People would say that being born requires luck in and of itself. Depending on your luck you could be born into a wealthy family or a poor one. You could be born a healthy little rascal or a disabled child. You could be human, or a weird looking dark green frog. Whatever. You can tell how lucky I turned out to be…

Us siblings had eaten quite a bit of the plant, but I suggested we leave it be so we can nibble on it later. After that, I moved onto the catfish. I wanted to eat him as well. Not that I could, but I tried, nonetheless. I actually managed to eat a few bites and was filled with more of that feeling. I didn’t get far and so some other fish came along to eat it up before I could finish.

Now, I decided to return to Qigong, and there was only one method I focused on in my previous life. That was making the flow of my Qi go through all of my meridians and acupoints. It was a long and boring method that was supposed to help me calm down.

But, in this life, after just one simple speeding up of the natural flow within me, I grew more powerful. That was something that didn’t happen in my old world! What would happen if I did something like the full circulation and had this energy flow through my entire body?!

Dammit!

It was a dumb idea. It hurt like something else. I could only manage one rotation and I passed out. The pain felt like I was going against the flow. It made sense after I thought about it. I wasn’t human anymore! Why would I try that as a frog?!

I don’t know how much time had passed, but something had changed!

Well, when I woke up, I noticed my body was shaped different. Like something was forming inside of me. Bones! And a lot of them! I had a neck! A short, almost nonexistent one, but it still separated my head from my body! My body had undergone a transformation! I looked over and noticed only three of my siblings had completed one rotation with me.

It was obvious since I saw that their bodies were taller with their legs down and arms up. That sounds weird, but on a normal frog, the arms and legs are about even with each other. Thankfully, we are now developing bones which means we can protect ourselves. Heck, I can even possibly grow fingers for tools! However, we all looked like deformed frogs.

Gross. But…how did they know what to do?

I guess they could sense how the flow was like sort of how I can tell the gender or how I know what they are saying. The other tadpoles, that were a week or so behind us due to our quick growth, were trying to eat our plant. I would cause a whirlpool when too much had been eaten.

I had the other six of my siblings continue with the normal process. Some of the other tadpoles began to copy them.

I myself sat back down to focus on another rotation. I based everything on the body I had when I was human. I sat down a small rock with my webbed feet flat on the bottom of the pond. I started at the area just above my groin. Normally, this was about where the large intestine was located. But on a frog, I felt my bladder was closer to this spot.

This was the Gate of Life and Death. The Dantian. The whatever you want to call it. I call it my Core. As a human, I would circulate the energy up through my navel, the belly button for those that haven’t taken a health class, through the solar plexus, through the heart, and through the throat.

At this point, the energy would normally take on a different feeling, since it would switch from Yang to Yin and travel in a downwards direction which is strange since I still have to go up through my forehead and hit the top of my head before I actually start coming back down through my spine.

On the way, I pass the base of my head, the right side of my body, opposite of my heart, through the kidneys and passing through my coccyx, or my tailbone. Now that I had a tail.

Speaking of, my siblings that didn’t complete the full rotation are now really close to being adults and almost outgrew their tails. But the four of us that did complete the rotation still had several inches of tail remaining.

Anyway, after hitting the Core again, I travel through my legs hitting the place behind my knees and going through my arches before coming back up to my Core. Keep in mind that while I do this, my body is undergoing intense pain. Probably from the changes happening in my body.

The pain is so bad, I can only do this once every other day. I haven’t collapsed like from the first time, so I may have to perform this rotation several more times after each transformation. And if the pain was that bad for me, someone who had a decent pain tolerance, these little frog children could only practice once every five days. The pain was so bad that one of my sisters almost quit. I had quickly gotten a piece of the kelp and fed her some. After that, she seemed more than willing to continue.

I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m definitely turning human. I don’t know how complete the transformation will be, but maybe I should try and combine the frog’s rotation and the regular rotation.

Another week or so passed and now my six other siblings are about as wide as the catfish was long! It became kind of tight since the other frogs were doing the same thing, although they were smaller. We decided to travel on land in search of a new place to live as well as some more food to eat.

Before we all packed our bags, I separated the glowing plant into tenths and split it amongst the ten of us. To my surprise, my siblings each gave me a third of their parts back! I now had four whole portions to eat. Now, the plant was bigger than me, but not bigger than my gigantic brother and sisters. I could have them help me out if carrying the plant became too much of a burden.

Speaking of my siblings, I could now tell the difference between my brothers. That was because one had managed to complete a rotation.

Because I was used to walking, I slung the leafy plant over my shoulder as we went down the river that was smaller than I imagined. I ate the plant like it was jerky, uncaring of how wasteful I was being. It was boring!

I came across some strange reeds along the bank that were hollow and tough. They were more like bamboo and something had snapped them to a point. I don’t know who, but the size was perfect for me to use as a short spear. Now, everything seemed bigger than it used to, but I had no idea if I was actually the same size as I was in my previous life.

With nothing else as a comparison, I practiced using the makeshift spear to poke fish. I didn’t get anything. Then again, they are still my size. I doubt I had the arm strength to pierce their scales. My two sisters and my brother who succeeded in the complete rotation clumsily walked behind me, stumbling around on two feet. They saw me pick up the reed and so they did the same. Only, they used it more like a walking stick. Eventually, we got too tired and had our larger siblings carry us on their broad backs.

We stopped and ate a strange bush with little berries. I hoped they weren’t poisonous so I had one of the little follower frogs test one out. He didn’t die so that was a plus. I kind of figured because of how little fruit there was on the bush. Something else must have come over and ate some or picked some.

It wasn’t filled with energy like the glowing plant I still had on my shoulder, but it tasted okay. I bet if they were ripe they would taste better. We finally found our way to a bigger body of water. While this river, which was more like a stream, came from about the same altitude and had a calm flow, there was a true river powerfully coming down from a mountain on the other side of this beautiful lake.

In the very middle was a tiny island that had only one tree and many small somethings sticking out of the ground. It was too far to tell. Over to our right was a small village. I’m guessing those somethings were probably grave markers. Then those berries must have been picked by foragers.

If that was the case, they had a pretty good setup here. Nice and quiet. We made our way over to the water but stopped. A large turtle was blocking our path. Well, it wasn’t too big, about the size of two of my bigger siblings put together. But the turtle wasn’t even paying attention to us. Sort of like the catfish. It was on its own turf. Why would he be afraid?

It looks like we have another enemy to deal with. On land this time.