Lewis Nethur

So here's my take on it: Marsh is using Investiture to slow (stop?) his aging process. It's been hinted that he's probably compounding and storing Youth to do this which, for lack of a better answer, is a good enough explanation for me. Atium is a form of purified Investiture from Ruin. Sazed holds virtually all of Ruin's Investiture as far as I understand and both likes Marsh and seems to want to keep him around. Ergo, at Sazed's discretion, he could fuel Marsh's compounding directly through Ruin's mists or shardpool or whatever. When Preservation fuels Vin's allomancy, she doesn't just not have to burn metals, all of her allomancy is super-charged. If Sazed fueled Marsh's "atium burning" directly, he could actually compound youth even faster than if he were burning pure atium beads all day every day. This does however introduce a new limit: Eventually, Marsh would have to burn so much atium to compound youth in such a short time that he would probably ascend and become the holder of Ruin if Sazed allowed him to. Alternatively, becoming highly Invested seems to greatly slow the aging process throughout much of the Cosmere (pretty sure in the FE it's mentioned that Inquisitors can live for upwards of 200 years). When Marsh compounds youth, he might be adding a disproportionately large number of years to his life compared to an ordinary person. For example, I would expect that a person with an unaided natural expected lifetime of 1,000 years to be able to add more years to their life than a person with an unaided natural expected lifetime of 100 years if they burned, compounded, and stored youth using the same mass of atium.

I suppose I agree that at least some portion of Scadrians would refuse to accept Hemalurgy on moral/ethical grounds, much like the how real people react on both sides of each of the many controversial social dilemmas we face today. On the other hand...knowledge of hemalurgy is spreading, and criminals are using it to achieve what could be described as an unfair advantage over society at large. Outlawing a practice isn't always enough to keep it from happening. Completely suppressing all knowledge of hemalurgy doesn't seem viable at this point, so Scadrians, as a people, will have to come to some kind of decision as to whether to attempt to regulate its use as ethically and morally as possible, or to attempt to expunge and prevent its use somehow. Given that Southern Scadrians seem to be making at least some use of hemalurgy already, I lean toward the former, but an epic showdown between the two continents is a viable possibility in my mind. I suppose we'll see. Now, how could hemalurgy be discouraged or prevented in a technologically advanced Scadrial you ask? Well: Store allomantic bronze into three big blocks of etmetal at the center of a city/county Feed the etmetals' bronze-seeking outputs (that include both direction and type(s) of investiture used) into a computer (actually, relatively simple circuitry and logic gates could work I think, so this wouldn't need to be that high-tech) Use the output to triangulate the position of magic users in the area affected by the etmetal Flag all instances of 3 types of Investiture being used simultaneously and have the device calculate and print out the coordinates of all such events for police to follow up on. Get a search warrant, and frisk everyone in the area. Not a perfect system, but it would put pressure on hemalurgists and give authorities a way to gradually home in on them Additionally, it might even be possible to simply identify if a person is using hemalurgy through subtle nuances in the bronze pulses they emit.

It's definitely a complex ethical dilemma but, in some regards, voluntary hemalurgy is sort of like signing up to be an organ donor or agreeing to donate your body to science after you die. Given the potential rewards, Scadrians could reasonably conclude that "humane-hemalurgy," is more virtuous than repugnant. Sanderson has left plenty of fodder here for hemalurgy to become a major and central issue for modern-day scadrial. It opens up the possibility of widespread metal shortages as, after generations of hemalurgic inheritance, virtually everyone could have some level of allomantic or feruchemic ability. Scadrian magics have the benefit of functioning for their practitioners anywhere in the cosmere, so I wouldn't discount the idea of Scadrians being forced to find new worlds to trade with and settle once they've depleted their native metal reserves (do The Ones Above ring any bells?) We also know that there are plans for Scadrians to eventually develop interstellar travel, so I don't think this is far-fetched at all. Hemalurgy gives Scadrians the potential to greatly increase their number of magic users and exponentially increase the rate at which they deplete their planet's non-renewable resources; all the while fueling scientific and industrial advancement. Some questions related to the future of hemalurgy that come to mind: The act of Compounding is using allomancy to draw on Harmony's investiture to fuel your own feruchemy. What happens to Harmony when there are many compounders storing his investiture in their metalminds? Hemalurgy is no longer a secret, criminal organizations are using it. As the knowledge of hemalurgy spreads how will Scadrian society govern and regulate its use? So far Scadrians have played fast and loose with regulating how allomancers and feruchemists use their powers, but how long can they afford to do so before they are forced to intervene?

