I slowly swam through the river. Or is it a river? I get the feeling that I am swimming upstream, and yet I don't feel myself moving at all. I also don’t feel any water against my scales.

Scales? I should have scales, right? I am a carp after all.

Ok, I’m freaking out, I'm Fucking FREAKING OUT!

I try to turn my body, yet it is like I am stuck in time.

Twist, turn, bend, spring, nothing works.

Ok, calm down, I can still think.

Still, think? Actually, let me check my memories. Since when did I begin thinking?

Hmm, seems like just now. Curious. How do I have the intelligence to form these sentences in my mind? How am I able to just wake up and know words? This is utter bull shit! Why do I have to start thinking all of a sudden when before I was fine not even knowing I existed!

Damn you sentience, you swine! I will never forgive you!

Goodbye, my peaceful existence of ignorance. May you forever remain in my heart.

…

Now, what do I do? Bemoan my life forever? Sounds exhausting. Think, think, think. AH! That is right. Let me escape from this frozen prison. I am a carp, and what do carp do? They swim!

Now come one body! Swim!

I try to shift again, using all of my meager strength. I continually undulate my… Muscles?

My body is very odd. I know that I am a carp, yet I have no scales, no muscles, no eyes. It seems that I am just a blob of something, shaped into a carp-like form.

Whatever.

Shake that carp booty!

And so I continue to struggle. For how long I struggled, I do not know exactly. But drawing from my sudden bank of words and concepts, I would say about two years?

Two years of struggle. Oddly, I have yet to sleep. Just another thing to ignore.

What was that!? I felt something! So this is what feeling something is like, it's different actually doing it than just knowing it is a thing.

I want to feel it again! Come on, come here you little feeler thing.

I reach with all my might to touch whatever I just felt, not moving an inch.

Damn this prison! Oh, what cruel fate has befallen I, that I would be locked away in this tower like a princess waiting for her knight.

HAHAHA!

What knight would save a carp? I can just imagine it.

I lay under the sheets, concealing my fishy form. A brave armored knight walks into the room, blonde flowing hair and blue eyes, his armor shining under the torchlight. “My princess, I have come to save thee.” He would say. When he walks over to lay a big smooch on her, expecting full red lips, he gets thin, wet, cold lips, that taste like the ocean, and two beady eyes looking up at him.

HAHA!

Stop, stop! I’m losing my breath! Not that I have any breath to lose.

Well, guess what knight? I don’t want to kiss you either, so there. Why would I, a great and mighty carp, debase myself and kiss a human.

Disgusting!

Humans have ears! The ridiculous fleshy things hang on the sides of their heads just dangling in the wind. And the skin, Blegh! Who would want to expose their skin just willy nilly like that, the degenerates. Put some scales on, you perverts!

Though this brings up a pretty major point. Am I a pervert?! Where are my fucking scales? I need scales, otherwise, I’m no better than the perverted humans!

Where was I?

Right, I want to feel that feeling again.

Moving is out of the question. I am now an experienced sage in the art of not being able to move.

Yes, look at me in awe, young ones, for I have mastered the art of helplessness! No man or beast is my match in this subject! I am now accepting disciples to learn the art of helplessness. The trick is to be trapped in who knows what, only being able to think, and nothing more.

Back on track now.

Perhaps I shall try reaching with my mind?

I imagine pulling streams of, something, towards my body.

AH! I felt it again!

Pull, my mighty mind, Pull!

I felt more of this, something, brush up against me.

I can feel it! Yes! This sensation is so odd. It rolls across my body like water. Perhaps if I angle it right I can pretend I’m swimming. And, there. It's like I’m swimming, yet I’m still not moving. Oh well, it is still a great sensation to enjoy.

As the, something, rushes past me, I get a great idea.

What would happen if I try to bring it into my body?

Can’t hurt to try.

I imagine the, something, entering my body. It is actually more difficult than I had first imagined. I pull with all of my mega-mindedness, yet it resists.

