Rockman Tribe

Deep under Northern Plains’ northern icy plain, snowman, rockman, and hairy man Gu Immortals sit with Fang Yuan in a stone hall around three bonfires while rockman servants pour bowls of the tribe’s lip fish wine. Shi Zong hosts as first supreme elder of the rockman tribe, and every rockman present is inlaid with gold, silver, and pearl ornaments grown onto their rock bodies over long lifespans, a style where the most extravagant ornaments mark the highest position. ^{ch. 1143}

At Earth Mother Altar under the icy plain, Shi Zong steps forward first and declares the rockman tribe’s entry into a four races alliance with the snowman, hairy man, and inkman tribes, sharing fortune and hardship together. He activates his immortal essence and lets the ceremony’s incense smoke merge into his body, binding the agreement through an ancient earth path method that achieves an information path effect. ^{ch. 1146}

The rockman tribe holds greater status than the snowman tribe under the northern icy plain, and at alliance meetings Shi Zong is usually the first to speak rather than the snowman Gu Immortals. The rockmen’s edge in the two tribes’ long-running territorial friction comes from their rank eight battle strength immemorial rock dragon, which the snowman tribe lacks. ^{ch. 1149}

After a negotiation running six days and six nights, Shi Zong claims Moli Region as rockman tribe territory held for four hundred years and dismisses the snowman tribe’s counter-claim that a rockman senior lost the land in a wager, denying the agreement ever existed. The rockman tribe wins the dispute and takes control of Moli Region, ordering the snowmen to hand the area over. ^{ch. 1459}

At Fang Yuan and Xue Er’s engagement banquet, rockman Gu Immortals stand out with stiff expressions among the celebrating snowman guests, since a marriage tie giving the neighboring snowman tribe a rank eight battle strength threatens the advantage the rockmen have long held over them. Shi Zong tells Bing Yuan directly, in a grim tone, that he is impressed by what she has accomplished. ^{ch. 1472}

After Fang Yuan’s scheme against Heavenly Court leaves only four variant human Gu Immortals free, rockman Gu Immortals Shi Zong and Shi Shi Cheng are among them alongside snowman Bing Yuan and inkman Mo Qi Yi. Given three days to decide and threatened with Fang Yuan’s open hostility if they refuse, all four submit and join Lang Ya Sect, with Bing Yuan agreeing first and the rockman tribe’s representatives following. ^{ch. 1765}

Still first supreme elder of the rockman tribe, Shi Zong helps operate Fang Yuan’s wisdom refinement formation to process Immortal Gu stolen from captured Southern Border Gu Immortals, and sighs to himself that plundering and killing brings the most profit. ^{ch. 1790}

During the invasion of Fire Plain grotto-heaven, Shi Zong directs the rockman Gu Immortals as they unleash a mass barrage of falling meteors together, inflicting heavy losses on the defenders. ^{ch. 2107}

At the base of Fire Bird Mountain, Shi Zong and Shi Shi Cheng lead other rockman Gu Immortals in operating an immortal Gu formation that calms a volcano destabilized by Fang Yuan’s annexations, and Shi Zong notes that fire path is not the rockmen’s specialty, so they must request outside help to modify the mountain. ^{ch. 2127}

Shi Zong, first supreme elder of Northern Plains’ rockman tribe at rank seven, faces his third grand tribulation and finds nothing on Fang Yuan’s exchange list to delay it, so he accepts the first task on Fang Yuan’s mission board and lets his immortal aperture be loaded with earth path materials in preparation. When the resulting yellow sky dust cloud tribulation proves too strong for his own killer moves, Fang Yuan intervenes with more than twenty rank eight totem killer moves to shred it apart. ^{ch. 2133} The tribulation succeeds and Shi Zong advances to rank eight, and on Fang Yuan’s order he publicizes that he gained no new dao marks from the ordeal. ^{ch. 2134}

Shi Zong, Bing Yuan, and Golden Fur Immortal Monarch, all three now rank eight, travel to Chai clan’s headquarters at Human Smoke Mountain on Fang Yuan’s order to negotiate for the clan’s mortals; when Chai clan’s first supreme elder asks what Fang Yuan wants them for, Shi Zong answers bluntly that it is to kill them all. ^{ch. 2137} When a Chai clan immortal curses Fang Yuan, Shi Zong shouts that Chai clan is asking for extermination, and he accepts Bing Yuan’s leadership of the trip because she is Xue Er’s grandmother. ^{ch. 2138} After the trade closes below Fang Yuan’s highest offer, Shi Zong sighs that in all of history he respects only Ren Zu and Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 2139}

After Ice Crystal Immortal Monarch’s group kills most of a Green Lotus force but lets three rank eight Gu Immortals flee, Shi Zong sighs in pity, calling their flight a disgrace to all rank eights. ^{ch. 2158}

Rock monkey Bu Tian Kong teleports behind Shi Zong instead of his intended target Bing Zhuo, breaks through Shi Zong’s defensive killer move, and kills him with a single move despite both being rank eight Gu Immortals. ^{ch. 2165}

Shi Zong revives, disoriented and stripped of clothing, in Fang Yuan’s secluded domain Human Sea, and learns he has lost his cultivation level and must recultivate from mortal again. He kneels on the shore and credits his revival to Fang Yuan’s kindness and generosity. ^{ch. 2167} News spreads through the sovereign immortal aperture that any Gu Immortal who dies in the outside world can be revived the same way through Human Sea, always at the cost of their cultivation level. ^{ch. 2168}