Potential use of Lerasium

[Oudeis he/him]

A bizarre brainstorm I had.

 

Imagine this as a way to use Lerasium...

 

Lerasium re-writes your sDNA, yes? Giving you a connection to Preservation, and the powers of allomancy.

 

It's suggested in the MAG (I'm not sure if this is backed up in the text or via WoB) that Lerasium, in any of its uses, overwrites your current sDNA. That is, you gain a power, but lose your current powers to do so.

 

A la Vasher's sacrifice trick, I wonder if this is a way to fight really powerful people? Let's say you're opposing Raoden. He's powerful and skilled at AonDor. What if you somehow tricked him into swallowing and burning a bead of lerasium? He'd gain incredible powers of allomancy... which will do him precious little good without any training, or even the faintest notion of how these powers can be accessed. Meantime, depending on how lerasium actually does work, he might unShaod, and lose his powers of AonDor.

 

Just random speculation. Thoughts? If it does overwrite your sDNA, could it sever a nahel bond? Erase Breaths?

[Voidus]

How would TLR have kept his Feruchemy then?

[Oudeis he/him]

....

 

WHHEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooo.....boom.

 

That's the sound of my theory failing to launch.

 

Thank you for the insight. Upvote! Until next theory!

[Moogle]

TLR didn't use lerasium. He used the Well of Ascension to directly modify himself.

[Windrunner he/him]

Unless I'm mistaken, Brandon's contradicted himself on the topic, so we're really not too sure about the right answer there.

[Oudeis he/him]

Thanks, Moogle!

 

Do we have WoB one way or the other? I feel like if it's anywhere, it'll be in the Hero of Ages epigraphs.

[Moogle]

Thanks, Moogle!

 

Do we have WoB one way or the other? I feel like if it's anywhere, it'll be in the Hero of Ages epigraphs.

 

Here it is:

Chris King (Miyabi)

This is the last one here we have from Mistborn: Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. He did not use the bead. In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.

(source)

 

@Windy:

I've never seen or heard of a WoB that contradicts this one. Can you post the one you're thinking of?

 

@Actual thread:

Great idea that reminds me of granting Breath offensively. I do wonder if it would re-write the spiritweb, or add on to it, though.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Moogle

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

So it could be possible to make oneself a Returned using Lerasium?

[Moogle]

So it could be possible to make oneself a Returned using Lerasium?

 

Being a Returned involves getting a Splinter of Endowment, and it doesn't seem possible to replicate other Investitures that way. You can't Soulcast lerasium or atium by WoB, for example, so lerasium should be unable to give you Endowment's Investiture.

 

Based on the idea that you can use it to re-write your spiritweb, though, I'd guess that lerasium could turn you into an Elantrian relatively easily.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Moogle

[Fallen Rope he/him]

Could Lerasium make you able to return though.

[Oudeis he/him]

Hrm... in theory, it should be able to. You might have to die on Nalthis. Also, in order to do something that specific, especially without the ability to "feel" your own sDNA to see if it worked, you'd have to be an absolute expert at lerasium, like someone who's been burning it and practicing with it for months, minimum. Or, find some sort of cheat.

 

I wonder... Soulcasting cannot make a Godmetal. Is it that different Arcanii cannot replicate each other, as Moogle suggests, or is it that normal investiture is not powerful enough to replicate God-Investiture?

 

The thing is, the bead of lerasium would have to have enough raw power to craft a Divine Breath, but it would also have to have enough additional power to fuel the transformation from the lerasium to this new type of Investiture. Additionally, you'd prolly need to have a much better understanding than we (or Nalthians) currently do about how Returned work. In fact, having seen the process of Returning from the eyes of a Returned, we likely have a significantly better understanding that anyone, Vasher included (unless he did remember his own Returning). In addition to the Divine Breath, do Returned need a Divine Command?

 

So, in other words, would you give yourself a Divine Breath, and manifest some powers of the Returned, yet remain a living human being? It strikes me as unlikely that the two can exist so neatly together; it seems to me you'd be more likely to simply be a typical Awakener, albeit one with a single Breath that brings you to the Fifth Heightening (and can be used to heal). Would you still need to consume Breath, would your Divine Breath go away after a week and leave you human again?

