The mega-popular Solo Leveling web novel turned anime has attracted many new fans lately. In its action-packed monster hunter world, few items create as much buzz as magical glowing gems called “essence stones.”
These strange cores give off mad energy and sell for a fortune. Both regular folks and powerful guilds covet essence stones big time. But what are these sparkly things? Where do you get them? And why does everyone want them so badly anyway?
As a freshly minted Solo Leveling fan, I asked those same questions. So, I’ll break it all down for you here! We’ll explore what magical essence stones are, where they originate, and why possessing even one makes people drool.
Whether you’re an anime-only viewer diving in now or a veteran manhwa reader who forgot details, this article will get you up to speed on those oh-so-important essence stones fueling the story.
What is Essence Stone?
In Solo Leveling, essence stones are special glowing gems in magical creatures. They look like weirdly shaped rocks giving off magical light. Hunters defeat these monsters and grab the stones as very valuable loot!
“The stones collected from defeated beasts” pic.twitter.com/udcIwbh71D
— Solo Leveling (@sololeveling_en) January 9, 2024
The color of the glow shows the stone’s “rank” – higher-ranked stones glow brighter and are worth more. Rank also tells you how much raw magical power is crammed inside. From lowest to highest, the ranks marked by color are:
- White = D-Rank
- Green = C-Rank
- Blue = B-Rank
- Yellow = A-Rank
- Red = A+-Rank
- Purple = S-Rank
These special stones have a pretty wild history behind their existence in magical beasts. Ages ago, the Rulers created them as weapons!
The Rulers were preparing humanity to help fight their arch-enemy – the Monarchs. So they devised magical essence stones to implant in beasts, making the creatures more aggressive and lethal against humans.
As crazy as it sounds, the Rulers wanted beasts attacking people more often. This increased human exposure to magic, strengthening the population and making it more resistant. All to assemble an army capable of challenging the Monarchs!
So, in summary – glowing essence stones originate from magical creatures, rank by color, and were forged long ago to spark beast attacks that would force humans to adapt magic resistance. It’s a pretty intense backstory!
Essence Stone a Valuable source of income and an energy source
Aside from selling them for that sweet, sweet cash, essence stones have another big use – as batteries packed with raw magical juice!
Exactly how to extract all that pent-up mojo isn’t explained in detail. But we constantly see essence stones tapped to give objects, rituals, magical portals, and more the immense energy blast they need to work their magic.
Take those giant glowing gates that connect to creature-filled dungeons. They chomp down enormous volumes of magical energy. Yet just a few essential stones of the right rank can switch those portals on or sustain them indefinitely!
So whether powering good luck charms, fueling magical transportation, bringing ancient relics to life – you name it – essence stones supply the mana. Their inner glow contains insane amounts of reality-bending, physics-defying magical power!
Between selling them for big bucks or using them as spellcasting batteries, it’s no wonder hunters and everyone else goes bonkers for these small but mighty glowing stones! They’re bottled mana from magical monsters. And that makes them worth more than their weight in gold!