I think @Faceless Mist-Wraith has the right of it. Just shoot them in the chest with an aluminum bullet and move on with your life. I never appreciated before how similar mistborn are to werewolves...they primarily hunt at night, few people ever see them and live to tell the tale, and they can be killed with an expensive bullet...Too bad they don't bite people to create new mistborns...although...have we ever actually seen a mistborn bite someone?

I think the real question is: "Could it sing and play the piano?" Joking aside, it may be reasonable to posit from this scene with Shallan that there are folktales across Roshar (or at least Vedenar) that suggest things along the lines of, "voidbringers can possess animals or make them act strangely," or, "voidbringers can disguise themselves as animals." I wouldn't put much stock in these folktales being predictive or based on in-world events or facts; they just make for a little bit of flavor. Too busy to check right now, but pretty sure I've heard of some old Japanese folktales about talking animals being possessed by demons. Might be getting the country of origin wrong, but its possible in my mind that Shallan's reaction to seeing that talking bird (parrot?) is a casual allusion to some real-world children's story or folktale. Don't read too much into this musing, I don't think it's supposed to be particularly important.

I feel like I'm kinda splitting hairs here, but we do know that Preservation's Intent was imprinted on him when he used the power at the Well of Ascension...so yes, I believe he had a personal opinion that change was largely needless and unnecessary. As a person who was immortal, didn't need to sleep, eat, or drink, and could compound mental speed, the Lord Ruler got remarkably little done. I attribute this not to his competence as a politician or his intellect; he was said to be cunning and charismatic. His agenda however left some things to be desired. I don't think it's unfair to say Rashek was resistant to change, in 1000 years the only changes he allowed his society to adopt were those that he believed would make it more stable and resistant to change, like food preservation technology, feudal government with a supernaturally powerful overlords, and occasional genocidal purges... Point taken on the engineering soot-eating bacteria, that was a Godly feat, literally. However, a man who dedicates an entire millennium to combating child literacy and murdering scientists can't reasonably be called a paragon of progressive thought... The real point is that he was never able to make a new hemalurgic construct after he used up the power at the well, despite trying throughout his reign. While this seems on its face like a good indication that Hemalurgy is impossibly difficult, we don't really know how hard the Lord Ruler was working on his creations, or how rigorous and systematic his methods were. That said, Harmony appears to be pretty firm in his disapproval of hemalurgy, so I suspect that as long as he's around, Scadrians are going to find their study of the topic stymied to some degree; even if it's just by Harmony forcing anyone with 4 spikes to pull one out. But then...do Scadrians even need Harmony? It sort of sounds like he's just stepping on their Autonomy...

Definitely possible. We covered this to what I felt was a pretty entertaining degree in an older thread that you might be interested in: Mistings with Jobs I believe WoB still maintain that multiple overlapping time bubbles will actually create a multiplied time dilating effect. I suspect he might have to establish some kind of limit on this though; if you're wondering why, just follow the link above.

Correct. Spook advocates literally gathering "elderly and terminally ill" metalborn for the purpose of extracting and passing on their powers. He casually recommends that experimenters not play around with trying to rewrite other parts of the spirit web, noting that The Lord Ruler spent 1000 years doing so with no meaningful results. Bear in mind though that, given his overwhelming disdain for change, Rashek probably wasn't a particularly competent and thorough scientist/engineer. Secret History Spoilers: Edit: Didn't mean to get off topic; I mean all of this to be support for the theory that the medallions have more to do with hemalurgy than has been let on so far, and proof of concept that hemalurgy in general will gradually become more prevalent in the Mistborn series. Which loosely supports the concept of OP's original post.

Also, Spook, presumably as a result of Kelsier's teachings/guidance, strongly advocates for the hemalurgic spiking of the elderly and terminally ill for the benefit of society at large. I've heard a lot of convoluted theories about how the medallions get made...something to keep in mind is that the basic procedure of making the medallions is almost certainly going to have to be described on screen at some point; it's just becoming too important to Scadrial's plots to be waved away forever. This means it has to pass the test of being able to be easily and quickly explained to a casual reader that doesn't possess any knowledge of the Cosmere. That said, I'm a huge supporter of the theory that the apparent limit of medallions to 3 powers and the apparent limit of people to 3 spikes are related. Not sure how yet, it just feels right.