 

Would you have to technically kill your own body, in order to animate it with your new Breath, in order to get the benefits of being Returned? Can that be done without a Divine Command? Can a human brain burning Lerasium envision a Divine Command? What if you choose a poor command, like what happened with Nightblood?

 

Fallen Rope: You have given me much, much to think about, and it fascinates me. Also, I see your sig is a quote of mine (feel free to attribute me). I give you ALL the upvotes!

 

EDIT: Final thought. Imagine burning lerasium in an attempt to make it inevitable that when you die, however you die, you will Return... and then killing yourself to test the theory. You had BETTER be right...

Edited November 15, 2014 by Outis

[Moogle]

The actual WoB is somewhat illuminating:

Ninch
http://i102.photobuc...zps1501bca5.jpg
http://i102.photobuc...zps1e0737eb.jpg
Q:  Could a person soulcast more Atium and Lerasium if they had a bead?
A:  No.  Investiture messes things like that up.

(source)

 

I don't think there's a difference between "normal" Investiture and "God" Investiture. With the exception of atium, everything you do in Allomancy uses Preservation's Investiture. Lerasium just bypasses the regular means of obtaining it, just like taking in the mists.

 

Also, here's an experiment to get my thinking across: Lift gets someone to Soulcast some food for her. She eats it, and turns it into Investiture herself. Soulcasting, in this sense, has produced something filled with Investiture (maybe? I assume Lift somehow gets Investiture out of the food itself, but maybe it's like Allomancy and 'burning' the food just opens a link to Investiture elsewhere). And yet, it can't create godmetals. Why can it create Investiture of one type and not another? Well, the Investiture being of different Shards strikes me as the easiest explanation, as opposed to lerasium/atium being "special".

 

As another angle, from the (still speculative) theory of conservation of Intent: Adonalsium Splintered into sixteen aspects, and no two aspects are the same. This suggests that one simply cannot turn some Honor into some Preservation, because it would violate this seeming conservation of Intent. If one can turn Investiture from one type of Shard into another, I also question why no Shard has done this - Ruin, for example, a kindly old man, should have been horrified at the potential of his Shard and wanted to turn it into something like Devotion. Would he have simply been unaware this possible? Perhaps. This is all speculation, but I just look at the idea of converting Investitures and it comes across as leading to a lot of weird things that I don't think Brandon would allow. (Ooh, ooh, the most obvious one: sit in a highstorm, and convert the Stormlight to Breath. Immortality for everyone!)

 

@Lerasium to Return idea:

Again you come up with the problem that you need Breath. By WoB, Drabs cannot Return. I'm not sure if this means that you need your own original Breath to Return, or just any old Breath. Either way, I'd expect lerasium won't be able to give you Breath, though it might be able to modify your spiritweb such that you get a Nalthian's sDNA (making it possible to Return). Endowment is also a problem, in that he/she seems to control who gets to Return and who doesn't.

 

@Divine Command idea for Returned:
Each Splinter seems to have an Intent of some sorts. Could it be that this "Divine Command" is each Divine Breath's Intent? It would explain why the priests of the Returned are able to name them, if they can somehow get a feel for the Intent of each Breath, and this Intent influences the Returned.

[Oudeis he/him]

1. That quote is very specific, and I concur that it means Lerasium likely cannot create a Divine Breath. There's some little wiggle room, but it would be an extremely bizarre reading of the quote.

 

2. I understand the rest of what you say, but I'm not sure I agree with it. You assume that turning the Investiture in lerasium into the Investiture of a Divine Breath would mean having to change Preservation into Endowment. I disagree.

 

First, I think all the power comes from the same place, the Power of Creation. Think of it like two Mistings. One is a Rioter, one is a Lurcher. They're doing very different things, but they're both drawing their power from Preservation. As below, so above. Preservation is doing his thing, Cultivation is doing hers. I believe they both draw from the same pool, the Power of Creation. Just a theory, I confess.

 

Second, I don't think a Divine Breath needs to be from Endowment. Recall that per WoB, Ruin could power Allomancy, it would just cost him. I'm not proposing you use Preservation's power to make something of Endowment, I'm suggesting you use Preservation's power to make something of Preservation that happens to have the same qualities as something of Endowment, just as AonDor and Illumination can both be used to craft illusions. As an example, Zahel is surviving on Stormlight. Whatever the process is, he's not siphoning Honor's power and turning it into Endowment's power, or if he is, then since we know it happens, it must be possible.

