"Okay.” Harold hung up the phone and turned back to Juniper. "Right, you were saying you were looking for me?"


    "I was," Juniper said, her gaze sweeping over theb. Itnded on a beaker filled with a multi-colored liquid.


    "Tsk." She shot him a look, azy smile ying on her lips. "And here I thought you were the future president of the association Baldy Fox rmended. Can''t even get a simple reagent ratio right?"


    Baldy Fox? The name made Harold pause. That was the exclusive nickname the Grandmaster used for his teacher. How did she know it?


    “Don''t touch that!" he cried out in rm as Juniper expertly slipped on a pair of gloves and picked up a dropper filled with a red liquid. It was a highly corrosive chemical agent. For an uninformed girl to touch it so casually, was she trying to get herself killed?


    Juniper ignored him, calmly adding two drops to the beaker before cing it in the data analyzer. “You—!” Harold''s face paled as he rushed forward. That was the culmination of days of careful preparation for the Grandmaster''s arrival. Adding another liquid would throw off the entire ratio. Given the Grandmaster''s infamous temper...


    But as he fumed, the control panel lit up with the test results. The data was urate to six decimal ces—a level of precision he had failed to achieve after countless attempts.


    Harold stood frozen, staring at Juniper in utter disbelief. If he remembered correctly, she hadn''t even measured the drops. She had achieved perfect uracy just by feel.


    "Also," Juniper continued, her eyes now on the air conditioner, "the temperature in here is too high. It can affect your judgment of the ratios."


    "How..." Harold stared at her, struggling to find his voice. "How do you know so much?"


    him directly, her voice clear and


    "Because. Juniper turned to t


    deliberat


    "I am the four tempered


    "I am the


    impossible to please master you were just talking about."


    "What?" Harold was sure he had misheard. His eyes widened in shock, his voice


    dry. "You''re saying you''re my teacher''s master?”


    "That''s right," Juniper replied, casually sitting down and crossing her legs as she took a sip of lemonade.


    went into aplete


    Harold''s mind we


    tailspin. He had always imagined his


    teacher''s mentor to be a


    cantankerous old man in his


    seventies, not a young woman who couldn''t be more than twenty Three years ago... she would have been even younger. A fifteen op sixteen-year-old girl was guiding his teacher? And now, at eighteen, she was his Grandmaster?


    His mind reeling, Harold quickly sent a message to his teacher for confirmation. The


    reply came almost instantly.


    Baldy Fox: [That''s right. My mentor was only 15.]


    [Wait, it''s been three years. She''s 18 now.]


    [Don''t worry. At 18, she can be held legally responsible. She''s probably not as brutal as she was three


    years ago l He He


    could still feel the


    phantom ache on his bald head


    from all the times she had whacked


    it.  swhovels


    [Harold, don''t let her age fool you. She''s a damn genius. I had to beg, borrow, and


    steal to get you this opportunity. You have to cherish it.]


    Harold lowered his phone, his expression dazed as he looked back at Juniper. Their eyes met in a silent standoff.