The offer could not move Jiang.
Copied feathers pressed closer around his back while the master seed drew six wounded breaths through its roots.
His working flipper hung numb.
One webbed foot still found the wall.
That was enough to make the choice his.
EP1 could become many things if he survived long enough to see them.
This refinement would not repair his coat or lift the dead weight of his flipper. It would spend his only point on a defense so narrow that dry ground made it useless.
The copied hollow tightened again.
Its feathers were his shape without his life. If the mark settled, six wounded bodies would be forced to answer through a penguin who had never agreed to carry them.
Jiang did not need the refinement to promise escape.
He needed it to keep one foreign current from choosing what his own skin meant.
Jiang accepted `Countercurrent Oil I`.
[Countercurrent Oil I accepted.]
[EP spent: 1 | EP remaining: 0]
[No healing or insulation restored.]
