5 To Lif (1/2)
0-6-9-8-6-8-1-0.
After Gin punched the numbers into the keypad, the glass doors opened in front of him, of which he eagerly walked through. The incident at the hospital had ignited in him a desire to get stronger, and his first thought was to immediately work out at the gym.
Force Force was no ordinary gym. It was the place where the best of the best trained. Membership was extremely exclusive, however 5+ Star Medics of the CMC were granted free membership. A minimum mastery of sOr of at least Rare Class was also required.
You see, the gym was filled with machines and equipment with minimal weights at least 5x that of regular gym equipment. For example, plates started at 100kg and Base Resistances of machines at 200kg. For any base level Zephyrian, these were simply too much. This required advanced usage of sOr to be able to train with.
After he had changed into sweatpants and a tee, Gin entered the free weight section with a sense of uncertainty. Though he had been a 5-Star Medic for a couple years, he had never used this facility before. In fact, had only been to any gym once in his life (as with a large portion of human society who sign up lol), and that one time he was accompanied by his younger brother, Ton. Unsure about what to to do, he picked up his phone (powered by common processOr [Smart]) to call him for advise.
”Bro, I'm at the gym and I don't know where to start.”
”Gym? You?” Ton questioned on the other line, before bursting into laughter.
Gin frowned, slightly offended.
”I was about to go after my study session, but I got caught up in a few things and.. I'm on a date right now. I can probably catch up with you later..”
”No its okay, you won't be able to. I'm at Force Force. Just tell me where to start.” Gin replied.
”Force Force? Gee you've never made use of your access. Hm, just remember what we did during that one chest workout a while back, but now applying your sOr. Anyway gotta go, good luck with that LOL.”
After providing his useless advice, Ton quickly hung up and rejoined Elektra at their boba booth.
”It was my brother.” he said. ”It's his first time at Force Force.”
”Ah okay, that's cool :3” Elektra replied with enthusiasm. Unbeknownst to Ton, Elektra was actually a regular at Force Force, holding all the speed records.
Back at the gym, Gin had equipped his work gloves that utilised the sOr embedded in the palm socket. His sOr was of Super-Rare Class [Root], incredibly ideal for surgery. Once activated, these gloves would spawn and manipulate roots that could perform everything in the surgical room, from multiple inciscions at once to anesthesia. This ability allowed him to perform surgery without an anesthesiologist, circular nurse or any assistant for that matter. These gloves certainly were handy when it came to handling delicate objects, but they also had the potential for large physical feats too.
He approached the lowest weighted dumbbells to warm up with, labelled 50kg. As grabbed the pair, roots sprung forth from his palms and wrapped around the handles. He waddled to an empty bench (in fact, the entire floor seemed to be empty) and sat down, placed the weights on his thighs. He tried to recall his last, first and only workout.
”Ok. We did chest, a warmup of 10 reps before hitting the heavy weights” he thought to himself.
He laid back onto the bench, thrusted the weights up to the sides of his chest and pressed. As he performed the first two reps, he realised that with his sOr powered gloves, these weights were liftable. He progressed to the 10th and final rep with moderate effort, dropped the weights to the floor and sat back up.
”Wow that wasn't too bad!” he thought to himself. ”I can do more!”
He was so wrong. Not only because his from was incredibly off (and dangerous), but he could definitely not lift more.
After placing the 50's back, he unwisely grabbed the 100's and waddled back to his bench again. As he repeated this procedure, he immediately came to find that these were much, much more difficult to carry. Regardless, he continued. He sat down then thrust the dumbbells up again, but this time his arms truly felt the heaviness of the dumbbell. Instinctively, roots quickly sprouted from his palms, wrapping around his entire arms and chest for support. He attempted to press for one rep, slowly and shakingly lifting as the roots supported his body. His uneven and unconvincing form was extremely telling that he was way out of his depth. Once the weights reached the top if the rep he could not hold the weight any longer, his roots tore apart and the weights fell to his face. He closed his eyes expecting immense pain, but instead hearing a deep but calm voice.
”Woa there, bud. That may be too heavy for you.”
As he opened his eyes he saw that a large, muscular (but not overwhelmingly so), handsome man had caught the weights with one arm. With the other he helped Gin to his feet, then placed the weights onto the rack. Gin had instantly forgotten that he had almost died, because what he saw was unbelievable. That man was holding the 200kg with one arm, with no effort at all. It doesn't take a regular gym goer to understand that this was very impressive.
”That certainly seems too light for you.” Gin responded in a concerned tone.