Lury's capital, Zion.
Inside a large laboratory, multiple researchers were locked in heated debate, occasionally jotting down something on the papers in their hands to support their arguments.
One of them, a man with a mess of curly hair, was chewing on a pen, flashes of contemplative light occasionally passing through his dark green pupils.
As Lury's chief researcher, Melens had long borne the heavy responsibility of advancing scientific research and development in the nation of Lury.
Back during the 【Crimson Gaze】 Rule period, he had been the one to lead the observation experiment conducted at the Lury Observatory, and his authority was unquestionable.
"Algorithms can keep iterating! As long as we set the direction, we absolutely have a chance!"
"How do we solve protein misfolding? That's a reaction inside the human body! Without chip involvement, how can we iterate?"
"Just have the supercomputer simulate it. Since Suroma managed to traverse memories, with our enhanced computing power, we can definitely simulate the synthesis method for a perfect gene chain."
"I feel this approach is too dangerous. Even if it succeeds, only a tiny minority will be able to adapt. And the testing process will cost many lives..."
The researchers argued endlessly, until they all looked to Melens, letting the authority make the final call.
Under everyone's gaze, Melens fell silent for a moment before making a decision.
He slammed the pen in his hand hard onto the table. "If we abandon this precious opportunity just because we're afraid of casualties, then Lury might just be the next nation to be destroyed after Hanlis!"
The stance in those words was crystal clear—they were going for it.
The supporters broke into smiles, while the opponents furrowed their brows.
One of the opposing researchers stood up and set down his pen. "If the decision is really made to go ahead with 'Gene Compilation,' then I'm choosing to withdraw from this task."
"Me too. This will destroy too many people!"
"Once this door is opened, the consequences could very well be more severe than Suroma turning their Ascendants into modified smart machinery bodies."
The few researchers who opposed were against a plan proposed by Lury's decision-making body, called the "Blueprint Project."
The core content of this plan was to use the current Rule, leveraging the supercomputer's Emergence Acceleration computing power, to brute-force crack the human genetic code—the "Blueprint."
The project's ultimate goal wasn't just cracking it, but editing it afterward to obtain a more "perfect" Blueprint. The essence was to make the human body stronger through genetic modification.
If Suroma's modified bodies were merely a transitional phase from flesh-and-blood mortals to mechanical transcendence,
Then the Blueprint Project proposed by Lury's decision-making body did not intend to abandon the physical body, but rather to transform and strengthen it.
The ultimate goal was to grant the human body transcendent adaptability.
This was because Lury's decision-making body had concluded after discussions that humanity must rely on the physical body for long-term survival.
Suroma's approach of sequentially replacing body parts until complete replacement was achieved—they considered this a wrong path.
Even if that path could be followed to the very end, it would be hard to say whether what survived could still be considered human.
Perhaps divisions like "Pure Human," "Half-Human," and "Mechanical Human" might even emerge by then.
Lury's decision-making body believed that strengthening pure humans was a better choice.
The decision-makers' exact words were:
"Confirm that humans can eventually resist space radiation and extreme cold with their own bodies. What would spaceships be for? What would mechanical modifications be for?"
...To blaze a third path outside of Suroma and Beixing—this was the decision made by Lury's higher-ups.
At first glance, this decision seemed somewhat fanciful. However, the fact that Lury had persisted until now and become the leader among several small nations meant they still had considerable research strength.
Moreover, Lury's decision-making body firmly believed that whether it was Suroma or Beixing, their decisions would prioritize their own nationals.
For example, even if Beixing's space survival base were built, it would only accommodate Beixing residents. Even if they wanted to house foreigners, it wouldn't be possible.
Because Beixing still had a population of several hundred million. If they were to form a line, it would be even more absurd than Suroma's memory upload queue. There was simply no way to imagine foreigners getting a spot.
Based on this understanding, Lury had long taken the lead in finalizing the Super City construction plan, instead of completely trailing behind the major powers.
Now that the new 【Emergence Acceleration】 Rule had been announced, the Super City's construction inevitably had to be temporarily halted.
Thus, Lury's decision-making body shifted their attention to the field of human genetics.
In peacetime, Lury was already at the world's cutting edge in this area. Now that they had a rare opportunity to leverage the power of the Rules to push forward, they certainly weren't going to miss it.