Honestly I think double gold is the easiest solution. Swallow a few goldmind before the fight, "let" the mistborn get in close and murder you a few times (not that you could stop them...), all the while healing yourself just barely enough to stay technically alive, then play possum until they leave. If they knew you were a gold compounder they'd probably steal all of your external metalminds and maybe mutilate your corpse a little; but all told I think you'd have a solid chance of getting away with your life if nothing else.

Given how little consensus there seems to be among the people of Roshar as to what exactly the voidbringers were and whether they existed at all, I think it would be odd if the average person had access to even basic information about what the Unmade actually are. My suspicion would be that they exist in people's minds mostly as evil phantasms who, in some capacity, marshal the forces of the voidbringers. To the average citizen of Roshar, I'd imagine that the Unmade are roughly equivalent to the Forsaken or the Dread Lords in the Wheel of Time series: Powerful generals that rally and command the mindless hordes that compose the forces of evil. They're also probably used to scare children into going to bed on time and eating their vegetables.

@galendo We can't say for an absolute fact that a significant number of Radiants didn't die with their Oaths intact during the Recreance...However, I believe we have statements from both Syl and the Stormfather that an overwhelming majority of the spren bonded to Radiants during the time of the Recreance were killed. WoB has it that when a Radiant dies with their Oaths intact, in general, their spren will suffer some emotional trauma and lose the extra connection to the physical realm it gains from the Nahel bond, but it will be free to bond another person if it wants to. For your proposal that "a significant number of Radiants may have chosen to opt out of the Recreance and been hunted down and killed" to be more plausible, I would add the condition that their spren must have been hunted down and killed as well. To the best of my knowledge, the question, "can a shardblade be used to kill a spren?" has been met with RAFO at every turn. It's been confirmed that Nightblood could kill a spren though, so they definitely aren't immortal. @maxal I like your arguments for why the secret to destroying the Radiants isn't likely to be some kind of hidden truth. The following explanation occurred to me as I was reading your post: What if the secret to destroying the Radiants is to maneuver them into a situation where no matter what they do they'll end up breaking their oaths? Similar to what happened to Kaladin. This opens up the possibilities that 1) the Recreance could have been an accident, and 2) the reason one order of the KR stayed intact could be because their particular oaths allow them the wiggle room to perform the mental gymnastics needed to resolve the moral conflict they were confronted with. Consider the following hypothetical example: A province at the edge of one kingdom's territory rises up and declares independence because its people feel they aren't being paid enough by their Kingdom for the grain they supply to other regions (IE: they're making a push for free-market capitalism instead of the oppressive Feudal system seen across Roshar). Its parent kingdom, motivated by a desire for peace, stability, economic interests, and concern for the welfare of all of its citizens, sends troops in to put down the uprising and petitions the Knights Radiant for assistance. The Knights Radiant are thus faced with the following choices: Agree to the parent Kingdom's request and help them end the rebellion quickly, thus saving more lives than if the war was allowed to play out slowly. This would in turn result in the Radiants having to kill more-or-less innocent and defenseless farmers or, at the very least, assist in their continued oppression Help the farmers who are, realistically, probably being taken advantage of and oppressed by their government. Thereby creating a competing Kingdom, possibly leading to future conflicts, and causing a widespread increase in grain prices, potentially resulting in widespread famine and general instability. Refuse to participate in the conflict at all Resulting in death and chaos as, after a needlessly long conflict, one side inevitably gains an advantage over the other and wins Attempt to mediate the situation to come up with a compromise A Feudal Kingdom like those we've seen on Roshar would probably be very resistant to the idea of making any concessions in this type of rebellion scenario, as they would most likely believe it would encourage other regions to make demands of their central government and thus weaken their authority, leading to even more rebellions and conflicts. If negotiations broke down the Radiants would then have to pick between one of the first three options Not a perfect theory perhaps; it might still be impossibly difficult to trap so many Radiants into a conflict they couldn't resolve without breaking their oaths...Thoughts anyone?