 

In conclusion, with the example of Zahel, we know one of two things is possible. Either Investiture can be shaped to mimic a different Shard's Intent, or Investiture can in fact be passed from Intent to Intent.

[18th Shard he/him]

Now, I might be reading this wrong, but I think you could Soulcast Lerasium and Atium if you had a ton of Investiture to pour into it. You can't regularly Soulcast it because the ground does not have the same level of investiture in it. Likewise, even if you have a small quantity of lerasium or atium, you can't make more of it just because you have a small amount: there is still a huge Investiture inequality.

 

The point is: Can you Soulcast something into Lerasium while, I don't know, in a highstorm and somehow able to channel all of the Investiture into the Lerasium?

[Oudeis he/him]

It's also possible that it's simply not one of the ten essences. In a lot of ways, atium and lerasium are simply metal. Maybe they aren't "enough" like metal to coincide with Foil.

[Moogle]

(Apologies in advance for the long post. It's all Kurk's fault for that huge WoB, I swear.)

 

Now, I might be reading this wrong, but I think you could Soulcast Lerasium and Atium if you had a ton of Investiture to pour into it. You can't regularly Soulcast it because the ground does not have the same level of investiture in it. Likewise, even if you have a small quantity of lerasium or atium, you can't make more of it just because you have a small amount: there is still a huge Investiture inequality.
 
The point is: Can you Soulcast something into Lerasium while, I don't know, in a highstorm and somehow able to channel all of the Investiture into the Lerasium?

 
The WoB is very specific when he says "no". Atium and lerasium don't seem to have that much Investiture (each bead of atium is probably not the equivalent of a Nightblood's worth) - and if you were right, and you could Soulcast it if you had enough Investiture, you should be able to Soulcast a grain of sand into lerasium with a regular amount of Stormlight, since you would barely be creating any at all. Maybe you're right though, and it's like how you can't Awaken metal without being of the 9th Heightening. I really doubt it though.
 

Second, I don't think a Divine Breath needs to be from Endowment. Recall that per WoB, Ruin could power Allomancy, it would just cost him. I'm not proposing you use Preservation's power to make something of Endowment, I'm suggesting you use Preservation's power to make something of Preservation that happens to have the same qualities as something of Endowment, just as AonDor and Illumination can both be used to craft illusions. As an example, Zahel is surviving on Stormlight. Whatever the process is, he's not siphoning Honor's power and turning it into Endowment's power, or if he is, then since we know it happens, it must be possible.

 
Ruin can power Allomancy, but that is not the same as Ruin being able to create a Splinter of Preservation. Stormlight can power an Awakening, but there is no implication from any WoB that I can think of that Stormlight can be turned into Breath.
 
Also, I note that the WoB on Preservation being able to power atium is quite counter to the idea that Preservation can provide Investiture of Ruin:

source)

 

So... if Preservation were able to be converted to Ruin, would the power return to Ruin, or Preservation?
 
I don't know, I guess. The evidence, as scant as it is, just implies to me that Investiture is not mutable. You have a mental model of Investiture as some sort of energy, but I feel it's more involved, like it's different wavelengths of light, or flavors of food. You can live off of cake, or you could live off of meat, but that doesn't mean you can make cake into meat.
 

In conclusion, with the example of Zahel, we know one of two things is possible. Either Investiture can be shaped to mimic a different Shard's Intent, or Investiture can in fact be passed from Intent to Intent.

 
Zahel is, as far as I can tell, like a version of Nightblood: he consumes Investiture, any Investiture, and uses it to power himself. He can eat Stormlight to survive, or he can eat Breath to survive. I don't feel he's a relevant example, because the Intent of the Investiture he consumes shouldn't matter. Sustaining himself is a 'tool', as Brandon puts it, which should be able to be powered by any Shard.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

By the end of your post, it seems now we're arguing semantics. So you have no trouble accepting that Preservation's power can revive a dead body, prevent it from aging, give it the ability to shapeshift, cause it to project an aura of color, and benefit from all Five Heightenings, and even the power to sacrifice yourself to heal another... you just don't want us to call it a Divine Breath. That seems needlessly semantic to me, but very well.

