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Awakening the second weapon
Unlocked at	Level 56, through the Black Spirit
Grants	A second weapon and a new skill set
Alternative	Succession, which keeps the first weapon
Class variants	Talent for Shai, Ascension for Archer
Reversible	Yes, through skill presets

Awakening is the point in Black Desert where a character puts down the weapon it has carried since the start and takes up a second one, with a full set of skills to match.

It arrives at level 56 and is not optional in the sense of being missable, since the Black Spirit offers the quest line as soon as a character qualifies. What is optional is whether to use it, because succession offers the opposite bargain on the same class.

The effect is larger than a new weapon suggests. An awakened character fights differently rather than harder, with its own range, its own timing and its own combinations, so the same class before and after can feel like two classes.

The Black Spirit gives the awakening quests once a character reaches level 56. Completing them teaches the skills that use the awakening weapon and hands over the weapon itself.

Two classes take a different route to the same place. Shai has Talent instead of an awakening, and Archer has Ascension, but both work as the class's second combat identity.

The two paths are alternatives rather than stages, and both are offered to every class.

Awakening replaces the original weapon with a new one and a new skill set built around it. Succession instead keeps the weapon a character has carried since level one and strengthens the skills already learned with it, so a successor fights the way they always did, only much harder.

Neither is a strictly better choice. Which one suits a class depends on the class, and for several of them the two paths are considered good at different things rather than one being the obvious pick.

The decision is reversible. Skills are saved as presets, and an adventurer switches between an awakening build and a succession build by loading a different one.

Doing so needs either a Secret Book of Old Moon or a visit to a skill instructor, since skills cannot be freely rearranged past level 56 without one. Extra preset slots are handed out by quests and can also be bought.

Both paths are paid for in the same currency. Skill points accumulate from fighting and from quests, and each level of a skill costs more than the last, so no character learns everything.

Around three thousand points can be earned from combat and training, with more available from quests and the adventure journals. Skill add-ons, which attach extra effects to individual skills, open at level 50 and are saved with the preset.

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• Skills — Adventurer's Guide
• Awakening — Black Desert Wiki (Fandom)