We settle back in and chat a bit with Dulcette about which shops we should visit while I replenish my supply of cotton and then use the seeds to grow mushrooms for pigments. I'm about half done by the time Amelia finishes off the last of the leavener. I may be more skilled, but for a simple brute force application, she's your woman.

I'm nearly done when a hefty cart led by two burly beastkin guards rolls up outside the farm. One has bull-like features, including a pair of small horns, the other appears more canine in nature, possibly a fox going by the color of his ears.

"Mister Sorrel." The bull steps forward to introduce them. Oddly enough he's the smaller of the pair, the fox-kin having a good twenty centimeters on him. "The Colonel said that you needed help putting on some muscle. I'm Cobb, and this is Bruce."

"Yes, thank you for coming out." I give each a shallow bow. "I know the basics, but lack equipment, and really just didn't want to be hauling a bunch of tree logs around."

"Good thing we left those behind then." Bruce joins in with a laugh. "Why don't you take off your shirt so we can see exactly what we're working with. Then you can show us what you do know and we can set a plan to get your body to where you want it."

"You could at least offer to buy me a drink first, man." My light chuckle turns into a full-on belly laugh when Amelia starts blushing.

"You put on some muscles and I might just do that." He joins in with a few laughs of his own, and Apricot almost shakes herself out of my arms laughing at the now beet-red merchant.

"As you can see, I'm pretty much a twig right now." Not that Apricot seems to mind as she snuggles closer to my now shirtless torso. "I don't want to go too far, but I'd at least like to look something like this when at my full height." I drop ten centimeters without changing my features.

"We can do that. But, uh..." He motions to the pixie.

"Don't mind Apricot, she was being silly earlier and I told her I not going to set her down until she makes me." I play with the pixie's mop of orange hair after releasing the shapeshift.

"Well, I suppose the added weight will help." Cobb shrugs. "And, you do have the arms for it. Now, why don't you put your shirt back on and tell us what you know while we unload the cart."

"I can do better than that." I will my shirt back into place and then break out the art supplies and start drawing examples of everything I can remember from gym glass.

We actually had a great P.E. teacher back in high-school, not that I ever thought that when he was making us run. But, at least he let us listen to music with headphones on. And, oh, he had the hottest wife, we only met her a couple times, but damn!

"What's with that goofy look." Apricot pokes me in the side.

"Just remembering my old gym teacher's wife." I grin back at her. "All the boys, and at least half the girls in glass were crushing on her bad. We didn't see her all that often, but I swear she delighted in teasing all us horny little teenagers."

"Hahahah." She chortles when I draw her a picture of the woman smirking over her shoulder as she bends over to pick something up from the ground.

"Nng. I can't believe I nearly forgot about that image." I have to shake my head just to clear it of just how many times that spandex-clad booty rescued me from a cold, lonely night.

"These are great..." Cobb trails off as his eyes lock on the drawing in Apricot's hands. "Ahem. Yes, great." He clears his throat and starts blushing much to his partner's and the women's amusement.

"As I'm sure Cobb meant to say." Bruce takes over, the merriment clear in his voice. "You clearly know how to isolate the muscle groups and what forms to use. Though, I am interested in some of this equipment."

I stuck mostly to calisthenics and free-weights in the diagrams, but also including some of the most common exercise machines. On their end, they brought the mother of all dumbbell sets, a pile of copper chainmaille with several pieces of padded clothing, and some battle ropes the width of my thigh.

"As you can see we have dumbbells and rope." Cobb gestures to them. "The chainmaille is meant to increase your body weight to make calisthenics more effective."

"Why is it copper though?" Amelia asks.

"Heavier than iron and cheaper than silver or gold." He answers. "There are a few copper-clad, lead weights too, but he won't need those. If you're as strong as a beastkin, you want to try tripling your bodyweight since we're around three times as strong as humans."

"Makes sense." I nod along.

"We have stuff similar to the bodyweight hardware and the long bar, though finding one that can hold the weight beastkin use without bending is nearly impossible." Bruce shakes his head, clearly annoyed that he can't get those lifts. "The rest of these are new, though."

"I can't believe no one thought up a leg press like that before." Cobb chimes in. "Or, the weighted sled. I knew a couple guys that used to plow fields, but this a much better idea."

"I like these Machines that seem to use pulleys?" I nod to the lilt at the end of Bruce's sentence. "Could we keep these drawings? I know a couple smiths that I'd like to show them too."

"Sure." I shrug a shoulder. "And, those other two are a rowing machine and stationary cycle." I bring out the rickshaw to demonstrate. "They use wind or magnets to provide resistance. I'm working with Edsel the earth mage to make more cycles, so I'll show him some models and see if he can't reproduce them."

Talking about resistance made me think about resistance bands though. So, I barely hear Apricot laughing and telling them to hold on a moment because I had another idea. While she's being amused at my expense, I'm mixing up some rubber.

I chose a batch with a good mix of strength and flexibility, but I'll have to do some more testing to see what will work best for this sort of application. The guards marvel as several thick rubber bands come into existence.

"Yeah, this isn't half bad." I nod while pulling on the finished product with all my might. "Might need to braid a few together for you guys, but these should work well for me. Just need to add handles, and maybe work out some way to wear them so they compound the weight of all that chainmaille."

"May I?" Bruce holds his hand out respectfully.

"Sure." I hand them over. "But, be careful, they might snap." His eyes go wide as the rubber resists his strength.

"Let me have a go." Cobb lights up like a little kid that has just found a new toy. "Oh, I like that." He grins while flexing to stretch the bands out.

"You're not the only one." Apricot giggles while staring at his muscles. "Oh, man. You're as fun to tease as Amelia." The poor guardsman blushes just as deeply as the blonde does.