 

Also, I notice about half of your previous post was trying to insist that you cannot turn one Shard into another. I'm reasonably sure everyone has conceded that point by now, and no one but your straw man is arguing that you can. It's essentially come down to the idea that everyone agrees that Preservation's power can cause someone to mimic the effects of being Returned, and the rest of us are fine calling that a Divine Breath, and you just don't want us to use that term. On this point, I am fine agreeing to disagree.

 

Finally, that is an interesting model for Zahel. I had not considered that he simply absorbs Investiture, any Investiture, to stay alive, and that the type he gets doesn't matter. I don't think you have any support for that theory, but since we know absolutely nothing about that process, I also cannot claim that I have any evidence that it's false.

 

You claim that Nightblood can draw in any Investiture... that I know of, there's no WoB to that effect. I know there's one Kurk uses which very clearly says that Nightblood would want to draw in the Mists, but nothing in the sentence assumes he'd be able to. Nightblood has the mind of a child. He decides that he can tell when a woman is pretty, he decides that he feels better in fresh air. Past evidence suggests that Nightblood simply deciding he has the ability to do something doesn't directly translate into a reasonable assumption that he, in fact, has that ability.

 

Bereft of that, there's no support for your hypothesis. It might still be right, but at this point it's pure speculation. We'll simply have to wait for further WoB to learn more. Firefight comes out in January; they're already planning a few release events. Maybe he'll go on a booktour for it. If so, you should be sure to include a question if you can attend.

[Moogle]

By the end of your post, it seems now we're arguing semantics. So you have no trouble accepting that Preservation's power can revive a dead body, prevent it from aging, give it the ability to shapeshift, cause it to project an aura of color, and benefit from all Five Heightenings, and even the power to sacrifice yourself to heal another... you just don't want us to call it a Divine Breath. That seems needlessly semantic to me, but very well.

 

I don't feel this is quibbling over semantics at all. In the case I've presented, Preservation or whatever Shard would be required to continually be feeding new power into this pseudoReturned. They might have many similar abilities (and note that the WoB says you could power an ability similar to atium, which means that it wouldn't be exact, so our pseudoReturned is not quite a Returned), but they would hardly be passive, and the umbilical cord of mist or whatever Elend had going on feeding them power might be noticeable. I sincerely doubt Preservation could just give someone a Splinter and they would be able to replicate the effects of a Returned without any cost.

 

Also, note that healing with a Divine Breath requires a Command - it is Awakening. I am reasonably confident that nothing Preservation could do would let someone Awaken if they couldn't already do so, even if the actual powers of Awakening (causing objects to do whatever) could be mimicked. Healing via the power of Preservation seems quite reasonable, but I don't think our pseudoReturned would do it the same way as an actual Returned.

 

You claim that Nightblood can draw in any Investiture... that I know of, there's no WoB to that effect. I know there's one Kurk uses which very clearly says that Nightblood would want to draw in the Mists, but nothing in the sentence assumes he'd be able to. Nightblood has the mind of a child. He decides that he can tell when a woman is pretty, he decides that he feels better in fresh air. Past evidence suggests that Nightblood simply deciding he has the ability to do something doesn't directly translate into a reasonable assumption that he, in fact, has that ability.

 

WoBs:

Q:  Does Nightblood rip souls out of bodies, by chance?

A:  Nightblood consumes Investiture, including the spark of life.

 

Q:  If someone--Vasher says that Nightblood would kill him, is that just because he has this big deific Breath? Would it kill an ordinary person, like a drab?

A:  It would suck the Breath from anybody, and if they were unable to feed it he would feed on their soul.

Q:  So they would die.

A:  Yes. Anybody wielding Nightblood, he will suck their soul. For too long, he will eventually, if you draw him, he will suck your soul.

...

Q:  Would Vasher be able to use Stormlight in the same way that he can get Breath?

A:  That would not be immediately easy, but Stormlight could feed Nightblood.

Q:  Which is why Szeth can wield Nightblood?

A:  Eh, you'll have to see if … but yes. That could theoretically happen. You can use most of the magics on most of the planets to fuel the other magics, if you know how to do it, it is not easy.

