Four Hours Later, an exhausted Kashi exalted praises to all the gods in the heavens as a knock on the door finally interrupted the seemingly endless cramming drill. The daeben peeked out of the corner of his eyes as Lunette went to answer the door, and then his eyes lit up when he saw the maid stood there.

The maid bowed politely and then reported, "Honored guests. The meeting is scheduled to begin in but a few minutes. Your presences are humbly requested."

Kashi grinned as Lunette thanked the maid, and then, said with a 'helpless' glance at a sneering Leila. "You heard the woman. We can't be late."

"Since when do you care about being late?" Leila questioned with a raised brow. Unfortunately, although she did want to drill Kashi a little bit more, she knew he was right. They could be late for anything else, but definitely not this meeting. There was far too much at stake. She sighed in resignation as she shook her head and said, "Forget it. We can only hope our preparations are enough."

Kashi released a sigh of relief as he patted his chest and then rose to his feet. "Alright then. Guess it's time I get changed."

"Finally," exclaimed Lunette, a bright smile on her face as she approached the daeben with a set of clothes in her hands. "I've been waiting to give you this."

"You also had these made?" Kashi asked as he accepted the clothes and then put them in his inventory, thus allowing the game's one-size-fits-all feature to mold the clothes to his size. Expert Tailors and above could charm clothes so they could stretch or constrict to fit whoever wore them, but there was no guarantee that an Expert tailor made this. And Kashi did not want to go through the frankly awkward process of asking who made it.

"Oh," Kashi softly exclaimed, mouth agape as he examined the articles of clothing in the inventory window. As an artist, he had more than dabbled in his fair share of character designs, and in turn, outstanding costumes. But even with his high-level taste, he found himself mentally drooling over the thought of donning the clothing in his inventory.

Without further ado, Kashi rapidly tapped on every piece of the set. A bright light enveloped the daeben, shielding him from view. When it dissipated, Leila and Lunette's eyes brightened with admiration.

Lunette had put a lot of thought into the clothing's design. The design blended Kashi's regular dark-black sleeveless style with a more regal approach. The daeben's trademark sleeveless top remained intact, but with a few alterations. The top was a sleeveless leather vest with intricate designs made from mithril threads. A loose long sleeve attached to the left arm added a unique air to the design.

Below the waist, Kashi wore loose leather pants, on top of which he wore a sort of a strange windbreaker that started from the waist down. The windbreaker was held up by a pair of buckles that looped around both the daeben's shoulders, which also served to secure a hard-leather pauldron adorned with a regal silver wolf medallion to the left shoulder.

Naturally, as the Hopeful Maggots' guildmaster, the Hopeful Maggots' emblem had to occupy a prominent portion of his clothes. This was a particularly tricky act, as numerous guildmasters usually ended up with tacky outfits that made their logos seem football kit advertisements.

To combat this problem, Lunette had the tailors use mithril threads to etch the howling wolf emblem at the vest's back with an accompanying complimentary wolf emblazoned at the windbreaker's hem.

While Kashi was admiring the attire, Lunette took out a pair of obsidian gloves from her inventory and then handed them to him. "I made those," she revealed with a loving gaze as Kashi put them on. She scratched her chin, revealing an embarrassed smile as she confessed, "The quality's not as good as the rest of the outfit, but I added a little something extra. Try injecting some mana into it."

Kashi raised a brow in interest, and then did as she instructed. As the daeben's mana flowed through the gloves, several runes lit up, igniting clumps of silver flames that engulfed the daeben's hands. Sets of runes rose from amidst the flames until they surrounded Kashi.

Kashi made to touch one of the runes, but the rune suddenly shattered before he could. To his shock, a beautiful voice emanated from the particles of the shattered rune. Kashi turned to Lunette in shock, but another rune shattered before he even had a chance to raise his questions. This time, a set of violins and trumpets rang out, and as time passed, a full blown orchestra song played around Kashi with Lunette's vocals in lead.

Affected by the song, Kashi's blood quickened and his heart raced. His senses sharpened, and he could feel his strength increasing at a rapid rate. At the very least, his offensive stats had improved by at least 20%, which was not a tiny amount by any means. In a dire moment, a power increase of 20% could spell the difference between victory and death.

Lunette smiled, her heart appeased by Kashi's expression. Scratching her chin, she shyly revealed, "You have a habit of running around, and I won't be able to follow you everywhere. I figured, this way, I could still be with you even from afar."

Kashi froze, stunned by Lunette's confession. He gazed at the gloves, and then at her, unable to conjure up words to describe how he felt. How did he feel anyway? He himself wasn't sure. The rising warmth in his chest was an alien feeling, and he didn't know what to do. The warmth grew hotter, with every second he spent looking at Lunette, until it began to seem like his entire chest was on fire.