Taravangian seems to think that the secret is real and goes on to imply that he can choose to use it to break the Knights Radiant. Or not. It's something he wants to keep in his back pocket to use if necessary. Bear in mind though that he seems like he would prefer to just murder the proto-radiants before they get organized rather than rely on using the secret. Some points to consider: People on Roshar don't seem to have much knowledge of Odium. There's speculation that he is referenced in some of their Religious rhetoric, but only loosely. Because of this, I'm skeptical that the secret would be anything along the lines of: "Odium can mind-control KR," or "Odium's power will be increased by the existence of KR" The secret probably wouldn't lead to the KR downfall if it was left unrevealed since the KR existed for at least a few thousand years before they learned the secret and promptly disbanded It would be pretty disappointing if it turned out Odium could directly influence the Heralds' or KR's thoughts/actions, as this has already been explored greatly on Scadrial, and is a big plot point with the Parshendi already. Sanderson has a good record for creativity, so I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt here for now. It may very well be too late for the secret to be useful to Taravangian, as the Voidbringers have already returned. Breaking the KR might not align with his ultimate plans of saving a seed of humanity anymore, we just don't really know.

As I understand it, the mist would also basically be caused by the pressure change, yes. If you wanted to get really knitpicky you could argue that the "mist" is the water vapor that was forced out of the compressed air (thus turning it into liquid water) and carried away due to the air's momentum instead of left to pool on the blade. The central theme of my proposal is that mist is simply composed of water vapor already present in the air and is described for the purposes of flavor and world building. For now, I think we're safe in assuming that the mist, as well as the specific mechanics governing how and why it condenses on shardblades, are relatively inconsequential and unrelated to any particular plot, theme, or character arc. It's like asking, "why do Parshendi have red and black spots when their environment is neither black nor red?" you're probably not going to ever get a real answer, it's just an unintrusive detail that 1) improves flavor and world building, and 2) helps readers visualize scenes. I give my previous explanation not in hopes of identifying the real reason mist appears around shardblades, but rather, in hopes of satisfying those who possess an exceptional thirst for proof of plausibility and internal consistency.

I've always sort of taken issue with the idea that the final battle occurred within Shinovar. Obviously we can't say for sure at the moment, but what little we've seen of Shinovar on screen in the modern era is green grasslands and springy soil which just doesn't fit the description of the battlefield described at the beginning of the WoK. It would be weird if part of Shinovar was verdant fields and another part was craggy deserts considering the country lies between two mountain ranges and looks more or less flat.

My understanding is that the condensation on freshly summoned shardblades is water. I haven't really heard anyone argue otherwise and I feel like it would've been mentioned by someone at some point in the story if the mist was composed of some other type of matter. (mercury?) It would seem silly and unnecessary for that water to be getting summoned along with the blade from wherever blades exist when they aren't in use. More likely it is being pulled from the ambient air as a result of some aspect of the summoning. I think it's safe to assume that when a blade is summoned it isn't being created from the surrounding air and matter, but rather, it is displacing them, otherwise there would be big gusts of wind every time a blade was summoned due to the law of conservation of mass, which Sanderson normally makes a good effort to obey when possible. I don't have all the answers, but here's my proposed explanation that I invite you to love or hate at your own discretion: The blade get's summoned into the physical realm, more or less all at once, from somewhere (doesn't matter where or how); basically, one "instant" it isn't there, the next "instant" it is. This would only cause a minor disturbance of air currents that could reasonably be overlooked in the vast majority of cases A volume of air equal to the volume of the blade is suddenly displaced, meaning it is shoved away very rapidly, IE: it is pressurized Pressurized air can't hold water as well as air at atmospheric pressure Water vapor condenses out of the pressurized air onto the surface of the newly summoned blade (this process occurs very rapidly) The air displaced by the blade rapidly returns to atmospheric pressure as it spreads out The blade feels cold because (pick one) either, 1) metal objects often feel colder than the stuff around them, if you don't believe me go touch a doorknob. or 2) through an unknown mechanism working to preserve conservation of energy, which Sanderson likes to obey when possible, the kinetic energy delivered to the air displaced by the blade is equal to the thermal energy lost by the water vapor that condenses onto the blade. (For those who care, I'm assuming these "instantaneous" events actually occur on the timescale of micro seconds; fast enough to appear basically instantaneous but, off the top of my head, not fast enough to have any horrible consequences in terms of Cosmere physics.) The first major problem with this proposed explanation that I'm aware of is that, if a Radiant was trapped inside a sealed container of water (or any incompressible fluid) and they summoned their blade to cut their way to safety, the resulting pressure change would kill them unless the container was fantastically massive (and it still might even then). Secondly, I've assumed the air displaced by the blade is pressurized slowly enough to not cause any weird explosions or combustion phenomena, but I haven't actually checked that this works with my assumed timescale since it's all speculative anyway. TLDR; 1. If you summoned a shardblade in the desert or in space, there probably wouldn't be very much mist or dew or whatever. Probably none even. 2. Don't summon a shardblade if you're trapped inside a tank of water, IE: if you're in a magician's act (better safe than sorry)

