High Martial Arts: Gains one point of health per second, sweeping across the heavens.

For these Supreme Realm disciples present, it would take at least an entire era of Temple missions and a massive amount of merit points to barely exchange for one high-grade Cosmic Crystal.

Su Jie casually tossed out a thousand coins, which, in the eyes of these Supreme Realm disciples, made this prospective Dao Child seem incredibly extravagant!

"I lost. I'll give each of you a high-grade cosmic crystal."

He stood with his hands behind his back, his gaze sweeping over the hundred bewildered faces below the stage, his tone as calm as if he were remarking on the pleasant weather.

"I have won. All you need to do is kneel down and worship me as His Majesty the Dao Child."

The audience was deathly silent.

A thousand top-grade cosmic crystals were piled on the ground, emitting an alluring halo.

But no one bent down to pick it up, because the halo of light was so hot it hurt their eyes; it wasn't out of pity, it was out of humiliation.

He gambled his wealth on their dignity, and regardless of the outcome, they have already lowered their status.

If they win, they're after his money; if they lose, they're kneeling before his name. No matter how you look at it, they're the ones who suffer.

The Lord of Tianyan Palace stood with his hands behind his back, watching this scene with a hint of admiration in his eyes.

Good lad, your skill in managing people is impressive.

Betting on wealth versus betting on dignity—before the fight even begins, they've already elevated their own worth to the heavens, while trampling their opponent into the mud.

Regardless of the outcome of the competition, from this moment on, these disciples could no longer hold their heads high in front of Su Jie.

But now those disciples have no choice at all, because Su Jie's move is an open scheme, and they have no choice but to compete.

After all, a thousand high-grade cosmic crystals are indeed a great fortune for these disciples, requiring at least a thousand epochs of accumulation.

One of the holy sons gritted his teeth and squeezed out a sound.

"Are you sure? A thousand against one, a soul contest? You can't use any soul amplification techniques here, you can only compete with the purest primordial spirit power."

You alone, fighting against the combined souls of a thousand of us? All of us a thousand are seventh- or eighth-tier Supreme Beings.

Su Jie looked at him, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Confirmed."

He added in his mind: You should know that I am a tenth-level primordial spirit. Even if a thousand peak eighth-level beings were added together, they wouldn't be enough for me to press with one finger.

Besides, how many of you are at the peak of the eighth rank? Not even a hundred? You're far from it.

The Lord of Tianyan Palace walked to the entrance of the "Soul-stirring Mother-Child Guidance" hall and placed his hand on the door.

The palace doors slid open silently, revealing the deep, dark space inside.

A thousand dark golden child guides floated in mid-air, emitting faint soul fluctuations, while the central mother guide floated silently, its entire body pitch black, like a black hole.

He turned to look at Su Jie and the thousand disciples standing in front, and said calmly, "Go in. I will personally preside over the ceremony for you."

Su Jie stepped into the palace first, and when his foot landed, he was already standing at the core of the Mother-Child Guiding Array.

Above his head, the jet-black Mother Guide slowly descended, hovering three inches in front of his brow.

Behind him, a thousand disciples with the strongest soul rank filed in, each finding a seed, sitting cross-legged, and pressing the seed to their brow.

Dark golden light flowed among the thousands of sub-spirits, like a giant net, connecting the primordial spirits of all the disciples together, ultimately converging at the mother spirit.

The Lord of Tianyan Palace stood inside the palace gate and pointed his hand in the air.

As the formation activated, a thousand sub-guides lit up simultaneously, and the primordial spirit power of a thousand disciples surged into the main guide through the sub-guides, transforming into a terrifying spiritual torrent that rushed straight towards Su Jie's sea of ​​consciousness.

That was the combined power of a thousand souls, the superposition of the primordial spirits of 208 eighth-order supreme beings and 792 seventh-order supreme beings, enough to crush any ninth-order primordial spirit instantly.

Su Jie closed his eyes, and his tenth-level primordial spirit silently unfolded.

The torrent that rushed into his mind was like hitting an invisible chasm.

Su Jie's primordial spirit, like a sleeping ancient beast, gently opened its mouth and swallowed the soul power of the thousand people in one gulp.

The primordial spirit power of a thousand people entered his sea of ​​consciousness, but it was like a clay ox entering the sea; in an instant, it was assimilated, digested, and turned into nothingness.

But Su Jie did not stop. With a thought, the Mother Guide trembled slightly, and an even more terrifying backlash force flowed back through the Child Guide.

The terrifying illusion woven by the tenth-level primordial spirit invaded the consciousness of a thousand disciples simultaneously, following a thousand guiding threads.

The next instant, a series of suppressed screams echoed through the hall.

Some people rolled on the ground clutching their heads, some frantically tore at their hair, some were pale and bleeding from their seven orifices, and some curled up in a ball, trembling like leaves.

They saw what they feared most: some were punished by their masters, some were driven mad by cultivation errors, some had their loved ones die tragically, and some were expelled from the temple and reduced to the lowest-ranking wanderers in the Chaos Sea.

In the illusion, Su Jie's figure appeared and disappeared, standing with his hands behind his back, looking down at them like an unshakeable god.

"Impossible...this is impossible..."

One of the holy sons gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, and his voice was squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Is he a monster? How can he withstand the combined soul power of a thousand people all by himself? And how can he turn against us?"

No one could answer him.

Su Jie opened his eyes, glanced at the pitch-black mother guide, and then gently shook his head. He hadn't even used his full strength.

The suppression of a tenth-order primordial spirit by an eighth-order or seventh-order primordial spirit is a crushing defeat on a dimensional level, which cannot be compensated for by quantity.

Even a thousand ants combined couldn't kill a dragon.

With a slight thought, his mother gently trembled, and the illusion vanished.

The thousand strands of the formation dimmed simultaneously, and the primordial spirits of all the disciples were forcibly severed from the formation by an irresistible force.

Some people collapsed to the ground, panting heavily; some had ashen faces and vacant eyes; some still had blood seeping from their seven orifices.

Of the thousand people, not one could maintain the posture of sitting cross-legged.

Su Jie withdrew his primordial spirit, stood with his hands behind his back, and asked calmly, "Shall we continue?"

Inside the hall, there was a deathly silence.

After a long while, an eighth-order Supreme got up from the ground, his face ashen, gritted his teeth, and knelt on one knee: "I am willing to admit defeat... Your Highness, Daoist Prince."

The sound was very soft, but it could be clearly heard in the deathly silent hall.

Then, the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth.

One thousand disciples, one after another, knelt on one knee and bowed their heads.

The voices changed from scattered to unified, from suppressed to clear: "Your Majesty, Daozi."

Su Jie stood in the center of the formation, with thousands of dark golden sub-spirals swirling around his body, while the main spirit rod hung between his brows, as black as ink, yet it could no longer emit any fluctuations.

His gaze swept over the kneeling figures, and with a grab in the air, a thousand high-grade cosmic crystals appeared out of thin air outside the hall, neatly arranged in front of the thousand disciples.

"You can each take one of these thousand high-grade cosmic crystals."

His tone was calm, as if he were talking about a trivial matter. Indeed, for Su Jie, this amount of cosmic crystals was less than one-hundred-millionth of his wealth.

"Don't say I'm bullying you. One high-grade cosmic crystal is more than enough to exchange for pills to repair your soul injuries."

P.S.: I'll finish it in four chapters, so you readers won't say I'm padding it out.