The Alchemists

Caspar took on the new identity of Sebastian Schneider, the nephew of Heinrich Schneider, and became the new  leader of the Schneider Group after Kurt's sudden death. He immediately convened a limited board of directors meeting and gathered the information he needed to run his business empire.

It had been almost 20 years since he managed the family business because he diverted his focus on his wife and children. Finally, now that he had to return to the business world, Caspar had to exert all his focus and concentration.

He had asked Ben to, again, become his personal assistant and they immediately prepared the regeneration process to make room for Terry to come in to replace Caspar after a few years.

The first week was still filled with various ceremonial events because all members of the company still felt deep sorrow due to Kurt's death.

There was hardly a single employee at the headquarters who knew Caspar because he had resigned from the company a long time ago.

Some senior officials who had seen him in the past didn't really recognize his face anymore and only assumed that as the 'nephew' of the previous boss, he must indeed look similar to his uncle, the group owner.

This morning, as usual, Caspar entered his office at the Schneider Tower in downtown Berlin. Because there were too many thoughts raging in his mind, that morning he forgot to bring the access key to his office on the highest floor and, unfortunately, the automatic access using fingerprint and cornea scanning had not been activated for him.

Hmm ... his meeting would start in 10 minutes and Caspar never liked being late. He looked around and saw, at the reception desk on the ground floor, two staff members who were busy with their work. He finally approached them and asked for access to go up to the 40th floor.

"Good morning, Sir. Are you a guest? Please leave your identity card and write down your appointment details," said the receptionist who had a small hair bun above her head. She was staring seriously at Caspar, as if assessing who this prospective student or new employee was about to meet.

"I work here, but I left my access card at home," Caspar said impatiently. He was usually very friendly, but lately, the anxiety caused by Aleksis' condition had made his patience run thin. "If you can't give me access, please call Franz Hubert to pick me up here."

The two receptionists looked at each other in surprise. Their faces showed clear dislike - this young man in front of them was behaving very insolently by casually asking them to summon the senior Vice President of Finance.

"Who are you? You cannot meet Mr. Hubert without an appointment. As far as I know, he has an important meeting today."

Caspar shook his head; he was getting very annoyed. "Yes, he will attend a meeting this morning with ME. If you are the cause of me being late, Franz will be angry."

He looked at his watch. Ugh The meeting would start in 5 minutes. He knew the two receptionists were only doing their job and he was guilty of not having had time to request for his automatic access. His young and attractive appearance did not imply that he was the boss, let alone the group owner.

He knew that all his employees who saw him would think that he was a final year student who wanted to work as an intern or maybe they think that he was a new employee.

The only people who knew him were the top level directors, and only those who were at the headquarters in Berlin. He still had to go to the headquarters in New York and do the same thing.

Ugh ... this was the downside of looking young forever, Caspar thought. People sometimes didn't take him seriously if they didn't know who he was.

"What is this?"

Suddenly a crisp voice came from behind Caspar and the man immediately turned his head. He noticed a tall and beautiful girl - who looked like a supermodel - approach the reception desk. She frowned when she saw Caspar standing in front of the receptionist with a displeased look.

"Sorry, Miss, this person keeps on insisting on meeting Mr. Hubert, but Mr. Hubert is having a very important meeting with the new boss of the Schneider Group."

Caspar didn't know who this new girl was, but the receptionists seemed to respect her very much. He did not know all the staff below him yet because he had only returned to work last week; he was also not sure this girl knew who he was.

"Look, I'm not an intern as you might expect," Caspar said quickly, "I am ..."

The girl smiled and bowed slightly then waved her hand, "Please forgive them, Sir. They do not recognize you. Of course you are not an intern."

Caspar looked at the girl in surprise. Apparently, even though she was young, the girl had a high enough position in the group so that she could know who Caspar was. He must find out what position the girl had in his company.

"Can you tell them to give me access to the 40th floor?" Caspar asked.

The girl extended her hand and greeted Caspar respectfully, "Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Lilian Rosendhal, and I am the deputy manager of the legal department. I work under Mr. Kieff. Nice to meet you, Mr. Schneider."

Caspar returned Lilian's greeting briefly and then signaled that the access should be opened for him immediately. Lilian nodded to the two receptionists, who seemed surprised to hear her greet the young man as Mr. Schneider.

They didn't know whether this Mr. Schneider was their new boss or whether this man simply had the same surname as their boss. But what was clear was that Lilian's attitude showed such respect to the man and it made them realize that he was not a nobody.

After Caspar and Lilian got into the elevator and headed for the highest floor, the two receptionists could only look at each other with worried faces. They were very afraid that they had offended their new boss.