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Key Takeaways
Empyrean Traces, which almost every player simply calls Feathers, are glowing collectibles scattered across the open-world zones of AION 2. They look like a harmless exploration hobby, but they feed a permanent, account-wide progression track: you collect them, resonate them with your faction’s Monolith and get enhance scrolls, stats, titles and other rewards in return. The Global release does not behave like the Korean and Taiwanese versions, especially when it comes to skill points and the number of Feathers you actually need, so older guides can easily mislead you. Below we go through how Monolith Resonance works, what each milestone pays out and how to collect everything without turning exploration into a second job.
- What they are: glowing Feathers on the map that level up a regional Monolith, and the Monolith pays out permanent rewards.
- When it starts: the Monolith system is introduced in Episode 2, at a recommended level of around 16 (the quest itself asks for level 10).
- Monolith size: every faction Monolith has 30 levels, and each level gives a fixed reward with no RNG involved.
- Rewards: Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls, permanent attributes, titles, Hidden Cube Keys, Soul Codex Resets and Amplify Stone Fragments.
- Global vs KR/TW: Feathers no longer hand out skill points here, and you need 140 pickups instead of every single one.
- Abyss: Reshanta has its own separate Ereshkigal Monolith, built around PvP progression.
If sweeping a huge open-world map is not how you want to spend your evenings, you can hand the Empyrean Traces collection to a pro team and keep your own time for the content you actually enjoy.
Empyrean Traces Explained
Empyrean Traces are glowing collectibles placed all over the open-world zones of AION 2. The community calls them Feathers because that is exactly what they look like, and because saying “Empyrean Trace” over and over gets old fast. You pick them up while exploring, and the Traces you accumulate raise the level of a regional Monolith, which unlocks permanent rewards for your character. Plenty of players write them off as simple collectibles, but they are a real progression system that pays out permanent benefits, so they deserve a place in your plan. Here is how the main Trace types are split:
| Empyrean Trace | Faction | Region | Monolith | Main Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verteron | Elyos | Verteron | Verteron Monolith | PvE progression |
| Altgard | Asmodian | Altgard | Altgard Monolith | PvE progression |
| Reshanta | Both | Abyss | Ereshkigal Monolith | PvP progression |
In short, the Feathers of both factions move your PvE progression forward, while the Abyss ones push your PvP progression. There is one catch worth knowing early: you cannot collect Verteron and Altgard Feathers on the same character, because your faction choice locks you out of the opposing faction’s regions. The progression is account-wide, though, so sooner or later it makes sense to create a character on the other side as well and finish that Monolith too.
Heading into the Abyss? Read the AION 2 Abyss PvP guide first.
Also keep in mind that each region tracks its Traces as a separate currency. Your Verteron Traces will never advance the Reshanta track, and Reshanta Traces will not help your home-region Monolith. Every Monolith is its own ladder, so there is no way to “borrow” progress from one to fill another.
How to Unlock Empyrean Traces and Monolith Resonance
You meet the Empyrean Monolith quite early in the story, so this is not an endgame system, even though finishing it becomes more relevant once you reach endgame. The introductory quest sits in Episode 2 with a level 10 requirement and a recommended level of roughly 16. It teaches you everything in about thirty seconds: find a Feather, collect it, go back to the Monolith and resonate with it to receive a reward. After that you simply repeat the loop. The starting point depends on your faction:
| Faction | Region | Quest | Monolith NPC / Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elyos | Verteron | Empyrean Monolith | Jackson at Dawn Legion Base |
| Asmodian | Altgard | Empyrean Monolith | Ollen at Safe Haven |
Your very first resonance rewards you with a Revelation Amulet Enhance Scroll, which is a strong hint about what the whole system is for: permanent equipment and character progression rather than cosmetic fluff.
Tip: Do not stop your leveling just to start a Feather sweep the moment the quest unlocks. If a Feather sits on your way to a quest, grab it. If it does not, you have better things to do at this stage, and if you would rather move through the early levels faster, a powerleveling service can cover that part while you focus on the systems that matter.
