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"My lord, this way," Thus the large man first gestured towards a large pair of oak doors placed in the corridors, introducing, "This is the gymnasium."

Entering through the gate, Alexander found the interior to be much bigger than it appeared from the outside.

It was nearly the size of a whole football field, with bright natural lighting illuminating every speck of it courtesy of the massive holes in the roof.

Beneath, the stone tiled floors were painted bright red, and being tread upon by a bustling crowd of both men and women of all ages.

"Ahhhh! Ancestors!" And it was the state of the people they were in that caused Lady Parthia to suddenly let out a gasp of utter incredulity.

Because the people here were all semi, if not completely bare!

The men at most wore a kind of linen wrapping around their privates, while the women had a type of makeshift bikini made of similar linen wraps.

Although this perhaps revealed more than it hid, showing off just enough to get one\'s imagination tingling. It made anyone anticipate to know what magic lay underneath that flimsy cloth.

Many however chose to not even have that, completely forgoing everything and letting it all \'hang\'.

So the men and boys freely let their \'little brother\' dance around as they walked, while the women and girls unabashedly allowed both their upper and lower magnificent curves to jiggle and spill out without a care in the world!

For the very conservative Tibian queen, this went past being just too shameful to look at and reached the point of mortifying.

She wanted to instantly cover her eyes and run out.

Even Lady Nanazin who was next to her felt her horizons being broadened seeing this.

And this was despite her being far more experienced than most in seeing large groups of people without clothes. The wild and \'mature\' parties held in the capital palace were rarely this large and even the bathing ceremony during the annual pilgrimage- Jtaama would be more reserved.

The only person who did not seem at all bothered by this was Claude, who nonchalantly continued commenting on what was going on here,

"This is the gymnasium. This is where people first usually enter after paying the fee. They take their clothes and place them in one of those lockers there."

As Claude said this, he pointed towards the lower half of the walls, which were fitted on all sides with very large wooden cabinets that were divided into many small boxes.

From there, Alexander and his group could see both men and women getting undressed right in front of each other and then simply storing their belongings in one of those boxes.

It was very similar to how bags and other belongings were stored in many modern day shopping malls or parks, only here there were no tokens or locks on the boxes.

People simply left their things unattended, mostly trusting one another to be honest.

And as if sensing Alexander\'s thoughts on this matter, Claude suddenly flattering chuckled, "These lockers are very safe my lord. Stealing is severely punished and so the order in the city is very good. Hehe, it is all thanks to Lady Miranda. So at most, we have patrons mistaking each other belongings."

"But if one still has reservations, he can pay one of the attendants a tip to look after it. Or if the patron is wealthy enough, they will usually have their personal servants carry the clothes with them while they change into something some appreciate. Look there, there are some noble kids doing this."

Claude pointed toward a boy and girl, mostly likely brothers and sisters, wearing half sleeves tunic and shorts.

"Either way, after taking off their outer garments, the people will move to oil themselves in those benches. We sell the oil here, but most prefer to bring their own!"

The portly man swiftly shifted his stubby finger towards the many benches that were laid out in series along the perimeter of the gymnasium and Alexander could not help but marvel at the beautiful scenery that bloomed in front of him.

Be it the man rubbing the oil on his woman, vice versa or sometimes the same gender, mostly servants, Alexander still appreciated the sight.

First there were the lockers, where a whole host of beautiful women bending over and stripping out of everything without any care for the stares being sent towards them.

And now another group giggling and oiling each other up while sitting or laying on the benches, in bare or half bare states, touching in all kinds of places and giving the toned bodies a very alluring, healthy shine.

When Claude told him that the bathhouse was already packed with people, Alexander was at first a bit peeved because he wanted to see the entire thing without any distractions.

This would have let him take his time observing all the nitty gritty details and thus better copy it back home.

But at the last minute, Lady Nanazin insisted that Lady Parthia should accompany them causing them to be a bit late.

This had predictably made him a bit annoyed, but now… well he was very glad at what had happened.

The pink scenery that was enough to make his throat perched was certainly worth the slight inconvenience.

As for the men and women who were oiling themselves, they hardly seemed to care.

Nobody other than the newly arrived Alexander\'s entourage gave them a second glance, letting the pasha understand this was something common for them.

It seemed that despite Caira being quite a conservative society, the bathhouse was one place where the people did not mind the state they were in.

Husbands and wives, parents and children, cousins and uncles, all naturally bared themselves in front of each other without any worry.

And Alexander guessed the reason for this discrepancy was probably due to the inadequacy of plumbing in their day to day life.

He knew that despite Caira\'s very impressive underground water system that was perhaps even better than what he had at Zanzan, still more than ninety percent of the homes in the city had no indoor plumbing.

So for these poor folks, the water taken from the nearby river by the water system was only available through wells located all around the city.

The difficulty of collecting and transporting water meant that cleaning and bathing were usually done in the open, in less than private places that were more designed for maximizing the efficiency of the limited resources, leading to most people developing a kind of nonchalant attitude to such things.

As for those who did have a large amount of shame over showing skin, well they were usually wealthy enough to be able to afford so.

They had large private, single bathrooms, and enough servants doing all the heavy lifting that came before and after doing such things.

And indeed, as Alexander\'s eyes roamed around the crowd, he spotted a couple of such people.

Men and women much more modestly dressed, their clothes and temperament pretty much instantly giving away their identity.

And the rest of the people too sensed this, thus usually giving them a wide berth.

As for what these noblemen and women along with many of the commoners were doing here- well they were exercising!

Many, mostly men and young boys, were seen lifting various light wights that were made of stone, wood, or even iron- no prize for guessing where that came from.

While others were going freestyle- doing squatting, bench presses, sit-ups, and even chin ups on the nearby bars to name a few.

As for the women, many were lightly jogging, letting the jiggle physics take fully over, while some of the most adventurous bunch were playing catch with what looked like an Amercian football.

It was made of perhaps wood or cloth, wrapped up in leather, and was being thrown in a circle while being around accompanied by peals of giggles.

Alexander was surprised by how free the women were being and thought he was watching beach volleyball as it existed two thousand years in the future- sexy and a great eye candy.

And others seemed to too agree, as the games seemed to have gathered quite the crowd, consisting of both men and women, all of whom were cheering for their favorite player.

This made even Alexander wonder if he should introduce this sport to Zanzan.

Anyway, seeing the people moving around like this, he finally understood why the room was called a gymnasium.

As it was then also pronounced by Claude,

"After oiling, most of us like to work up a little sweat! As my lord sure knows, sweating is the body\'s way to squeezing out disease and illness! Like how you squeeze the bitterness of fruits!"

Yes, this was also one of the medical misconceptions of the time.

Sweating a lot was genuinely thought to be a way to cure diseases and even a well known prescribed method.

Alexander did not know exactly how this idiotic idea came about, but it did, which was also the reason why the bathhouses all had a gymnasium. Continue your adventure with empire

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