Something to keep in mind also is that mr. T seems to believe that the secret, whatever it is, could be used to break up the Knights Radiant again if necessary. I think this mostly rules out Odium having made a deal with the Radiants to orchestrate the Recreance. @Jaconis We aren't necessarily arguing that the Radiants would all choose to break their oaths if faced with endless torture on Braize (doubtless some would be undaunted), but rather, that their spren might insist that the price was too great and require them to break their oaths. We know from WoB that bondspren and Radiants weren't all necessarily virtuous and moral in the same sense; yes they were, in general, "good," but they did have flaws and disagreements. He gives an example that while an honorspren would always have difficulty lying or being dishonest, its fundamental nature doesn't do much to stop it from being cruel or vindictive. Kaladin orchestrates a psychological attack against the Parshendi by using the mutilated corpses of their fallen soldiers as armor; his intentions were good and honest and don't seem to upset Syl, but...that's still pretty messed up and cruel. Considering the oaths we've encountered so far, I could see an edgedancer having a serious problem with Kaladin's pragmatic corpse butchering. My point is that it's difficult to imagine a personal price or consequence great enough to cause 9/10 orders to break their oaths when those orders are made up of such a diverse collection of people holding diverse morals and values. However, it's easier to imagine so many Radiants being willing to break their oaths if they were either compelled by their spren to do so (for whatever reason), or thought that not doing so would be even worse for their spren in the long run. My suspicion is that the Recreance was carried out by the Radiants and endorsed/encouraged by their spren either in a desperate act of love or a sincere sense of duty. If not, I have difficulty imagining why more of them wouldn't have just...not broken their oaths. Like, if they were just upset or fed up with the system, many would probably have chosen to live in isolation and not kill their spren rather than totally give up their powers (or maybe just stop summoning their armor and blade and get a job in a city as a regular person, whatever). We know that didn't happen because we know most of the bondspren were killed. Hope that helps clarify more than it convolutes...

Agreed, I'd guess that many of the Radiants probably didn't care much about living after giving up their oaths. The mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish they experienced ought to have been incredibly severe...

@Spoolofwhool @Oversleep Not exactly what I was looking for, but close enough for the purpose of discussion.

@Oversleep Secret History Spoilers:

Lets look at what we know: The Radiants who abandoned their oaths during the Recreance were disgruntled (they sort of acted like jerks in Dalinar's flashback of the Recreance) by something (a secret they hadn't been aware of according to mr. T) and in relatively short-order reached widespread consensus that they should quit being Radiants. According to WoB, in general, the Radiants loved their spren and regarded them as dear friends and confidants. People, even very bad, greedy, corrupt, or mean-spirited people, tend to avoid knowingly doing things that would result in the deaths of their loved ones, even if they face great personal cost. Almost all of the bondspren "died," meaning that very few, if any, Radiants chose to kill themselves or seek natural deaths rather than give up their oaths. I feel like, if faced with a "you need to kill your best friend" scenario, a statistically significant number of people would opt for suicide or complete inaction unless thoroughly coerced to do otherwise, but this is an opinion. From this, I speculate the following: Once whatever the horrible secret was became widespread knowledge among the orders and their spren, the spren, out of love for their humans, insisted that the Radiants release their oaths because keeping them would either cause something terrible to happen or ultimately result in unfathomably awful consequences for the Radiants and/or the spren. (IE: worse than death) The spren and Radiants had really good reasons to believe that the secret that they learned was true. If it was questionable in origin or interpretation at all many would probably have opted for denial due to lack of compelling evidence. The consequences for either or both the spren and Radiants, and/or mankind at large, for continuing to maintain the Nahel bond were perceived to be significantly worse than death by the spren, and perceived as being worse than being forced to kill one's best friend by the Radiants. What the secret was/is is still speculative. I like the hypothesis that Radiants who die with their oaths intact get sent to Braize for eternal torture (this is covered more in older threads) and have defended it before because, in my opinion, it fits the above list of bullet points pretty well. However, due to a lack of supporting evidence, I think it's a bit of a stretch to classify it as a full-blown theory; it's just one possible explanation. TLDR; Given what we know about the Recreance, the secret of the Radiants is most likely something extremely awful. Something so awful that the Radiants more-or-less unanimously agreed that murdering their most beloved companions was a better idea than continuing to participate in the Nahel bond. I like OP's theory on the basis of flavor, but I don't think it quite fits with what we've learned so far.