How Monolith Resonance Works
Monolith Resonance is a permanent reward ladder that you climb by finding Empyrean Traces. A Monolith has 30 levels, and the later levels demand progressively more cumulative Trace points. Every new level gives something useful: the smaller steps hand out Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls and Empyrean Lord attributes, while the bigger milestones grant titles and other materials. There is no randomness here at all. You collect enough Traces and you receive a specific, known reward, which makes the whole system very easy to plan around. The current progression looks like this, and keep in mind that the table lists only the notable rewards, not every single one:
| Monolith Level | Required Trace Points | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | Revelation Amulet Enhance Scroll + Hidden Cube Key |
| 5 | 20 | Scroll + Hidden Cube Key + attributes |
| 10 | 70 | Inquirer title |
| 15 | 140 | Scrolls, Soul Codex Resets, attributes |
| 20 | 235 | Guardian of Verteron / Altgard title |
| 25 | 375 | Scrolls + Unique Amplify Stone Fragments |
| 30 | 560 | 2 Amulet Scrolls + Saint of Verteron / Altgard title |
One thing needs to be crystal clear before you plan anything: the 560 in that table counts Trace points, not Feathers. Current Feathers use a reduced collection system in which a single node gives several Traces at once. That is why some guides say you need 560 and others say you need 140 Feathers to finish level 30. Both numbers are correct, they just measure different things.
Note: The game is brand new on Global, and reward tables and requirements can move with patches. Treat the exact numbers above as the current state of the Monolith rather than something carved in stone.
How Many Empyrean Traces Do You Need?
Put simply: collect 140 Feathers and you unlock the entire reward list of your home-region Monolith. At the moment one Feather counts as four points. In earlier versions each Trace was worth a single point, so you had to find every one of the 560. Feathers are still placed across the map in large numbers, but you no longer have to find them all, which makes the system far friendlier and removes most of the grind. The requirement is still 560 Trace points, but you reach it with 140 pickups.
The practical meaning is simple. Verteron and Altgard contain many more Feather locations than your progression needs, so you can skip awkward ones, ignore the ones hidden in annoying corners and simply take whatever lies on your route. Hunting for one last missing Feather across the entire map is no longer part of the deal, and that is a huge quality-of-life gain compared with how the system used to work.
Empyrean Trace Rewards
The reason you should not ignore Feathers is that the Monolith rewards are permanent. Your leveling chestpiece will become obsolete sooner or later, but the Monolith attributes and titles keep contributing to your character long after that. It is also worth knowing that Global changed the rewards compared with Korea and Taiwan. In those versions Feathers were a major source of skill points (the figure mentioned by players is around 112) and were tied into Wisdom Stones and related systems. None of that applies to Global, so you can safely ignore guides that build their advice around it. On Global, the Empyrean Trace rewards include:
- Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls: used to enhance your permanent Revelation Amulet.
- Hidden Cube Keys: let you open the Hidden Cubes you find while exploring.
- Soul Codex: Reset: lets you redo your Soul Binding-related progression choices.
- Amplify Stone Fragments (Unique): used for later gear Amplification.
- Empyrean Lord Attributes: permanent increases to Life, Destiny, Time, Space, Justice, Destruction, Freedom, Death, Illusion and Wisdom.
- Titles: special titles at the major Monolith milestones.
- Permanent title collection stats: these stay useful even when you equip a different title.
The AION 2 leveling guide walks you through the route to level 45.
The three big title milestones are Monolith levels 10, 20 and 30. The final title, Saint of Verteron or Saint of Altgard, is Unique grade. The Altgard version, for example, gives strong defensive stats including Defense Bonus, Damage Tolerance and Block next to its other effects. Because titles keep their collection stats even when you swap them out, collecting all three milestone titles is a clean, one-time investment that keeps paying off.