"Oh, be nice." I tousle her hair. "And, just give me a week or two and I'll have all the muscles you could want."

"Sir!" Bruce is startled by my statement, and even Cobb snaps out of his embarrassment.

"Don't worry." I reassure them. "I'm a healer and very skilled with nature magic. Also, I've already prepared all the food I should need."

"Even so, there are some things that you just can't rush." The guardsman looks genuinely worried.

"Let me prove it to you." I test out the dumbbells until I find a pair that will push me. I make a wooden bench and, holding Apricot out of the way with my vines, I just barely manage six reps on each arm. "Fair to say that this is close to my max right now, yes."

I fill my muscles with magic, nature to promote growth, light to increase cell division, wind, water, and earth to increase oxygenation and nutrient flow. Within seconds I'm back to peak and go back for another set of six, and then another, and then seven, and then I switch to a higher weight.

"I can see you think I'm faking." I say to his face. "Want me to do the same for you?" I vacate the bench and offer it to him. "I can even take care of that problem with your shoulder."

"I'll try it." Cobb quickly grabs a much heavier pair of weights than I was using and takes my spot on the bench. "I've been stuck with these for a while now, if you can get me to the next level, I'll believe you know what you're doing."

He starts in on his curls, and I start in on the magic. Both he and Bruce look shocked when he performs set after set with no issue.

"Here, drink this." I materialize one of my smoothies. "I need to work on the taste, but it has everything your body needs to grow."

"Tastes better than eggs or fish for every meal. Now, give me those." He downs the cup and motions for Bruce to hand him the next largest weights. "Lay off the healing, I want to see how I handle these."

He struggles to match his first set with the lower weights, but he manages it with a wide grin on his face. Bruce even looks jealous that he didn't take me up on the offer.

When Cobb nods to me, I start healing him again. He goes until he can handle these weights as easily as the first pair.

"Hahahah, that was amazing." He crows after setting the dumbbells down. "That drink has a bit of a kick to it too; I feel like I just downed a pot of strong tea."

"You're not far off." I chuckle at his exuberance. "There is a lot of tea in it, I'll have to remove the part that makes people excited."

"You can do that?" Dulcette asks, interested. "Erick loves his tea, but Elise won't let him drink as much anymore. Says it's not good for his heart."

"I suppose his blood pressure is a little high." I nod. "But, he's in fine health otherwise, so I didn't pay it any mind. And, yes, getting rid of the caffeine as it's called will make it safe for him to drink."

I pull one of the boxes of matcha from storage and start drawing a small pile of white powder from it. Adjusting the draw matter spell to work directly on plants was trivial after all the other modifications I've done to it.

"Apricot." I grab her hand before she can touch the pure caffeine. "Please don't play with that. I know you turn food directly into magic, but there's enough caffeine there to kill Bruce and Cobb, both."

"Uh, what?" Cobb gulps audibly.

"Don't worry, you're fine." I fight not to roll my eyes and vanish the powder with a silent cast of cleanse. "There's a saying where I come from. 'The dose makes the poison.' As long as you don't try to eat half a kilogram of dried tea leaves it's not going to kill you."

"Heheheh." Bruce laughs at him. "Oh, the look on your face, man."

"Shut up." The bull-kin snaps at his friend but is soon laughing at himself.

"Alright." Bruce exhales a sigh. "I have to admit that you seem to know what you're doing. But, please be careful with your training. I've never heard of anyone trying something like this before." He gathers up his friend and they move for the cart they came on.

"I will." I nod to the man and then hand him a small glass of healing sap. "And, here. This will take care of your shoulder; it shouldn't bother you anymore... as long as you don't overdo it again in the future."

"Thank you." He takes the cup after giving me a deep formal bow.

"We should be going too." Dulcette says with a smile for where her little girl is still playing with Myra and Willow. "It will be dark soon, and I'm sure Erick and Elise will be interested in this." She pats the box that I just handed her.

I can tell that Rebecca wants to complain about having to leave, but a stern look from her mother is enough to silence the protests before they form.

"Don't worry, Dear." Her mother picks the little girl up in her arms. "You'll get to play again with them later. But, it's almost supper time, and if we're late Mister Granville will get upset." Becca turns a little pale at the thought of that.

"Bye Willow, bye Myra." She waves to her friends with the plush flower I made for her.

""Bye."" They wave back with theirs. "Make sure to take care of your Whos, okay." Myra declares seriously.

After the woman and her child board their carriage and the farmers head back home, I wave a hand and shift all the exercise equipment into storage. I then turn to Amelia and scoop her up with my free arm.

"What are you doing, you goof." She squeals a little bit when I manhandle her.

"What? I can't let Apricot have all the fun of being carried around." I pull her in for a kiss.

"What did you even need all that equipment for?" Apricot giggles. "You can just carry us around."

"Mhm." Amelia purses her lips. "Are you really going to be okay pushing your body like this?"

"I promise I will be fine." I stroke her back while holding her in place with a vine. "I'm going to limit my exertions to the equivalent of what a full round of healing would do to me. I already know that I can sustain that level of drain day after day."

"Nnh, I still don't like it." She grumbles. "But, I trust you to know what you're doing."

"That and you really want to see him all sweaty." The pixie chortles.

"Will it help if I let Elise examine me regularly?" I ignore Apricot's remark and the blush it brought to Amelia's cheeks.

"Yes." She nods and snuggles into my shoulder.

"Alright, let me finish off the last of the dyes." I return to my seat, now with both of them sitting on my lap. "Then you can watch me get all sweaty." Apricot and I share a chuckle as the blonde starts blushing again.