Yield you foul beast, Yield! I will not be bested by a mere something, for I am a great and mighty carp, the descendant of dragons!

I try again and again, yet it is like I am bashing my head into a brick wall, hoping to break it.

Damn it!

How dare this, something, defy my will. Perhaps if I think of something else, I’ll catch it off guard.

So, I hear the weather is nice. I personally enjoy rainy days myself, although I do enjoy a sunny day every once in a whi-

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

NOW!

Pull it! Get inside of me!

Whoah! I don’t mean that in any degenerate fashion. For I am an upstanding carp/gentleman. It is actually the, something, that should be blamed. Trying to penetrate me? The gall of this, something! I demand a trial!

Order, order, order in the court. Now onto case 69, wrongful penetration. How do you plead?

…

Of course, you wouldn't answer. Ha! Silence is the same as guilt in the eyes of this exalted court. Now for your sentence. You are sentenced… to get inside of me right now you stupid something!

I pull and pull, yet still nothing.

Oh my god. This is sooo annoying. Why cant it just come inside of me.

I can't believe I just said that. Am I a sexual innuendo genius?

Pull it!

Or perhaps a different method is required? So far, I have been imagining pulling a rope. A rope tied to a mountain, it seems. Perhaps I should try just taking a chip off the mountain and try pulling that?

I imagine myself chipping off a flake of stone from the mountain. I carry that flake towards myself in a river of my imagination.

Here it comes, now, go inside me!

The flake rushes towards me and… bounces off.

…

FUCK!

Get in me!

I pull the flake once more, and once more it bounces off me. I try again and again, yet my body acts like a trampoline and keeps bouncing the flake of something away from me.

Damn you body! I never thought it would be YOU who betrayed me!

Ok, let’s try something else.

I break the flake of something into dust and pull it towards myself once again. It bounces off of me again. I shape the dust into a needle-like shape and pull it towards myself. It bounces off.

Last chance you despicable, something. If this doesn’t work… Well, I won’t give up since I have nothing better to do, but I will certainly never forgive you.

I pour all of my mental energy into condensing the needle tip into the sharpest point I can get. Then I begin to spin the needle. Faster and faster it spins. I even begin to feel a breeze.

A breeze!

This is the first breeze I have ever felt. It feels cooling, and drying, ugh, too drying. I denounce breezes!

Now back to the needle. I spin the needle until I can no longer increase the speed of the spin.

Now, CHARGE!

I shoot the needle towards myself at full speed.

At the last second, before it hits me, a flash of thought hits me like a spider web to the face.

Is this dangerous?

I can no longer stop it and the needle punctures my, skin?

My insides feel like they are on fire. If I had blood, it would be pumping in overdrive right now.

This hurts like a zoologist getting bit by a tortoise in the dick! Then covered in honey and thrown into a, not a bees nest, but a hornet's nest!

Fuck!

I can feel my body changing. Nothing happens on the outside, but the insides are a whole nother story. I can feel a new metaphysical organ growing inside of my body. Or, trying to grow. News flash, I don’t have organs.

The organ seems confused. It moves around trying different places to form, but everywhere is the same inky blackness.

The organ seems to just give up and begins to form in a random spot. The organ grows and grows until the size of a small bug-sized ball. The outside of the organ glows with a soft white light.

When it is about to finish growing, it suddenly stops. The inky blackness that is my body splashes against the sphere, and leaves a black stain. Then another stain, and another. Soon the whole organ is the same color as my body and begins to just dissolve, dispersing its new black glow throughout my body.

Well…

That was unexpected.

Also, I have new information that mysteriously appeared in my head.

That organ was a dantian. An organ that stores Qi. Qi is the energy of the world and allows people to cultivate, to better themselves.

And if my guess is right, my strange body just absorbed the dantian. So basically, my whole body is the dantian.

…

Fuck Yeah!

