Lerasium Era 3 and something else

[therunner he/him]

 

Quote

 

Questioner

So, by the end of Era 2, we witness the greatest explosion ever caused by a man. From Wax’s experiments, we know that ettmetal can be split into lerasium and atium. Could this mean that the sea is now filled with lerasium? If so, could that somehow lead to the emergence of more Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

First, to get the god metals when it divides, you have to do something specific that Wax did and no one else has done. Simply causing the explosion, you will not get the god metals; you will get something we call *inaudible*, which you´ll see in Era 3. Wax did something different. No one in Era 3 knows what he managed to accomplish. He did not <try it again>, he thought it was too dangerous.

Footnote: The reporter believes the inaudible word was "pikemetal".
Celsius 232 2025 (July 15, 2025)

 

So we got this new WoB which states that by Era 3, Scadrial is still unable to produce Lerasium.

Wax did something that no one else did, and never tried again interestingly enough. (I am partial to the theory that it had to do with his Intent)

But what is more interesting is that causing ettmetal explosion alone also produces something, something new that we will see in Era 3. Any ideas of what that could be? Maybe some compounds with interesting physical and Invested properties?

[Duxredux he/him]

Let's look at aspects of the experiment. First, Wax didn't use just a Trellium sample but one with a Hemalurgic charge. His stated goal wasn't to make either Atium or Lerasium but to confirm if it was possible - with the further expressed reasoning of needing to know if the Set had the capability so he could take them down to protect. The electrical melter machine was set to pull only a few sixteenths of an inch and stop while running high current through it then he observed the two halves of the Ettmetal nugget taking on characteristics of Atium and Lerasium. He set up the test to be done remotely, with a half an hour setup to get his timer rigged hydraulic punch then a five minute delay on top of that while doing the experiment in an unobserved metal safe box in a concrete bunker with a thick metal door. Then there was the secondary explosion when he tried to scrape the Harmonium plastered to the back of the safe box - which is when his mask was torn free, and when Harmony thinks he inhaled a dose - which happened during Steris's viewpoint not Wax.

 

Could be Intent. Could be Hemalurgy. I have a untestable crackpot RAFO hypothesis but I'm not sure if Wax is that stupid, despite his claims to the contrary that he was being stupid at the time. We know that the entire sample of the initial half a gram of Ettmetal was not consumed even with some of it converted to energy. Then he touched the stuff to scrape it into a bag. What if the still cooling Ettmetal had embedded fragments of Trellium which under normal circumstances would still be trying to repel the Harmonium and maintain the partial separation into Atium and Lerasium? And if Wax burned Steel to confirm he got all the fragments, charging the Ettmetal which would repel the internally embedded Trellium...? If splitting Ettmetal into Atium and Lerasium requires doing the high current stretch to polarize the metal, blowing up a bunker by introducing Trellium, then a Coinshot actively blowing themselves up by touching the stuff and burning Steel... it would stand to reason why no one else has tried this. Because it's so obviously a bad idea.

Properties of the product of the explosion, if you can find it, would be just pure speculation on my part.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

Duxredux said something interesting here. Wax is a coinshot, investigating an explosion of godmetals. He would be burning steel, looking for pieces of the metal and destroyed equipment. I don't remember anyone mentioning it as a possibility before. What if whatever the explosion produced reacted to Wax burning metal? If you recall, in the final empire, atium crystals had to be found by hand because they exploded when someone burned close to them. What if that exploded harmonium or its byproduct reacted similarly? 

 

[Frustration]

I'd assume the substance left over would be harmonium-hydroxide, following the cesium model.

 

I also back the reason Wax's experiment was different being that he used a Hemalurgic spike. The set wouldn't waste one on that experiment, and the Basin doesn't know how to use them. The extra Ruin creating a different reaction pathway.

[Aekiel2]

My pet theory is that his little internal monologue about how becoming a mistborn wouldn't change him (as he'd used the Bands to protect his friends) set up his Intent to align with both Ruin and Preservation, which then contaminated the experiment and caused the metal to split.

[Elite01]

My interpretation was that it worked for wax because he wanted to create lerasium but wasn’t creating it with the intent to become a mistborn himself 

[DoctaDajman]

4 hours ago, Elite01 said:

My interpretation was that it worked for wax because he wanted to create lerasium but wasn’t creating it with the intent to become a mistborn himself 

Was Wax specifically targeting lerasium?  Is that a well known metal? Do Scadrians know it makes mistborn if burned?  

Honestly I thought I remembered the targeted metal being atium.

[alder24]

12 hours ago, DoctaDajman said:

Was Wax specifically targeting lerasium?  Is that a well known metal? Do Scadrians know it makes mistborn if burned?  

Honestly I thought I remembered the targeted metal being atium.

Yes, yes and yes. He was trying to make both god metals and everyone in the Basin know about Lerasium and its properties as that's written in Words of Founding. The epigraphs from HoA are from the Words of Founding left by Sazed and they talk about Lerasium and its ability to create Mistborn.

TLM ch 15:

Quote

It took a good half hour to set the whole thing up. All the while, Wax wondered. What if he did split harmonium? He’d have two metals, the bodies of gods, each capable of incredible things from ancient lore, like manipulating time or creating beings with mythological Mistborn abilities. What if he had that power? What would that change about him?
Nothing, he thought to himself. I’ve held that power. And when I had it, I used it to save my friends.

I do believe that this quote is the very reason why Wax was able to create god metals when splitting Harmonium. 

[+robardin he/him]

On 1/16/2026 at 9:50 AM, alder24 said:

Yes, yes and yes. He was trying to make both god metals and everyone in the Basin know about Lerasium and its properties as that's written in Words of Founding. The epigraphs from HoA are from the Words of Founding left by Sazed and they talk about Lerasium and its ability to create Mistborn.

TLM ch 15:

I do believe that this quote is the very reason why Wax was able to create god metals when splitting Harmonium. 

Actually that quote highlights another unique thing about Wax’s Experiment that would be unique to Wax (and I suppose, Marasi, if she were enlisted): he had wielded the Bands, which we still don’t know how they were created. Which when tapped for All The Powers resulted in swirling mist like a mini-Ascension, which we know permanently “stretches” one’s Spiritweb even after releasing the power (becoming a “mini-Sliver”, if you will).

And that would represent a significant “extra Connection” to Preservation above and beyond even that of a normal Allomancer.

Of course he wasn’t doing anything overtly (directly) Allomantic while setting up or running the experiment, but as mentioned, he could just have been burning steel for Steelsight at just the right moment for lerasium to be produced instead of … whatever comes out instead in Era 3.