 

(sources)

 

I feel that it is quite probable that Returned will consume Investiture in a manner similar to Nightblood, if not perhaps quite as greedily. The chances of the mechanism behind both Returned and Nightblood's consumption of Breath being different seems low to me.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

If the things a Returned do require energy, why don't they require energy now? Why doesn't Endowment need to keep Returned powered, yet you assume Preservation would? Or, if Endowment is powering them constantly without needing a visible "umbilical cord" as you say, why would Preservation's have to be visible? The Dor is able to provide literally limitless energy to keep an entire city glowing for functionally ever. How is this different?

 

Your quotes seem to support my case. We know that Breath is similar to Stormlight, yet even in the WoB, he says something specific would have to be done to allow Nightblood to run on Stormlight. Yes, I'm aware of the idiosyncrasy that Nightblood kills its wielder by eating his soul. However, the WoB you provided shows that this doesn't mean it's simply a sponge that can easily and by default suck in any and all Investiture nearby. Perhaps the mechanism within Nightblood that allows it to bond with its wielder is what also gives it access to that wielder's innate investiture, or perhaps because Nightblood is keyed to Breath, and Breath is similar to innate Investiture, it finds an easier time drawing in that energy. I don't know. I only that that, per the WoB you were kind enough to find, it's not that easy for other systems.

[Moogle]

Overall, I think my posts in this discussion is treading into dangerously speculative ground. I apologize, Outis. Thanks for keeping with me regardless.

 

If the things a Returned do require energy, why don't they require energy now? Why doesn't Endowment need to keep Returned powered, yet you assume Preservation would? Or, if Endowment is powering them constantly without needing a visible "umbilical cord" as you say, why would Preservation's have to be visible? The Dor is able to provide literally limitless energy to keep an entire city glowing for functionally ever. How is this different?

 

The things a Returned get (perfect pitch, lifesense, etc.) seem to be a function of partially being Endowment, by Kurk's WoB. Each Breath brings them closer to being a Shard themselves, which expands their minds etc.. This isn't something that needs to be powered like a Push, or the increased strength you get from pewter, or the healing you get from Stormlight. Note that almost all of the effects of Breath are mental - they don't get increased strength, and they don't get increased healing like Stormlight, which does consume itself. Their senses are also not made more fine, as they would be if they were burning tin. Lifesense might count, though. This suggests however that mental effects (such as those gained by when your mind grows closer to the Cognitive/Spiritual, which by WoB happens to Radiants and so we can reasonably guess happens to Awakeners with each extra Breath) don't use up Investiture.

 

Holding Stormlight doesn't grant the same effects as holding Breath - if you want to "fake" the effects of holding Breath to make a psuedoReturned with another type of Investiture, you're going to need to spend power to do it because you won't get it passively. Or so is my logic.

 

---

 

The Dor provides power by constantly consuming Investiture, but Awakeners don't constantly consume their own Breath.

 

Sudden thought: Or do they? As a possible explanation for why Breath powers itself when used to Awaken things: by getting a Breath, it becomes 'yours', and you become a mini-Shard - Preservation doesn't lose power when he fuels Allomancy because it returns to him, and so perhaps your own Breath returns to you as it is passively used up. Endowment would have permanently given up a claim to it in that case. This is supported by the WoB where each Breath incorporates the idea of being endowed by Endowment.

 

The color aura of each person, then, is much like the Light leaking from a person's skin, and the mist leaking from someone who took in the Mists. The difference is where the Investiture returns when used up - Stormlight returns to the highstorm, since it doesn't belong to you, but Breath returns to you.

 

Of course, this theory fails miserably because the Breaths eaten by a Returned seem to be returned to Endowment. But perhaps that can be dealt with.

 

Your quotes seem to support my case. We know that Breath is similar to Stormlight, yet even in the WoB, he says something specific would have to be done to allow Nightblood to run on Stormlight.

 

He doesn't say that. He says it would be not immediately easy for Vasher to run off of Stormlight, but that Nightblood can do it (when he says it would not be easy, it was in the context of whether or not Vasher could run off of Stormlight). And this one is easily explained - Vasher isn't a Radiant, so he can't just suck up Investiture without some jury-rigging, even if he can run off of any type. The special soul-sucking sword has no such issues.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

Oh, totally misread that part about it "not being easy." Sorry.

