The meditation room in Kamar-Taj was always dimly lit, but when the setting sun arrived, its golden glow reflected off the snowy slopes of the Himalayan Mountains and into the circular meditation window, making the room a little brighter.
The two seated in front of the window remained silent for a while, then Stark finally spoke: "Do you think that the statement 'there is beauty in absurdity' as mentioned by the notebook's owner, is accurate?"
Strange furrowed his brow, his gaze serious as it met Stark's, "I may not have the answer you want. To magicians, whether it be fragile bodies or weak souls, neither can be considered useful; they are even considered a burden."
"You sound like a full-fledged black magician."
"I am."
"Do you know, Steven, you have changed a lot." Stark turned his head to look at Strange as if trying to put pressure on him with his gaze, but Strange shook his head: "Don't try this with me. It doesn't mean that if you have changed, I haven't."
"We are both exploring the future path of the human race, thus a lot of unspeakable thinking has been done. I have naturally considered how to elevate the human soul to become a stronger entity, and don't tell me that you haven't considered doing the same for their physical bodies."
"You used the term 'they'." Stark blinked, appearing dissatisfied with the term, but Strange very plainly shook his head: "You and I both understand that just because you haven't ascended to the Iron Demon God, you are just like ordinary people who work on the ground. That's impossible, Tony."
"Whether it's physiology or psychology, what we see, hear, think, and feel, we can no longer completely align with ordinary people. We must lead them, exploring paths for them, while also driving them forward from behind."
"If we pursue standing alongside ordinary people in a rudimentary way too eagerly, it will only narrow our vision and mess things up. We are not the young generation, nobody can afford to pay for our wrong decisions and the misguided direction of the human race."
"So why should you feel ashamed of your high perspective and those thoughts which may seem evil to ordinary people?" Steven stared at Stark: "You didn't really experiment on them, neither did I."
Stark went silent, seemingly undergoing a shift in his thinking. He then closed his eyes in apparent pain, "Even if I think the most precious thing about humans is their wisdom, can such a monstrous appearance be accepted?"
"Or is it that all this time, I have never truly abandoned my shallow love for and affiliation with human appearances. Some groups of monsters may possess human wisdom and should enjoy the same civilization as us, instead of being destroyed?"
"I am not a psychologist." Steven shook his head: "But I can guess that after seeing the truth revealed by the notebook's owner, you didn't feel sympathy for those monsters who were destroyed, and you didn't blame the people who destroyed them. This contradicts your previous theory of wisdom and rationality."
"Indeed." Tony gave a bitter smile, jokingly said: "You should get a license to practice psychology."
"Stop talking nonsense, I don't have a degree." Steven shrugged, poured Tony another cup of tea. After taking a sip, Tony said, "My rationality tells me, the process of humans transforming into monsters is just the pain of evolution. They might have just taken a different path."
"Just like I once thought, can ordinary people follow the path of mechanical enhancement? And thinking about it now, what is the difference between having circuits connected in some part of the human body and growing tentacles?"
"Of course, there is. You would have asked for their consent."
Tony paused, while Strange leaned back against his single-seater couch and slightly lifted his chin, spoke with an overly arrogant attitude:
"Humans will never accept any manipulated destiny."
This proclamation was like a bell tolling loudly in Tony's heart, pulling him out of his minor and intricate philosophical thoughts.
"Maybe the modification of some human parts, replacing them with tentacles and mucus, is a selectable path in physical evolution. But discarding existing human civilizational achievements, transforming them unknowingly into another existence with oblivion – is this evolution? No, this is more like a large-scale kidnapping and illegal transformation that encompasses the entire human race."
"Tony, you have always been very arrogant, yet not arrogant enough." Strange crossed one leg over the other and said: "The direction of human evolution should be determined by humans. Humans only believe in their own saviors, not in illusory gods."
"No matter how beneficial or magnificent this evolution is, it cannot be done without the consent of the subjects. If they have done so, and even want us to accept it as their top-most benefaction, then consider your old profession—how humans killed the god who controlled good weather with the Industrial Revolution."
Tony showed a smile and looked at Steven, "You should really get a license to practice psychology, I mean it."