Pa!

As if sensing his distress, Leila suddenly slapped Kashi's back, and then prompted, "Hug her already, dumbass."

"H-hug?" Kashi stuttered as he looked at Leila, who encouraged him with an aggressive glare. "Um..." The daeben hesitated as he turned to look at Lunette. This was uncharted territory. He had no clue as to what he was supposed to do here. But as the heat in his chest grew hotter, Kashi relented. He awkwardly wrapped his left hand around Lunette's shoulder and then pulled her into his embrace.

Lunette blushed, her face turning beet-red as she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. She smiled as she listened to Kashi's rapid heartbeat, wondering what the daeben was thinking of at the moment.

Kashi, for his part, winced slightly once Lunette rested against his chest as it seemed to spark the fires, which burned even hotter. Fortunately, it was only for a moment, as bonfire soon mellowed out, turning warm and sweet. Kashi could not understand why, but he felt strangely relaxed and at ease. His chest strangely felt increasingly cool and comfortable the longer he held her, almost like the heat was slowly melting a wall of ice around his heart.

Kashi did not recognize this new feeling, but he knew he liked it. So, he instinctively pulled Lunette into a tighter embrace to savor the feeling. This, in turn, caused Lunette's blush to deepen as she joyfully tightened her grip. Liking Kashi was like the world's worst endurance test. She had to savor every scrap of affection he showed, cause who knew when next he would express his emotions... or even have them?

Kashi and Lunette, both reluctant to let go, continued to engulf themselves in each other's sweet embrace - that is, at least, until Leila saw fit to interrupt their session with a loud cough.

Kashi and Lunette, shocked awake by the cough, quickly let go of each other, neither able to hide the embarrassment in their eyes. Kashi took a moment, cleared his throat, and then pointed at the door. "We should get going. We don't want to keep them waiting."

"Of course," Leila voiced her agreement with a mischievous half-smile. "We shouldn't keep them waiting." Gesturing at the door, she offered, "Lead the way, guildmaster."

"Sure." Even though Kashi knew Leila was making fun of him, he was only too happy to obey her command as it meant he could escape the room. Without another word, he immediately turned and walked to the door with Lunette and Leila trailing behind him. Fortunately, because he had his back to them, he did not see Lunette hold up her palm, which Leila sneakily high-fived, and then with a fist-bump, a fast friendship was formed and cemented.

Kashi, oblivious to what was occurring behind him, led the women out of the room, where a maid awaited him patiently with a smile. The maid greeted the trio, and then led them through the hallways, up a flight of stairs to the third floor of the manor. Along the way, the maid explained that the summit was to be held in the manor's largest conference hall. The conference hall was usually utilized for important events which required explosive numbers of attendees. The regular throne room was unfortunately too small to handle occasions of this magnitude.

The reason the King of Serisis had decided to use this conference hall was because it had an important historical significance. It was in this hall that he had married his wife, the first interracial royal marriage in the history of Serisis. This had been a major event as it directly helped heal the strained relationship between humans and beastmen in Serisis.

Before this, humans had always ruled over Serisis despite it being a majorly beastman country. During the daeben wars, many beastmen were dissatisfied because it seemed like the humans were willingly throwing their kind to die while preserving their own. Soon, rumors began to spread that the humans thought themselves better than the beastmen - only later would it be found out that this was indeed a ploy by the daeben to split the country from the inside to make their invasion easier.

Unfortunately, at the time, the Serians were fooled, and a civil war nearly broke out. However, at this time, the unthinkable happened. The king, Chu Tianjo took for his wife a seafaring, young midi woman named Xu Yao. The announcement had seemingly come out of the blue. For the first time, a beastman was going to sit on the throne!

Granted, it was the queen's throne and not the king's, but for the beastmen this was was a huge boon, as it meant their needs could be better heard amongst the top brass.

And heard they were.

Xu Yao took her role as the beastmen's voice seriously. With Chu Tianjo's help, she managed to address a majority of the beastmen's concerns, closing the gap between them and their hairless neighbours. Policies were put in place to make it easier for beastmen to get high ranking positions in the government, and the ratio of beastmen to humans sent to the frontlines was also looked at.

Within only a few years of their marriage, race relations in Serisis were heavily repaired, and while there were still a couple of bad eggs here and there, at the very least, the governing system was no longer rigged against beastmen.

Unfortunately, only a few years after giving birth to a set of twins, Xu Yao was lost at sea during one of her expeditions. Countless search parties combed the seas, skies and seabed for any signs of her, but till date all efforts proved fruitless.

Kashi's expression hardened as he listened to the brief history lesson. From the maid's tale, he could tell the significance of holding the summit in this hall. King Chu Tianjo was obviously hoping that this summit would prove to be as big a boon to his people as the marriage was.

