creator of the recipe.

  “Yeah, thanks for this,” Nick told her as he turned around to the others. He wasn’t stopping them because he thought it was a bad drink. Rather, he had remembered at that point that he needed to make sure he had contributed a single ingredient to the drink in order to activate his Nutritionist skill. Unfortunately, the beverage, which was a cool and refreshing combination of fruits and ice, was pretty much complete with very little room left inside the cup. Thinking for a moment, he looked back to Topaz. “Hey, do you have any hot sauce on you?”

  “What?” she asked, blinking in confusion even as she dug into her bag and pulled out a bottle of the spicy substance.

  “Come on, hand it over,” Nick said, nearly laughing at how quickly she was able to scrounge up the condiment.

  “Are you really going to ruin a good smoothie with hot sauce?” she asked as she passed him the bottle.

  “You wouldn’t be carrying it on you if you thought it would ruin anything, would ya?” Reggie chortled at Topaz’s comment.

  Nick took the bottle, opened it, and liberally dumped several shakes into his cup. He watched in real time as the drink magically was imbued with his Nutritionist property, turning from a Glacial Sunburst to “A Smoothie of Ice and Fire.”

  A Smoothie of Ice and Fire

  Calories: 239

  Carbohydrates: 44g

  Protein: 18g

  Fat: 1g

  If consumed, this beverage provides a 10% boost to endurance gains for four hours when performing intense physical training. However, if the training is not intense enough, this beverage can potentially create a permanent penalty to endurance instead, depending on how many times it is drunk without exercise, as it contains high amounts of calories from fructose. During this time, the drinker experiences a delayed onset of fatigue and increased stamina when performing strenuous exercises or enduring harsh conditions.

  Warning: Effect can stack up to three times, but each time doubles the amount of “spicy” the consumer will taste and the risk of brain freeze. We advise you to keep a glass of milk on hand if you are normally incapable of handling extra spicy food.

  “Nick . . . I can’t handle spicy food,” Allen complained as he looked at the drink. “I already struggle enough with the tteokbokki and bulgogi you and Seo-ah always insist on pushing on everyone. You’ve eaten the food my mom raised me on: I am a Southern fried-and-buttered-food guy. Not a spicy food guy.”

  “Ah . . . right.” Nick nodded like he was understanding of Allen’s plight. “In that case, I’ll make sure you get an extra ten minutes for your bathroom breaks to cry and collect yourself afterward. Now drink up, three shots, and get the hell in there. We have workouts to do.”

  “Do you need help with motivation, Allen?” Elizabeth asked as she pulled out her two medicine balls, causing Allen to gulp as his eyes went from one ball to the other.

  “Come on, guys, don’t be so mean. Here, I got tissues too,” Topaz said as she handed them to Allen. “And no one will tease you about a few tears when you cry from the spice.”

  Reggie laughed. “Speak for yourself. I like Allen way too much as a bro not to give him a hard time about this. Come on bro, pinch the nose and one shot it. Don’t let the spice sit on your tongue. A second of hesitance will double the pain.”

  “Bright side is, by the time we’re done with this hellish course, if we keep using this new drink for the Nutritionist skill, you’ll finally be able to eat some good fried chicken,” Christina said as she patted him on the back while chugging the smoothie, only to pause and go, “Nope. Nope, ignore Reggie. The brain freeze is too real.”

  “Alright, enough loligagging. Everyone take your beverages and get inside,” Nick told them as he kept adding Topaz’s hot sauce to the drinks while they went in one after the other.

  Once inside the gym, Nick hit the physical training section first. He was impressed with the change in the area. The previously small section of the gym now occupied the entire first floor. The runic etchings on the walls glowed even brighter as they amplified the gravity and enchantments in the space. There was also new equipment he didn’t recognize that had appeared along the walls: heavy squat racks lined up in rows with plates that had runes on each side of them that looked like they could be adjusted for the weight, treadmills that hummed with magical energy; adjustable benches for incline, decline, and flat-bench lifting; and even resistance machines that sparked with magical energy.

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  It was just like the Gold’s Guild gym back home, only every machine was covered in enchantments Nick had never seen before.

  As if in a trance at seeing the equipment, he immediately went toward the squat rack, the holiest of gym equipment, and touched the long, olympic-length barbell. “So pretty . . .” Nick found himself saying as his hand gripped the seven-foot-long metal rod. The second he touched it, he could feel a jolt as magical energy flowed through him.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work out at home again,” Lou said as his hand held one of the bars on another squat rack, voicing the exact feeling Nick was having himself.

  Nick couldn’t express why, but this was the best equipment he’d ever touched. “I’m home . . .” he muttered to himself as he turned to look at Seo-ah, who was just as excited as he was as she went to a squat rack herself.

  “So, are we training normal or hell mode to begin with?” Adele asked, excitedly bouncing a little in place as she looked over at Nick.

  “I’d prefer normal training . . .” Allen grumbled.

  “Hell mode for me, bro,” Reggie announced.

  “You didn’t hear from Christina how tough it can be, did you?” Allen asked.

  “I did, but I also heard how good the boosts were. I thought I’d have to get a bigger chest and form-fitting yoga pants to join the team though, so if it’s now offered to guys too, no way am I turning it down,” Reggie answered with a laugh, causing Nick to shake his head.

