Two days later, the fourth plenary vote of the Present Realm Conference began.
After the vote concluded, all participants, representing the entire Present Realm, rejected the Ascension Plan and several derivative proposals.
Altering the body and soul would inevitably distort humanity's essence, whether through Source Matter or metal. Humans who completed ascension might already have become aberrant subspecies of those who once lived in the Present Realm.
Once altered, they would yield to reality and alter themselves a second time. If this continued, the entire world would likely be unrecognizable within a few centuries.
What utterly nailed this proposal shut was a report from the Continuance Institute—of more than a thousand humans who had undergone six rounds of modification, the vast majority had turned into bizarre lumps of flesh, tentacles, or even stranger things. Their thoughts and consciousnesses were no longer what they had once been. More importantly, they had gradually begun to exhibit different Destruction Factor traits.
If this went on, all humanity would probably have to reserve private rooms at the Continuance Institute and turn into Element Weapons.
Four days later, the fifth vote of the Present Realm Conference began, formally rejecting the Boundary Plan.
It would divide the entire Present Realm into five layers, isolating the inner from the outer and maintaining the stability of the core. Though effective, it had a crucial flaw: once the outer layers were deeply eroded and contaminated by the Depths, the aberrations could not even be reversed or purged.
Moreover, it would inflict irreversible damage upon the social structure of the Present Realm.
After six hundred years of evolution, the vast majority of humanity would become hybrids under the erosion of the Depths. A tiny number of purebloods would retreat into the inner ring, becoming rulers who plundered at will and