Fantasy Assassin in a modern world

The Gym

Loki arrived at the gym near his house, upon entering there was a front desk where two ladies sat. This setup reminded Loki of the adventurers guild back in his old world.

“How can I help you today sir?”

“I want someone to help me build up muscle as quickly as possible.”

“Of course sir, we can help you with that. Our trainers are among the best in the business. If you join our gym as a member, you can ask help from any of our trainers.”

“Is that so...” Seeing that Loki was thinking hard and seems like he was on the verge of joining the gym, the receptionist signaled one of the nearby trainers.

“How about you take a look around with one of our trainers. This here is Rick he’ll be your guide through our gym.”

A man with a rather good physique appeared before Loki. The man wasn’t overly muscular and had this energetic feel to him. Loki took one look at the trainer and could guess that the trainer wasn’t just someone with a good physique. The calluses on Rick’s knuckles tell Loki a part of this man’s history.

“Heya man, the name’s Rick, I’m a trainer in this gym. I heard you’re interested in joining, so how about you take a look around and try out some of our equipment.”

.....

Rick was quick on the update and knew what to do when he saw Loki, he then guided Loki into the gym. When Loki saw all the shiny-looking equipment and the people using them he was astonished. He already knew that the way people in this world trained using this equipment and it was vastly different from the way people trained back in his old world.

‘Well, this world is far more technologically advanced. Now that I think about it, if they could make horseless carriages like those so called cars, then it should be easy for them to make something that could make you run in place without moving forward.’

“So tell me, bro, what’s your goal in coming to the gym?” While Loki was looking around, Rick suddenly spoke to him.

“I want to gain muscle as fast as possible.”

“Gaining muscle mass as fast as possible? What’s the hurry are you joining some kind of competition?”

“Something like that.”

“I see, hmm, yeah if you want to get results quickly, joining our gym is the right choice.”

“How long would it take to gain results?”

“Well, that will depend, based solely on your appearance you do seem around average a little bit on the skinny side. How about we try to do some sets and once you join I can whip out a personal workout regimen for you.”

“That sounds good.”

“Alright then, how about you try lifting one of these dumbbells. Just pick whichever weight seems comfortable with you.”

Loki started lifting each weight one by one starting from the one-kilogram dumbbell upward. Once he got to fifteen kilos, Loki’s body found it difficult to lift. At that moment Loki used his [Enhancement] spell on his body. He tried to circulate his mana more efficiently as he used the spell to lessen the output so that he uses less mana. This precise control wasn’t something he needed to worry about in his past life as there was an abundance of mana, but here he needed to have better control.

‘This is a great way to not only train my physical body but my spiritual energy as well.’

Loki continued to try to carry the heavier weights as he continued to used Enhancement. Rick who was watching at the side almost dropped his jaw. He was expecting Loki to only be able to lift up to ten kilos, but now he was carrying the thirty kilos one.

“Don’t force yourself, just lift the one that feels comfortable.”

“No this much is alright, actually I need a slightly heavier one.” Loki then casually held onto a thirty-five kg dumbbell. Rick could also easily lift one of those, but Loki who’s frame was much smaller than Rick didn’t look like he should be able to lift something that heavy with one hand.

“Excuse me for asking, how much do you weigh?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Is that really not too heavy for you?”

“Yeah, this is about right.”

“Can you do some basic curls?”

“Curls?”

“You just need to do this.” Rick took hold of a similar dumbbell and showed Loki how to do a dumbbell curl. Loki nodded his head and copied what Rick did. After ten reps, Loki continued to do more, and even after twenty reps, it didn’t seem like he was straining himself. Rick didn’t say anything as he watched Loki easily do around fifty dumbbell curls.

Once he got past fifty, Loki could feel his muscles aching and his mana was already at half of what he currently had. So he felt like this was a good time to stop.

‘Hmm, that was pretty good. If I continue to do that alongside training my mana control this might be a good way to strengthen myself. I guess it was the right decision to come here.’

Rick had no words to say as he watched the rather thin Loki do fifty-five reps using a thirty-five kg dumbbell. He couldn’t understand where such a thin body frame gets all that power.

The two then continued to use the other equipment in the gym from the treadmill to the rowing machine. Each time Loki tried to use the equipment Rick would be surprised by Loki’s results. Loki went beyond what Rick expected his performance to be. After they were done with all that Loki was now visibly sweating, while Rick had a dumbfounded expression on his face.

“This place is a pretty nice place to train. So can you help me gain as much muscle as quickly as possible?”

Rick who was still in a stunned state was jolted awake by Loki’s voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, about that... Can you please remove your shirt so I can see what your body looks like?”

“Sure.” Loki removed his shirt revealing his skinny frame. At first, Rick was expecting Loki to be hiding his muscular frame with his shirt, and he was only thin-looking because of the shirt. Yet when Rick saw how skinny Loki was he became more surprised than ever, as he couldn’t understand how someone with this kind of body was able to perform so well. Still, he was a professional so he just needed to adjust his normal regimen to what Loki could handle. He didn’t need to be fooled by his outer appearance, what mattered was his performance so he will create a workout regimen with that in mind.

“I can help you with your goal. As long as you join our gym, I’ll make a personal regimen for you to follow. I guarantee as long as you stick with my workout regimen you will get results.” Loki looked at Rick who changed his expression from one who kept on smiling into a serious-looking one.

“Alright, I’ll join your gym,” Loki answered no longer hesitating.