Awakening is a mechanic in Palworld that lets you boost a Pal’s Attack and Defense stats by approximately 10% each. To awaken your Pals, you’ll need to acquire Awakening Gems, which requires farming Radiant Gems, World Tree Holy Water, and some building.
If you haven’t gotten to the World Tree yet, make that your first goal. Once there, you can begin the farming process.
How to Get Radiant Gems and World Tree Holy Water
To get both Radiant Gems and World Tree Holy Water, you simply need to kill Pals throughout the World Tree. In most cases, Pals will drop Radiant Gems corresponding to their type (e.g. Fire Pals will drop Fire Radiant Gems); Electric is the main exception, which drops from many different non-Electric Pals.
Awakened Pals will appear with a flame or aura around them (like the red Suzaku below), and drop 10x as many Radiant Gems as normal Pals. However, it’s usually best to capture these to acquire a Pal with a World Tree Passive Skill, and Ancient Relics. Relics you find off these or Pals in general can be converted to Radiant Gems using the Ancient Relic Recycler and a Handiwork Pal (Alpha Sekhmet is best).
Note: Awakened Pals can be extremely rare, but you may find them more often by tracing the outer regions of the World Tree. While doing so, have a look out for Ominous Eggs as well, which produce Awakened Pals, and chests, which may contain Radiant Gems.
Fishing is another option for farming Radiant Gems, so consider using the ol’ fishing pole when you find a suitable spot. Expeditions provide access, too: just send your Pals off on the Within the Seal expedition.
Once you have 50x Radiant Gems of a given type and 10x Holy Water, you can throw it in the Ancient Workbench to produce an Awakening Crystal, and use that to awaken a Pal. Crystals can only be used on the corresponding Pal type (e.g. a Fire Radiant Gem can only be used on a Fire type Pal).
Best Pals to Awaken
The best Pals to Awaken are any you’d use in combat, due to the stat boosts. That means any included in our Tier List (which focuses on combat Pals), but there are many more great options. I’ve personally had a lot of luck awakening Jetragon, which was then used to beat the Zenara and Astralyam final boss with ease.