Under the weight of expectations, Kashi knew he could not afford to treat this as a joke. Even though the daeben preferred to act like he did not care, even he knew when it was time to be serious.

Leila's eyes shone as she noticed the change in Kashi's aura. What was once flimsy and lackadaisical was now sharp and purposeful, like a bowstring pulled taut. She could not see his gaze, but she knew from experience that once he got like this, very few could lock eyes with him for long. 'Heh, the guildmaster in him is finally awake.'

Just in time too, as the maid stopped in front of a set of ornate double doors. As if sensing his presence, the double doors opened inwards to reveal a magnificent golden hall with a giant crystal chandelier hanging off the ceiling. A round, donut-like table with a wide space at its center sat beneath the chandelier with sixteen chairs placed around it.

Eleven of the sixteen chairs were currently occupied by King Chu Tianjo, his daughters, and a minister; King Xafier Anton, and three ministers and finally, King Parissius Vermillion and three ministers.

Several related parties surrounded the round table, including extra ministers from the kingdoms, some important personnel in Serisis and of course, the Hopeful Maggots crew.

Interestingly, Durst, Ragnaf and Rudega were also present, and stood close to the Hopeful Maggots. However, Durst and Ragnaf had ugly expressions, like something terrible had happened.

Everyone in the room looked up as Kashi, Lunette and Leila walked into the hall, their hearts immediately stolen by the gorgeous women by his side. Many-a-man wished Kashi dead in that moment, but as this was not the mood to express their jealousy, they could only express their admiration through their gazes.

Kashi noticed no one was paying attention to him in particular. Normally, he would not care, but this was not the time to play a background character. Vwoooom! Night seemed to envelop the entire room as the daeben leaked a bit of his aura. A sense of dread filled everyone in the room and they involuntarily found their gazes drawn to the seemingly unassuming daeben.

Only, this time, rather than an unimportant addition to Leila and Lunette, Kashi seemed to fill their entire vision. Kashi, seeing he had gotten their attention, bowed, and then softly said, "Your Majesties, and all present; I apologize for my tardiness. I should never have made you wait on my behalf." Without waiting for a reply, Kashi stood straight and then met the gazes of everyone. "Now that I am here, I see no point in delaying further." The daeben then walked towards the last set of chairs with an aura that did not brook disagreement. "Miote, Jade."

Understanding his meaning, Miote and Jade left the Hopeful Maggots' side and walked up to his side. Kashi, Lunette, Miote and Jade occupied the last four seats, their commanding auras, making many doubters finally understand the Hopeful Maggots' hype.

Meanwhile, Leila Lightwood, Vice-Guildmaster of the Hopeful Maggots, Honorary Minister of Rosendun, and Ambassador to Serisis remained raised a portion of table, allowing her to pass through to the space at its center. The proud wisben issues a wisp of a smile as she greeted, "Your Majesties, King Chu Tianjo and Serians, King Parissius Vermillion and Rosens, and King Anton Xafier and Aygorians; Guildmaster Kashi and his Hopeful Maggots, and everyone present in this room at this historic moment, it is I, Leila Lightwood's honor to welcome you all to the first, and possibly last, summit of these three nations." With a smile that was not quite a smile, Leila turned to King Parissius Vermillion and said, "King Parissius. If it's not too much trouble, could you please state the agenda for this summit, so we are on the same page?"

"No trouble at all," stated King Parissius with a bright smile. The Rosen King sported a brilliant smile as he rose to his feet and then gazed around the room. "We are gathered here for only one purpose." The King's aura exploded, carrying with it the scent of conquerors. "The formation of the continent's first Empire..."

A/N: Writer's block is a real ass! I can't believe I was stuck on this chapter for a whole week. Now, the annoying part is that I knew exactly what I wanted to write for this chapter, but I got stuck on Kashi's outfit for a whole week. Now, luckily, none of you have had to endure the torture of seeing me in public, but I have the fashion sense of a pre-schooler. So I was stuck tryna picture what Kashi should wear. I scoured Pinterest for days on end, but my indecisive, yet picky ass couldn't just pick one and go with it. Kept going "Na, Kashi don't wanna wear that." and before I knew it, a whole week had passed.

Eventually, I asked myself three questions. 1) Do you even remember what characters wear in novels? (for me: not really) 2) Can you edit this later? (hell yeah!) 3) Does his clothing change the course of the chapter or story? Nope.
So why you stressing over this!?

So, that's how I eventually ended up dressing Kashi as my in-game character from FFXIV

Moral of the Story: Be careful over being too detail-oriented in storytelling. It can cause the worst case of writer's block ever!