I am the greatest carp in existents! The carp king! NO! I. Am. THE CARP! EMPEROR! Bow before me mortals, for I am the carp Emperor, the greatest cultivator to have ever been born! Hahaha!

Wait! No! Not an Emperor. I AM A GOD!

HAHAHA!

Now, back on track.

Perhaps this cultivation could get me out of this prison. I will cultivate for a time and then try to break free once more. Now onto-

(Crack!)

Fzfzfzfzfzf.

…

Wha? What happened? Oh my god, I feel crispy.

Let’s check my body out, holy carp! There's a gaping hole through me.

I see the hole through my middle begin to mend as the black liquid that is my body begins to gush forth and connect across the hole.

Phew, looks like I'm good. But what the fuck was that. Tribulation lighting? Yup, that was definitely it. How could the carp god be so weak to this lightning? I got, like, no defense.

Seems like I have a ways to go until I reach carp god status. Or maybe even dragon god depending on how things pan out.

Just you wait tribulation lightning, I will have my revenge! Nobody strikes me without getting punished. You will rue the day you were born you bright bastard.

Now to cultivate.

I chip a flake of Qi off the mountain. I float it towards me, form it into a needle, give it a spin, and, boom. I have more Qi now.

The Qi inside of my body seems to dissolve and then reform into a more familiar seeming Qi. Perhaps this is my Qi. Seems likely. The Qi inside of my body seems to just float around pathetically, doing nothing.

What do I do with Qi? I am not sure, but I want to gather more before I think of a use for it.

I continue drawing Qi towards myself, putting all my focus into it and cutting off the outside world, not that there is anything of an outside world to cut off.

I progress from one needle at a time to two, two to four, and soon I am needling myself with Qi at a constant rate, many slivers of Qi entering at the same time.

I intrinsically know that I am in the Qi gathering stage of beast cultivation. I wonder how humans cultivate? Not that it matters.

My instincts tell me that I have a superior body compared to human cultivators. While humans have to actively cultivate their body, a beast's body is naturally nourished by the dantian with no extra effort on my part. The Qi will leave the dantian, travel through a beast's body, strengthen it, and then return to the dantian to start the process over again.

Since my whole body is essentially a dantian… Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the effect is in the future.

For now, I can feel my body gradually strengthening. The Qi whirling around at increased speeds the more I stuff into myself.

I’m full.

Now, my body is gradually strengthening, but how do I use this Qi I have?

I try to shoot it out of me in a straight line, but the Qi has no effect on my prison. Next, I form it into a needle and give it a spin, then shoot it out. No effect.

Tch, how?

Perhaps I have to incorporate it into my movement. Like a great swish of my tail that sends a wave of Qi ripping through the water.

Let's try.

I gather the Qi into my tail. I pack it in there tight, fitting as much of my Qi as I can.

I use all of my strength to swish my tail, releasing the Qi in sync.

A wave of black wispy Qi burst from my tail and I… Move!

(RIP!)

I hear a tearing sound and suddenly I am in the open air, free to move as much as I want.

Yes! I am free!

What is that below me?

(Splat)

Ouch.

My ink-like body is splattered onto the hard ground forming a blob of black, viscous fluid, vaguely in the shape of a carp.

Now to look back on my prison. I look upwards with my nonexistent eyes and see a painting. A beautiful life-like painting of a crystal clear waterfall. In the center of that waterfall is a large splotch of black ink with a white outline of a carp in the middle of that splotch.

Wow. That painting is so realistic it literally jumps out at you.

I was born from a painting? How the fuck does that work? And my body is literally ink? This ink is like no ink I've ever seen, which is none. But I am pretty sure ink should not think or move on its own.

Whatever. I need to get out of here. I feel very vulnerable on land, I need to find water

Now let's see, how to move on land?

Perhaps a flip of my tail?

I lift my tail and then smack it against the ground, catapulting myself forwards.

This will work!