Frost and Hoid could simply be using a neutral intermediary worldhopper to deliver the letters back and forth. For the purpose of example, suppose Khriss doesn't take orders, give deference to, or work with either Hoid or Frost on a regular basis. If Hoid knew she was going to Yolen eventually, he might stop by and ask her to drop a letter off; since the two don't work together much, he wouldn't have to fear her revealing much about his actions or whereabouts. Presumably, Hoid could then find her and ask if she (or an agent working on her behalf) received a reply when she came back to Roshar. I sort of doubt that this has a complicated answer. I feel like ascending to enough power and knowledge to become a worldhopper automatically over-qualifies someone for being a dedicated mail carrier (no offense to mail carriers). Additionally, there doesn't seem like there's enough worldhoppers corresponding and collaborating across the cosmere to make a centralized mail delivery and management system necessary or efficient IMO. Alternatively, spren could carry letters, since they can travel outside the Rosharan system (I think we saw one in secret history?)

That's the best way that come to mind, additionally: @frozndevl It might be possible for someone on Roshar to access only a single surge if they could somehow bond a spren (or spren-like being ) that was somehow only aligned to a single surge. Thus far, we know that all of the bondspren (radiantspren?) are aligned to two surges, however, there have been hints and winks over the years that beings outside of the orders of bondspren can be bonded by humans on Roshar to grant access to..."something." What that something is, or could theoretically be, has been the subject of fierce debate, ie: would bonding a seon give someone access to stormlight, or access to stormlight as well as one or more surges? Once Szeth bonds Nightblood, will he have any additional powers and what will they be? Wouldn't it make sense that bonding a gravity spren would grant only the surge of Gravitation (ignoring the fact that bonding a gravity spren would be impossibly difficult...)? I feel like it ought to be at least technically possible to get one surge, even if the process would be unintuitive, convoluted, or so difficult that it would be effectively impossible. Making it an absolute requirement that surges always have to come in pairs seems like a needless restriction on the magic system. In terms of storytelling, it would be better to have it be super weird and unnatural for a person to only be able to access one surge than for it to literally be impossible in my opinion (granted, I'm not a best-selling author, so again, grain-of-salt ).

I believe we have confirmation from Sanderson that the "breaking" required to become a KR is synonymous to the "snapping" that used to be required to access allomancy. Basically, the people of each world access their respective magic system via cracks in their individual spirit webs. Having cracks in one's spirit web doesn't guarantee access to the magic system, it's simply one of the requirements. Further, pretty much anything can cause cracks in your spirit web if you feel really bad about it, though cracks can also be caused by things like mental illness or playing around with hemalurgy. That said, I'm guessing that, in general, the people with the characteristics and moral fiber necessary to be selected by spren to become radiants are going to be statistically unlikely to be spiritually damaged by trivial things, mental illness, hemalurgic spikes, or really anything other than severe emotional trauma, intense internal struggle, or good old fashioned physical abuse. So I guess I'm saying it's probably just a coincidence that so many radiants have had people die around them so far. Devising totally unique backstories for each Radiant that demonstrate that they've experienced a significant personal struggle without making them seem like a bunch of tortured lunatics who are barely hanging on by a thread could be difficult...far easier to just have a bunch of them lose someone dear to their heart and get on with the plot.

I believe Wax stores weight and uses a shotgun to fly around at some point...I don't have the books available at the moment, however, if someone can recall or figure out an estimate of how high he can go with this method, we can get a reasonable estimate for what percentage of his weight he can store. Considering how much a shotgun, boots, and a full set of clothes are likely to weigh, off the top of my head, I don't think it would be unreasonable for him to be able to store upwards of 98% of his weight. Now, I'll grant you that "walking" on water using this method would be laughably ineffective unless you had a running start before you started storing weight or touched the water's surface. It would be more like running and splashing in place than actually going anywhere. However, in the event of an emergency, Wax could be used as a flotation device for several adults