Chapter 1403: Negotiation Translator: CKtalon The Cape family also knew that they had a deep grudge with Zhou Wen, so they planned on paying a high price to obtain the Heavenly Robe. Zhou Wen went to the meeting room and saw the Cape family’s negotiator. The person’s name was Wood. He wasn’t a direct descendant of the Cape family. An Sheng had heard that the Wood family’s ancestor was the head butler of the Cape family, and he slowly became a part of the Cape family. “What a promising young man you are, Mr. Zhou. I’ve always wanted to meet you, and my wishes have come true today.” When Wood saw Zhou Wen and An Sheng stand up, he immediately stood up and walked over to shake Zhou Wen’s hand. “Mr. Wood, thank you for the compliments. Let’s get down to business.” Zhou Wen shook Wood’s hand before walking to the main seat and sitting down. An Sheng and another officer sat on both sides of Zhou Wen. “Alright, I’ll get straight to the point. Mr. Zhou, can you name a price for your Heavenly Robe? It will also let us know if we have the capital to obtain it. If we have the funds, we can continue negotiating. If we don’t have the funds, no one needs to waste time. Don’t you think so?” said Wood. “A thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals. That’s my bottom line. Not one gram less.” Zhou Wen had already discussed it with An Sheng before coming. He had originally thought that Wood and the other representatives would bargain. After all, a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals was just too much. Even Zhou Wen felt that it was impossible to sell it at such a price. However, to his surprise, Wood didn’t haggle and agreed immediately. “Sure, we are willing to exchange a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals for Heavenly Robe.” “That’s good. When’s the deal?” Zhou Wen and An Sheng exchanged looks. They felt that things weren’t that simple. Indeed, Wood said, “However, Mr. Zhou, Adjutant An, you should know that a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals is a staggering amount. Ignoring our Cape family, even if the six families combine their resources, it’s a question if they can gather that many Essence Crystals.” “Then what did you mean? Are you messing with me?” Zhou Wen deliberately said with a heavy expression. “How dare I mess with you, Mr. Zhou? We do have a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals, and we are willing to use a thousand tonnes to buy Heavenly Robe. However, Mr. Zhou, you’ll need to dig up these thousand tonnes himself,” said Wood. “What do you mean?” Zhou Wen frowned. “So here’s the problem. It’s true that we can’t take out a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals immediately, but we do have a high-quality Essence Crystal mine. Furthermore, the reserves of Essence Crystals definitely won’t be less than a thousand tonnes. It might even be two thousand or three thousand tonnes…” Wood’s tone was very provocative. “You mean to say that you want to exchange the Essence Crystal mine for my Heavenly Robe? Do you think we have the ability to dig Essence Crystal ores in the West District?” Zhou Wen frowned. “Mr. Zhou, don’t worry. The Essence Crystal mine I’m talking about isn’t in the West District. It’s in the East District. However, other than our Cape family, no one knows its location. However, we’ve already specially explored it. The Essence Crystal mine there definitely has more than a thousand tonnes. If you don’t believe me, you can send professionals to explore the Essence Crystal mine during the transaction. After confirming the reserves, you can give us the Heavenly Robe,” said Wood. “Mr. Wood, that’s not what we agreed upon. We’ve been talking about physical item exchanges,” An Sheng said. “Of course. If we had a thousand tonnes of Essence Crystals, we would definitely want to buy the Heavenly Robe. However, in fact, the Essence Crystals we can offer now amount to only about 800 tonnes. We really can’t afford to pay such a huge sum. If possible, we can use money or Companion Beasts to cover the rest,” Wood said with a sincere expression. “How about this? We didn’t know about your suggestion before. We need to hold another meeting to study the feasibility. How about we continue tomorrow?” An Sheng said. “Of course. We sincerely hope that we can complete this deal.” Wood and company left the meeting room. “The Cape family sure is scheming. They want to use our East District’s Essence Crystal mine to exchange for the Heavenly Robe. This is equivalent to them doing a business without any capital. They definitely won’t be able to mine the Essence Crystal mine on a large scale. Over time, it will definitely be discovered by others. Sooner or later, they would lose its ownership,” An Sheng said with a cold snort after they left. “You mean you don’t plan on doing the exchange?” Zhou Wen said to An Sheng. “No, if you agree, Young Master Wen, it’s best we continue the trade. Although the mine is in our East District, we don’t know where it is. We can’t guarantee that our people will discover it first in the future, so we have to do the exchange if possible. However, before that, we have to ensure that the mine can be safely mined and the goods transported back safely,” An Sheng answered straightforwardly. Zhou Wen understood what An Sheng meant. Most of the Essence Crystal ores were in dimensional zones. If that dimensional zone was too dangerous and humans couldn’t stay in there for long, it was useless no matter how many Essence Crystals there were. Furthermore, if the Essence Crystal mine was too far from Luoyang and was in an area that Luoyang’s power couldn’t reach, even if it was mined, it would be easily snatched away by others midway. “In that case, I’ll leave the negotiation to you.” Zhou Wen wasn’t willing to waste time on such matters. He still had many things to do. Now that he had advanced to the Terror grade, he needed a plan on how to advance to the Calamity grade. His stats definitely had to increase first, but if he only increased his stats, he definitely wouldn’t be able to advance to the Calamity grade even if he reached the limits of the Terror grade. Zhou Wen had already seen a few Calamity grade advancements. Tsukuyomi had relied on the power of a dimensional zone to advance to the Calamity grade. When she advanced to the Calamity grade, the dimensional zone had nearly collapsed due to excessive expenditure. There was also Jiang Yan’s Skyimmortal and Fairy Burial’s advancement to the Calamity grade with the help of Perfect Sword Immortal. Then there was Zhou Wen’s Soul Mirror. He had clearly sensed powerful energy infuse into it, allowing it to advance to the Calamity grade. Zhou Wen summarized that advancing to the Calamity grade required immense energy. Furthermore, this energy wasn’t ordinary Essence Energy. No matter how much Essence Energy ordinary people had, it was impossible for them to advance to the Calamity grade. Now, Zhou Wen hoped that a Calamity-grade dimensional zone would appear. When the time came, he could observe how dimensional creatures used the dimensional zones to advance to the Calamity grade. Zhou Wen vaguely felt that he could use their method to use the dimensional zones’ powers to advance to the Calamity grade. Dimensional zones… Calamity Zones… No matter how I think about it, these two are related… Perhaps dimensional zones are the key to my advancement to the Calamity grade…?Zhou Wen thought to himself, but as he hadn’t heard of any Calamity creatures appearing recently, he didn’t have the chance to observe it even if he wanted to. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎 In the next few days, An Sheng kept negotiating with Wood and company, but Wood and company weren’t willing to compromise on some key issues. There was no progress in the negotiations. Finally, Wood raised a condition for Zhou Wen to attempt the Venusian dimensional zone again. He was not to use any other Companion Beasts and could only use Heavenly Robe.. If Zhou Wen could clear it, they were willing to compromise.