As for the ethical issues and experimental losses this research would produce, in the eyes of Lury's decision-making body, those had to take a back seat in the face of the nation's survival.
After the few dissenting researchers left, only those in agreement remained in the lab.
Melens said, "Everyone, I know there are still doubts, but we have no time to be distracted. We can only keep charging forward—that's the only way we have a chance to survive."
He thrust his fist forward. "For Lury."
"For Lury!"
The researchers extended their fists and bumped them together.
...
"According to what Yishan said, after Gaelid's incident, Bruce started appearing very rarely in public and rarely left the Hall of Halls... Combined with Wemban's intelligence, there must be a secret base inside or underground the Hall of Halls."
Guan Tong was currently standing on the rooftop of a building in New Covenant, gazing at the majestic palace in the distance where the king resided and conducted affairs.
"Adam said during his lifetime that the Hall of Halls has extremely tight defenses, and the Mind Power barrier is almost always active. If I used the Shadow to infiltrate, I would definitely be detected... For now, I can't act rashly."
He withdrew his gaze and looked down at the building beneath his feet.
After being frightened by Guan Tong's threat to "send her back to the mental hospital," Yishan had spilled a lot of information.
Besides the suspicion that her brother Gaelid was a parasitized form, she had also told Guan Tong the location of the stronghold belonging to Suroma's official Ascendants.
The unremarkable office building beneath Guan Tong's feet was one of New Covenant's official Ascendant strongholds.
Although Yishan lazed around all day and never did anything serious, it was precisely this idleness that had allowed her to befriend many children of the powerful and wealthy, learning quite a bit from them.
One senator's son had told her that Suroma's official Ascendants gathered at the stronghold once a week to collect welfare supplies distributed by the government.
Today happened to be the distribution day.
Guan Tong's purpose in coming here wasn't to kill these Ascendants.
Although doing so would weaken Suroma's overall strength and partially weaken Bruce, Guan Tong was still reluctant to massacre indiscriminately.
Because there might still be people like "Gael" among these Ascendants.
Guan Tong still held respect for that Suroma Ascendant who had sent him a private message exposing the truth and who had dared to defy life, death, and power in opposition.
There might be quite a few Ascendants like Gael in Suroma. It wouldn't be right to indiscriminately kill them all without distinction.
So today, his main purpose was still to gather intelligence.
It seemed almost everyone had arrived.
Through the perspective provided by the Shadow he had ambushed inside the stronghold in advance, Guan Tong saw many Suroma Ascendants gradually flooding into the hall. He knew it was time for him to enter.
Activating the effect of the Insight Wind Timer he had simulated from a Dao Zhen, he initiated the Body Swap.
A person instantly appeared in a corner of the hall, drawing no one's attention.
The hundreds of Ascendants who had already arrived all focused on the round platform at the center of the hall.
On it, instead of the usual resources like food that were normally placed, there was only a cardboard box.
"What about the food cans? Haven't they been delivered yet?"
"That shouldn't be the case. Normally, it's piled up by now."
"I feel like there aren't as many people this distribution day as before."
"Yeah, I think today feels different from usual. I can't even see the distributor."
The Suroma Ascendants chattered amongst themselves, confusion written on their faces.
Seeing this, Guan Tong thought to himself that he had timed his visit perfectly.
"Where's the person distributing supplies? Why so slow today?" An Ascendant jumped onto the round platform and opened the cardboard box. "What's this box for?"
He opened it and tipped it over. Clatter! A whole pile of paper sheets scattered out, almost covering the entire round platform, with plenty spilling onto the floor below.
The Ascendant who had tipped over the box picked up a sheet, looked at it, and immediately froze.
The other Ascendants below who picked up the sheets and saw the contents were all struck dumb as if petrified, their expressions filled with disbelief.
Guan Tong was a bit far away and couldn't see at first.
But the next moment, he heard an Ascendant holding a sheet shout out in shock: "This is! This is a Modification Consent Form!"
"Modification Consent Form?!"
"What the hell is going on? Why is there a whole box of Modification Consent Forms here?!"
"I don't want to be turned into a robot! I want welfare supplies!"
Even Guan Tong was taken aback by this. He hadn't expected those papers to be such a thing.
Looking at the hundreds or even thousands of Modification Consent Forms scattered across the entire platform, he wondered if Suroma's government was forcefully pushing through their modification policy.