Effect of Fifth Heightening

[HSuperLee]

I know that the fifth heightening is described as giving agelessness and immunity to disease, but the only real examples we have are the Returned, who consume a breath a week. Does someone who reaches fifth heightening without a Divine breath have that requirement as well? And if not, could someone of the fifth heightening endlessly fill an unkeyed atiummind?

[Calderis]

A normal human of the fifth would just become functionally immortal, no breath requirement, because no Divine Breath... 

As to Feruchemist with Atium and the Fifth... 

Quote

BlackYeti

Suppose you had a full Feruchemist, who got enough breath to reach the fifth Heightening. What would happen if he started storing in atium?

Brandon Sanderson

Hehe-- I'm going to RAFO that one.

source

 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Calderis

[HSuperLee]

45 minutes ago, Calderis said:

A normal human of the fifth would just become functionally immortal, no breath requirement, because no Divine Breath... 

As to Feruchemist with Atium and the Fifth... 

 

I feel like I've specifically looked for a WoB based on that question and never found it. Ah well. Thanks.

[Weltall]

Related WoB:

Quote

Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

If a person held enough breath to attain the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?

Brandon Sanderson (written)

I think they would rapidly age.

But I'm not ready to say 100%.

source

 

[+hwiles]

23 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

I know that the fifth heightening is described as giving agelessness and immunity to disease, but the only real examples we have are the Returned, who consume a breath a week. Does someone who reaches fifth heightening without a Divine breath have that requirement as well? And if not, could someone of the fifth heightening endlessly fill an unkeyed atiummind?

I believe there are WoB specifying that Breaths don't last forever, IE: they degrade over time and (speculative) possibly with repeated use. This prevents the creation of infinite free-energy machines (like awakening a windmill).

An awakener of the 5th heightening should eventually need to replenish their Breaths with fresh ones, though probably tremendously less frequently than a Returned. I would posit that their filling an atium mind would just degrade and age their Breaths, IE, they would be converting Breath-Investiture into Feruchemic charge-Investiture. Investiture is (mostly) conservative in the Cosmere.

[RShara]

59 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I believe there are WoB specifying that Breaths don't last forever, IE: they degrade over time and (speculative) possibly with repeated use. This prevents the creation of infinite free-energy machines (like awakening a windmill).

An awakener of the 5th heightening should eventually need to replenish their Breaths with fresh ones, though probably tremendously less frequently than a Returned. I would posit that their filling an atium mind would just degrade and age their Breaths, IE, they would be converting Breath-Investiture into Feruchemic charge-Investiture. Investiture is (mostly) conservative in the Cosmere.

It was something a Questioner mentioned, and Brandon liked, but never canonized.

 

Quote

DavidB

Also, it seems to me like it would be more internally consistent if Awakened objects consumed Breath, to make all of these Breath-consuming powers in the last few chapters fit in better. So for example, if Vasher Awakened a shirt and left it Awakened and doing stuff for a day, then he might be down one-seventh of a breath when he took it back at the end of the day. (Of course, that mechanic requires it to be possible to transfer or Awaken with portions of a Breath, and if you could do that, then using the "putting the Breaths you don't want to transfer into a cloth until after the transfer" thing, you could feed the Returned by taking a tiny fraction of all the Halladren's breaths, instead of taking some people's entire Breaths and turning them into Drabs.)

Brandon Sanderson

Hum. I like that suggestion, actually. I think I'll use it. Though, what I'll do is say that if you leave the breath in for too long, one of them vanishes. If you can get them back quickly enough, however, there is no loss. That gives a bit of a better explanation of why there aren't a lot of awakened objects doing things all over the place. True, using the breath to make them would be initially expensive--but if you got a magic object that never winds down, then that might be worth the expense.

source

 

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

I believe there are WoB specifying that Breaths don't last forever, IE: they degrade over time and (speculative) possibly with repeated use. This prevents the creation of infinite free-energy machines (like awakening a windmill).

To add to what @RShara said, I was interested in this question so I asked Brandon at a signing. I didn't record it so I don't have his exact words but he was quite clear that 'Breath decay' stops becoming a factor once you have enough of them. By the time you hit the Fifth Heightening you're well past that point and thus you don't need to 'refill' on Breaths to maintain it.