Notice how much of this list is utility rather than raw power. Keys, Soul Codex Resets and Amplify Stone Fragments will not make a screenshot look impressive, yet they save you real time and materials later, and the attributes quietly stack up in the background. That is exactly the type of reward an exploration system should give you: small, permanent and guaranteed.
Revelation Amulet and Feathers
The Revelation Amulet is the number one reason Empyrean Traces stay relevant long after you have finished exploring. The Monolith keeps rewarding you with Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls, and those scrolls are made specifically to upgrade this accessory through enhancement. The amulet carries useful combat stats such as Weapon Damage Boost and Penetration, and every +1 pushes its Penetration higher. Unlike random dungeon jewelry, it is an item built to follow you through several progression stages and level up together with you, which means you can invest your materials in it without worrying that it will be thrown away a week later. Here is the order in which to work with it:
- Obtain the Revelation Amulet through the early main story quests.
- Collect Empyrean Traces in Verteron or Altgard.
- Increase your Monolith level.
- Claim the Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls.
- Enhance the amulet to +10.
- Use Substance Morph to move it into the next grade.
- Repeat the enhancement process as more scrolls become available.
Along with the other Monolith rewards you collect a total of 30 Revelation Amulet Enhance Scrolls according to the available information, though the exact count may shift as the game gets patched. Either way, the amulet is a valuable piece of gear that stays relevant in endgame and beyond, so do not sleep on it.
If you would like to move your overall character power forward while your Monolith fills up, browsing the Aion 2 collections services is a sensible side step, since collection-style progression is exactly the kind of long-term account growth Feathers belong to.
How to Find Empyrean Traces Fast
Some players like to rush the story and leave side content for later. That plan does not work well here, because Empyrean Traces are not side content: they are tied directly to your account progression. The worst possible way to collect Feathers is to reach level 45 with practically none of them, open a map with 560 markers and set off to collect everything while doing nothing else. If you do not want to see glowing feathers when you close your eyes at night, there is a much better approach. Collect them passively while you do the main story, regional quests, Sealed Dungeons, Strongholds and other activities. Verteron and Altgard have hundreds of known Feather positions, so you never need to follow one extremely strict route to reach the 140 Feathers you need. This is the approach we recommend:
- Pick up every Feather on your quest route: five seconds now saves you a dedicated farming session later.
- Do not make huge detours while leveling: a Feather a minute away from you is fine, while one on the opposite side of the zone can wait.
- Finish exploration region by region: once you decide to farm them properly, split Verteron or Altgard into smaller areas instead of zigzagging across the whole map.
- Use an interactive map for cleanup: mark each Feather as done so you never revisit the same spot, which is especially handy during the final stretch.
- Stop when the Monolith is finished: you do not need to collect every Feather unless you are a completionist.
Some Feathers are more confusing to reach than others, because the game gives no indication whether a Feather is above you or below you. The marker can make it look like you are standing directly on top of a Feather when it is actually fifty meters over your head. That is not a big deal, since you can just fly up. The worse case is a Feather hidden in a cave or a dungeon below your position, where you may spend a while wondering why the marker does not match what you see.
Tip: When a marker seems to be right under your feet but nothing is there, check above you first and then look for cave or dungeon entrances nearby before you start running in circles.
Since you only need 140 pickups and the zones offer far more, there is also no shame in letting someone else do the dull part. If a full sweep sounds like a chore, the Empyrean Traces farm is an option for skipping the mind-numbing portion entirely while your Monolith still gets filled.
