Rockmen

When rockmen sleep they curl into a ball, forming a large oval stone. Four limbs and a head unfold from that stone like the blossoming of a flower. A waking form can be a lump of grey stones with a mossy surface. They are tall and huge; even kneeling, their shoulders sit higher than Fang Yuan’s head. They include grey, granite, iron, green, and white rockmen. Metallic elements grow on their bodies as time passes. ^{ch. 412}

Rockmen love to sleep; a session lasts seven to eight years. They generally live a thousand years. Yan Yong is a hundred and eighty and has just reached adulthood, while ordinary humans barely live a hundred. ^{ch. 412}

Eight tribe leaders kneel at the altar. Their food is dirt. They are skilled at digging, live deep underground, and sometimes find Gu worms while they dig. Offerings include ore with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, plus gems and jewels. ^{ch. 412}

Rockmen are a male-only race. After an old rockman dies, the soul and rocks they split into form new rockmen and inherit a portion of memories or important experiences. In some cases an old rockman sleeps until soul foundation accumulates, then splits a portion of the body into new tiny rockmen. ^{ch. 412}

Rockmen live underground, eat soil, and are skilled at digging. A large group can build an underground city. They can excavate resources for a blessed land’s owner and are excellent slaves; many Gu Immortals want to buy them and move them in. Hu Immortal brought this group in for that purpose. Most are stubborn and tough, warriors not afraid to die, and they succumb to soft tactics. With Dang Hun Mountain and enough souls, one rockman can use gutstones to breed into a large clan, which Fang Yuan plans to mass produce for slave trade. He rejects soft tactics and squeezes them for a river between the northern lake and eastern fire pit, counting on gutstones to replace the dead. ^{ch. 414}

They eat soil as food, and many Gu worms on their bodies can be used. If a rockman dies of exhaustion, the soul dissipates and no young rockmen form from the remaining soul. After the river work, Yan Yong brings the injured and tired hundred or so rockmen back to their homes at the south area. ^{ch. 415}

After the trial of the sixth earthly calamity, only a few hundred rockmen remain. They strike gutstones on Dang Hun Mountain and strengthen their souls. Young rockmen strengthen newborn souls and control more rocks as their bodies. The population grows ten times in a day, passes ten thousand on the second morning, and reaches three hundred thousand by the third evening, until the gutstones are plucked clean. ^{ch. 421}

In a rockman’s life, most time is spent sleeping. At three hundred years the soul accumulates enough to produce an offspring, then one young rockman every two hundred years. Without accidents a rockman lives to a thousand years and has four offspring. Gutstones push the tribes to about three hundred thousand. Their social system is relaxed and can govern at most a hundred thousand people, so they split into three groups of about a hundred thousand, each occupying one spirit spring. Slavery Gu at rank three is enough to enslave them. Fang Yuan controls three tribe leaders including Yan Yong, plus over a dozen elders, and with them the three hundred thousand. ^{ch. 422}

In a blessed land, ample rockmen let Gu Immortals develop underground land and excavate metals, gems, ore, Gu worms, and underground animals. Enough rockmen can build an underground city, which expands usable territory. Surface excavation without them is limited; with them, underground profits are many times greater. The market has high demand and low supply. An ordinary rockman lives to a thousand years and has four children in one life. Soul path Gu can raise their souls in principle, but the cost exceeds one rockman’s value, so Gu Immortals do not profit that way unless they have a special need. Only Fang Yuan, who controls Dang Hun Mountain, can nurture rockmen on this scale. He is going to sell sixty thousand rockmen. They cannot leave from the blessed land’s doors, so hole earth Gu has to be used. ^{ch. 423}

The same people are also called stonemen. Fang Yuan uses their belief in Mother Earth, fox groups, and enslaved higher-ups to send sixty thousand young stonemen through hole earth Gu onto Fei He mountain, where Immortal Crane Sect disciples restrain them. Apart from humans born from Ren Zu’s proper bloodline, there are variant humans. Stonemen are naive and barbaric. Even a smart seven or eight year old child can deceive hairy men or stonemen all the way to market in Southern Border or Central Continent, and the sold variant humans may still count the money. ^{ch. 424}

In the Legends of Ren Zu, Desolate Ancient Moon climbs Cheng Bai mountain and wakes love Gu. Love Gu animates a stone, which becomes a rockman, tall and mighty, his body filled with gold, silver, copper, and iron. He blocks her path and offers those metals as firmness, obstinance, dignity, and self-confidence. She refuses the metals and cannot accept his love. After losing his gold, silver, copper and iron decorations, he looks small and weak. She tells him to take out his real heart; he opens his chest and offers a scarlet heart, and she keeps it. He dies asking why she is killing him. She answers that he blocked her path to success. ^{ch. 435}

In Fu Hu blessed land, elite rockman guards stand every hundred steps in a huge tunnel, each at least rank four and skilled in earth path Gu worms. Every thousand steps stands a huge rockman at least three times a normal rockman’s size. Rockmen are born to dig tunnels and live underground, and these feel no discomfort there. Aura at rank five comes from the huge ones. Lord Sky Crane calls the rockman slaves nurtured by Lord Tiger Demon the best in Central Continent. He says that although variant humans call themselves humans, these rockmen might look strong and brave, but in one on one battles they cannot match Immortal Crane Sect rank five Gu Masters; what they specialize in are group battles. ^{ch. 668}

All sorts of ores grow on their bodies. ^{ch. 799}

Every variant human has a special ability stronger than humans. Hairy men are proficient in Gu refinement. Rockmen live underground and are skilled in mining. ^{ch. 799}

In rockman tribe graveyards, buried corpses accumulate until lightning strikes and a rock dragon is born. Its body is made of rocks, like the rockmen. During the Immemorial Antiquity Era and the Remote Antiquity Era, variant humans controlled most of the world. Only super forces of rockman tribes, or large rockman tribes with a long history, had rock dragons. Humans were still very few even with Ren Zu, his ten children, Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable, and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable in the world. The rock dragon is the guardian beast of the rockmen tribe. Rockmen believe it is the revival of their ancestors. In the wars of the variant humans it was among the best beasts of war: no sense of pain, sturdy defenses, extremely bold. If hurt, a rockman willing to sacrifice can convert into part of the dragon and heal the wound instantly. Rockman tribes are very rare now, and most rockmen are the slaves of Gu Immortals. ^{ch. 871}

Shadow Sect subdued a group of rockmen and, after nurturing, raised one into the rank seven Gu Immortal Shi Nu. ^{ch. 1026}

There were ten variant human races in the Gu world: hairy men, rockmen, snowmen, feathermen, mermen, inkmen, eggmen, beastmen, miniman, and mushroommen. ^{ch. 1489}

Strong, tough bodies burden the soul. The more active a rockman is, the more damage the soul takes, so they spend eighty percent of life sleeping and nurturing the soul. Soul strength is the key: the stronger the soul, the more rockmen they can reproduce. They possessed earth path dao marks from birth, which conflict with soul path, so soul path methods that raise their souls are rare for them. Guts Gu, formed from a secluded domain of heaven and earth, can strengthen the soul even for Gu Immortals, and the effect on a rockman is extraordinary. ^{ch. 1792}