  “It wasn’t girls only . . .”

  “Sure. bro, sure. Look, I’m not blaming you. I get it. Hot women, constantly getting worn out and sweaty with you . . . man’s dream. But you’re married now, so let us bros join the fun too,” Reggie replied, chuckling, but given Seo-ah’s narrowing eyes, Nick decided it was best not to let that line of thought continue.

  “Wait, what is hell mode?” Roland asked.

  “Uhhh . . . so we let Nick use his charisma magic to mind control us into working out harder than usual. It drains his mana pool, but it pushes you far beyond the normal limits your mental blocks would allow,” Maria, who had just returned to the group after checking out the flat benches, explained. “It also gives you a bit more strength too. Basically, you reach your goals faster, but you pay a larger mental and physical price in terms of exhaustion. You also sort of lose the free will to say no to exercising.”

  “No price is too great when it comes to being the best,” Roland insisted. “If this is how you’ve been outpacing us, then yes. I’m in.”

  “I think that, at this point, it’ll be easier to ask who isn’t in,” Rosemary remarked, “and whether or not his wife will stab us for our workout attire if his forge friend keeps making those crass jokes.”

  Nick nodded. “Good idea. Alright then, whoever doesn’t want to join me in hell mode . . . raise your hand. We’ll get you out of the area for the spell before I cast it.”

  It was at this point that everyone raised their hands except Allen. Seeing everyone else’s hand raised, he sighed. “Can I please just go work on my tech instead . . .”

  “You sure you don’t want to spot me?” Rosemary asked, causing Allen to freeze in place.

  Allen caved. “I . . . Maybe a little working out won’t hurt.”

  “Give us at least two hours, Allen, and then you can go back to tech stuff,” Nick told him. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to be so weak that you can’t defend your lab.”

  “Fine . . .” Allen grumbled, looking over to Rosemary, “I’ll start off spotting you then.”

  “That’s the spirit, bro,” Reggie said, pulling Allen in for a one-arm hug. “I’ll be dipping to hit the forge too during the day, but we still need to hit the gym first. After all, we crafters, like Topaz too, have to get a little exercise so the muscle heads don’t beat us too badly in the physical department since all they have to do is lift all day.”

  Christina shot him a quick glare. “Are you calling me a muscle head?”

  “Ah, look at the time, Nick; We’re wasting minutes. Let’s get going, bro,” Reggie quickly replied, deflecting the conversation.

  “Great. Everyone, prepare for the workout,” Nick began. “The goal is simple: keep working out until you can’t move. Then workout the second you can again. We’re going to show those woodland critters and dragons exactly what makes humans the best. They think they’re strong? We’ll teach them strength.” With a big ear-to-ear grin, Nick used his Pep Talk and Cloak of Madness skills, compelling the group to work out with pure, fervent abandon as he joined in himself.

  ———

  “Nick, you can’t hog the olympic bar. You’ve been on it all morning,” Maria complained as she tried to trade with Nick at the deadlift bar, seeing that the other spots were all taken.

  “I just need a few more sets,” Nick replied, stepping back so Adele could work in with him. It had only been five hours, and he already felt like the muscles on his body were doing everything they could just to cling to his bones after being broken over and over again. Adele, who was currently joining him and Seo-ah as they swapped back and forth over and over again, chaining deadlifts, was using some of her mana to heal him up between sets, never giving his body a single ounce of rest.

  “You can take my spot soon,” Seo-ah told him. “I need to get to the top floor and work on my magic.”

  “Ugh, magic. I forgot about that,” Maria grumbled. “How many hours do we need to train that again?”

  “For us”—Seo-ah paused for a moment, pulling out her cell phone—“two hours. We need to spend two hours on magic a day. It’s honestly not fair. Nick and Adele can just keep working out since he trains his magic and charisma with Cloak of Madness, and she burns her mana bar healing herself and Nick during the workout. The two are cheating.”

  “You say that like it’s a desirable thing. This just means our torture is extended,” Nick grumbled as he watched Adele take position on the bar. She had her feet shoulder-width apart as she grabbed the barbell with an overhand grip. Then, with bent knees, she pulled the bar up and straightened out before focusing on keeping a flat back as she pushed her hips back after the lift, lowering the bar slowly down to her legs with slightly bent knees to feel the stretch on her hamstrings. She repeated this motion over and over again, lifting the bar, lowering it slowly, always keeping her back as straight as possible.

  “Switching back to Roman deadlifts?” Seo-ah asked as she watched Adele’s form. “Good choice.”

  “Owe! OWE! WHAT WAS WRONG THIS TIME?!” Nick heard Lady Isolde yelling from across the gym, causing him to laugh a little. He already knew what happened: she had tried to slouch or cut corners with an exercise while Elizabeth was watching and been struck with the medicine balls of boom.

  “See ya in the sauna after your magic then,” Nick told the two leaving for the magic rooms as Adele finished, tapping him on the shoulder to let him know it was his turn to go again.

  “Make sure to isolate the muscles with the machines at some point,” his wife reminded him. “This gym has really good ones.”

  “Will do,” Nick said, watching as Seo-ah shook her hips a little extra as she knew Nick was watching while she left.