Abyss Feathers and Ereshkigal Monolith
Reshanta has a completely separate Empyrean Trace track tied to the Ereshkigal Monolith. These Abyss Feathers do not level your Verteron or Altgard Monolith, and the rewards lean much harder toward PvP. The current Global client contains 20 Ereshkigal Monolith levels, compared with 30 for the faction Monoliths, and the full ladder asks for 300 Reshanta Trace points. The difference in rewards is easy to see:
| Monolith | Max Level | Main Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Verteron / Altgard | 30 | Revelation Amulet Scrolls, attributes, Keys, Soul Codex Resets, Amplify materials |
| Ereshkigal | 20 | Daevanion Crystal: Azphel, PvP stats, Amplify materials, titles |
As you progress, the Ereshkigal track grants permanent PvP Attack, PvP Defense, Accuracy, Evasion and Block bonuses. It also hands you Daevanion Crystal: Azphel at practically every level, with the title Guardian of Ereshkigal at level 10 and Saint of Ereshkigal at level 20.
To max the Ereshkigal Monolith you need 300 cumulative Trace points by level 20. Unlike the Feathers in the faction regions, Abyss Feathers give 1 point per Feather collected, so there is no four-for-one bonus here. There is also a catch with supply: right now you can gather only 200 of them, because the central part of the Abyss, known as the Core, is not open yet. When it opens, another 100 Feathers will become available and complete the total.
Warning: Do not turn the Abyss into a Feather safari. Your time in the Abyss is already limited to around 7-8 hours a week, and spending a big chunk of it staring at a map instead of actually playing is a poor trade.
You can of course go for all of them immediately, but we do not recommend it. The advice stays the same as for the home regions: take the Feathers that are on your way or not far from you while you do your normal Abyss activities, and treat the rest as a bonus. Because these rewards are about PvP rather than PvE, the Ereshkigal track is something to fill in alongside your regular Abyss play, not a separate project. If you want to make your limited Abyss hours count even more, the Abyss Points farm is another way to take pressure off that weekly budget.
Not sure what to do each day? Use the AION 2 daily and weekly checklist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Feathers and Empyrean Traces the same thing in AION 2?
Yes. Players call Empyrean Traces Feathers because of how they look in the open world, but the item you actually obtain is an Empyrean Trace tied to a specific region. Verteron, Altgard and Reshanta Traces each progress their own matching Monolith.
How many Feathers do you need to max out the Monolith in AION 2 Global?
You need 140 Feather pickups to complete the current home-region Monolith, because each collected Feather contributes four Trace points toward the 560-point requirement. That is why different guides mention both 140 and 560: 140 is the number of pickups, while 560 is the cumulative Trace requirement shown by the Monolith. The numbers may be adjusted by future patches, so check your own Monolith window if something looks different.
How many levels does the Monolith have in AION 2?
The Verteron Monolith for Elyos and the Altgard Monolith for Asmodians each have 30 levels. The PvP-focused Ereshkigal Monolith in Reshanta has 20 levels and a different reward track built around PvP stats and Daevanion Crystal: Azphel.
Do Empyrean Traces give Skill Points in AION 2 Global?
No. The Global Monolith track does not use the old KR/TW system in which Feathers were one of the main sources of skill points. Global moved those rewards toward regional quests, Sealed Dungeons and other progression, while Empyrean Traces now focus on the Revelation Amulet, permanent attributes, titles and other materials.
Where is the Monolith for Elyos and Asmodians?
Elyos use the Verteron Monolith near Dawn Legion Base, where Jackson introduces the system through the Episode 2 quest. Asmodians use the Altgard Monolith at Safe Haven, where Ruins Administrator Ollen handles the introductory Monolith quest.
Are Abyss Feathers different from normal Feathers in AION 2?
Yes. Reshanta Feathers give Empyrean Trace: Reshanta and progress the Ereshkigal Monolith instead of your Verteron or Altgard Monolith. Its rewards are built around PvP progression, including permanent PvP stats and Daevanion Crystal: Azphel, so it is best to collect them while doing normal Abyss content rather than treating them as part of your PvE Feather grind.
Can I let someone else collect the Feathers for me?
If you do not feel like sweeping the map yourself, there are services built for exactly this. You can look through the Aion 2 store and pick the option that fits what you want to skip, whether that is the Feathers themselves or the leveling around them.