[Robot Aztec]

 

ote that almost all of the effects of Breath are mental - they don't get increased strength,

 

yes they do vashe is stornger and faster and he si SUPPRESING returned powers even

[Moogle]

   

yes they do vashe is stornger and faster and he si SUPPRESING returned powers even

 

My bad for not being specific enough. I meant for non-Returned.

 

Vasher also consumes his Breath, which supports my point that non-mental powers tend to consume Investiture.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

I disagree with your premise that mental powers can be presumed not to require energy, they can simply happen for free. That's like saying a better, faster computer won't draw more electricity than a slow one. Feruchemical zinc improves a purely mental power, and you need to charge it by sacrificing mental speed at another time. If it took no energy, why couldn't a Sparker just have infinite mental speed? Even if the Breath simply enhanced your tongue to allow you to determine more specific flavors in your soup, and even if that state were stable, requiring no additional energy, the act of transformation would still need energy. Also, if it didn't need to be maintained, then when you lost the Breath your tastebuds would retain their sensitivity; since you lose that when you lose the Breath, this implies the Breath was maintaining this feat. How was it maintaining without requiring any energy?

[Moogle]

He gasped, falling to his knees as it overwhelmed him, and he had to drop a hand to the stone floor to keep himself from toppling over.   How did I live without this?

            He knew that his senses hadn’t actually improved, yet he felt so much more alert.  More aware of the beauty of sensation.  When he touched the stone floor, he marveled at its roughness.  And the sound of wind passing through the thin dungeon window up above.  Had it always been that melodic?  How could he not have noticed?

 

This is Vasher when he first gets a bunch of Breath. In particular, note that he says "he knew that his senses hadn't actually improved" - this is purely mental, and his thoughts aren't being improved in the same was as Feruchemical zinc. (Also, I'd argue that you can spend energy to enhance mental effects.)

 

Shallan is good at art because her mind is closer to the Cognitive, or so Jasnah speculates. It's clear that Realmatics play an important role in regards to thought. I've speculated, not without fairly solid reasoning I think, that each Breath brings you more and more into the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms. The result of this is that you get the mental benefits associated with this, which I am not yet convinced require energy in the sense that enhancing your muscles requires. Offhand, a few benefits of Breath (and note that even if the explanations are horribly wrong, the general idea stands):

• Lifesense. Speculatively explained by you seeing into the Spiritual, which is where you can see how an object is bonded to things around it, home to "spiritwebs", and the like. When someone looks at you, this gets you a bond to that person. Someone looking more into the Spiritual would be able to pick out that bond and know they were being watched or looked for.
• Color distortion - in the same way that Kaladin spontaneously generates glyphs because the Radiants tend to mix the Three Realms, people with Breath distort colors.
• Agelessness - Hoid and most other worldhoppers don't seem to age. Jasnah seems to suffer from time dilation in the WoR prologue. By growing more and more into the Cognitive, aging slows down for you possibly.
• Instinctive knowledge of Commands - again, easily explained by a stronger Cognitive presence, since this has to do with a stronger intuition as per Jasnah.

The analogy I'm thinking of is that obtaining Breath is like wearing a pair of glasses. No real energy needed, beyond the energy required to put the glasses on your head (which is covered via color).

 

I also note from Mistborn that just holding Investiture has mental effects:

Allomancy’s Mental Effects

An interesting side note is to watch how Allomancy—all of its forms—enhances the mind in some way. Though the original concept for the magic system focused on different powers—some physical, some mental—the final product always had a mental component. Notice how, when burning tin, Spook is more able to focus on solitary conversations in the room. Or how his mind can filter out the mist or the cloth he wears. Burning pewter or tin will also make the mind more alert and awake. Burning atium not only lets one see a little bit into the future, but also lets one process that information in a useful way.

 

Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, but I'd say it's clear that holding Investiture period enhances your mind. Kaladin's capable of blocking and dodging Shardblades with his eyes closed (while he holds Stormlight), for example. As Breath seems to imply, this doesn't require the expenditure of any energy, it's just an effect of Investiture.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Moogle