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"Yes. Its function is somewhat similar to the Dragon Balls, but the power of the Aether is far weaker. What it can do is temporarily alter reality based on your thoughts—it cannot change reality permanently. If you want to permanently alter reality the way wishes do in Dragon Ball, relying on the Reality Stone alone is not enough."
There was one thing Clark didn't say out loud:
If you want to permanently change reality, you must collect all six Infinity Stones.
In fact, Clark believed that the Reality Stone was essentially a simplified version of all six Infinity Stones combined. It could freely manipulate reality at will—wasn't that exactly what the Infinity Gauntlet embedded with all six stones did? Based on what was shown in The Avengers, Clark speculated that the true limit of the Reality Stone was time.
After all, if the Reality Stone alone could permanently reshape reality, Thanos wouldn't have needed to gather all six stones. Wouldn't it have been enough to simply use the Reality Stone to cut the population of every planet in half?
Because of this, Clark concluded that the villain Malekith from Thor: The Dark World had likely been deceived. The idea that eternal night could be created using just a single Reality Stone was probably nothing more than a fantasy. Even more tragically, Thor's grandfather, Bor, had never allowed others to even dream of such a thing—yet five thousand years later, Malekith still couldn't let go of that dream.
Clark also knew that even temporarily altering reality with the Reality Stone was no simple task. The movies didn't show it clearly, but Jane had only passively used the Aether to defend herself a few times, and even then she had nearly been knocked unconscious by it.
So don't be fooled by how effortlessly Thanos later wielded it—that was only because he was strong. If you weren't powerful enough, you wouldn't even be able to use it properly. Simply carrying it would slowly drain your strength.
"But didn't you say the Dark Elves planned to use the Aether to create eternal night?" Tony asked. "If it can only alter reality temporarily, wouldn't the darkness disappear once the Nine Realms stopped overlapping? Doesn't that contradict itself?"
After hearing Clark's explanation, Tony felt there was an inconsistency.
"My guess is that they were misled," Clark replied. "If the Dark Elves truly wanted to create eternal night, they would've needed to collect all the Infinity Stones and build a vessel capable of temporarily containing their combined power. And honestly, even if Thor and his grandfather Bor hadn't stopped them back then, they probably still wouldn't have been able to shroud the Nine Realms in darkness—even temporarily."
After all, setting aside everything else, the Tesseract alone had already required enormous energy just to activate when Loki used it. As an Infinity Stone, this fragment of the Reality Stone likely consumed no less energy.
Clark and Tony continued talking as they flew toward the Reality Stone. Clark was thinking that since he had already absorbed energy from the Space Stone and the Mind Stone, he wanted to see if he could absorb some of the Reality Stone's power as well.
Tony, on the other hand, believed that the very fact they had reached the place where Bor sealed the Reality Stone meant it was no longer safe. If they could get here, others could too.
Even though Clark claimed the stone couldn't create eternal night as legend described, Tony—having lived through the Battle of New York—knew all too well how dangerous the Infinity Stones were. Even one of them alone might not destroy the universe, but destroying Earth would be far from difficult.
So in Tony's mind, the right move was clear: they needed to take the Reality Stone away.
"Let's take it with us first," Tony said. "With the Nine Realms overlapping, this place isn't safe anymore. We should remove it. If we can't deal with it, we'll give it to Thor and have him bring it back to Asgard. But… how exactly am I supposed to take it?"
Looking at the liquid-like Aether constantly flowing beneath the stone pillar, Tony was unsure how to retrieve it.
"Let me try," Clark said.
He remembered that in Thor: The Dark World, Jane had simply reached into the gap beneath the pillar, and the Aether had attached itself to her. So Clark figured he might only need to touch it.
Clark stepped forward and extended his left hand toward the floating Aether. No matter what, this was something only Clark could take.
Tony was small, just an ordinary human. Even if he somehow obtained the Aether, he probably wouldn't fare much better than Jane.
"Hey—!" Tony exclaimed when he saw Clark reaching out, but then he remembered that Clark had directly touched the Tesseract before as well.
The Tesseract contained lethal levels of energy—deadly even to humans—but it had done nothing to Clark. It hadn't corroded his hand, nor had it teleported him away like it did to the Red Skull. It had simply rested quietly in Clark's palm, like an ordinary blue cube.
With that in mind, Tony sighed and stopped trying to intervene.
What happened next, however, was slightly different from what Tony expected.
When Clark touched the Aether, the stone itself didn't immediately change—but like tadpoles finding their mother, all of the crimson energy surged toward Clark's palm. Moments later, the Aether completely vanished into his hand.
By then, even if Tony wanted to stop it, he had no chance—and no idea how he even could.
Boom!
Once all the Aether beneath the pillar was absorbed, the massive stone column that had been suspended in midair crashed down onto the ground.
As Clark absorbed the Reality Stone, an incredibly strange sensation washed over him. It felt as though something missing within his body had finally been restored. A deep, indescribable sense of completeness filled him.
When the Reality Stone entered his body, Clark felt a new form of energy emerge—similar to the Space Stone and the Mind Stone.
But unlike the other two, this energy was overwhelmingly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that even the combined energy of the Space Stone and Mind Stone was less than one-tenth of it.
Clark believed this was because he had absorbed the Reality Stone directly. Unlike the Space and Mind Stones—of which he had only taken fragments of power—the entire Reality Stone had now fused with his body.
After gaining its power, Clark immediately tested its abilities to see if it truly worked as he expected.
He raised his hand and casually waved it.
Instantly, another Clark appeared in front of him.
Same outfit. Same movements. If Clark himself hadn't moved, Tony wouldn't have been able to tell which one was real.