It absolutely will. I tested it out just seemed so strange. Can’t figure out what OP is asking. Is that a feature in other softwares? All the Shape Keys are relative to Basis, you can move any shape key so its second in the selection, then delete the Basis, and that key now becomes basis, basically is applied.
But that screws up everything, since all the other keys are now relative to geometry that is different from what they were built upon.
Alternatively, what you can do, is Just move whatever key you want to be applied to the top, and it becomes the new basis. This way, all the keys are still referencing old basis, which you haven’t deleted, but key on the top of the list becomes new base geometry.
But still can’t figure out why you’d want that