Awakening items are some of the most powerful items out there. While there are only two known types of them, they both impart immense, albeit temporary, power on their users. However, with great power comes great volatility. Awakening items are some of the riskiest items to use, and have the change of backfiring horribly. There's a reason anything with "Awakening" in the name is so expensive, even if it's a scam or falsehood. These items are dangerous, and should be used with care and caution.
Awakening Emeras are the rarest known Emeras, aside from the fabled "Blank Emeras". Instead of being a single color like other emeras, they instead exhibit a rainbow of colors. Light passing through these emeras has both a prism effect, and empowers any grass-types photosynthesizing with that light. If you're a grass-type, there's no light like it. They impart an Awakening effect when placed into a looplet, and shatter when the effect fades. Shattering them manually imparts a temporary boost in power, speed, defense, and stamina. Their dust has no special effect it distinguishing from the dust of other emeras, however.
Empowerment Seeds are also very rare. You'd be lucky to see one on a dungeon expedition. They share rainbow coloring with Awakening Emeras, though the curving stripes are unique to these seeds.
They can be grown, but only in places with high mysteriousity. There's several Awakening trees in Moonlight Town, and most of the world's supply of Empowerment Seeds come from these trees. Awakening Trees look similar to Saplings of Life, with rainbow leaves, though with these trees, wisps of energy drift away from the tips of the branches, the immense energy within leaking out. The trunks also twist and turn in a similar shape to the stripes on Empowerment Seeds. They are a true sight to behold, and I wish I could grow one in my garden.
Both Awakening Emeras and Empowerment Seeds impart Awakening on the user. Awakening has a multitiude of helpful effects. A barrier will form around your front, rendering you completely immune to attacks from that direction. Type matchups will cease to matter, anything being just as susceptible to your attacks as anything else. Your moves will tend to hone in on targets, making them much more difficult to dodge. And your moves will be more powerful in general.
Awakening has a nasty side effect once it wears off, though. Berserk. It causes your hold on yourself to start to slip, and an insatiable rage to build within you. You'll have difficulty determining between friend and foe in this state, and may also mistake things like trees for enemy Pokemon. Your moves will begin to bubble up, and you'll start using moves at random, on random targets. It is a very deeply unpleasant experience, and one I do not wish to go through again.
A Heal Seed can negate Berserk, however, and I highly recommend carrying one if you plan on using an Awakening item. In general, Awakening tends to last around five minutes, and Berserk around two minutes. Keep these times in mind, and try to eat that Heal Seed as soon as you can once Awakening wears off, or once you're done with whatever you needed to be Awakened for.
Some Pokemon can harness the power of Awakening even further than normal Pokemon can, through a phenomenon known as "Mega Evolution". Pokemon like Absol, Sceptile, and Ampharos can temporarily evolve into another form. It is currently unknown why some Pokemon can achieve Mega Evolution with Awakening, while others cannot.
Unfortunately, this extra evolution is sometimes excruciatingly painful. A Houndoom who had gone through Mega Evolution described the process to me as "a painful melting, like my claws and tail were turning to liquid. It was so, so hot, far too hot". However, this is not true for all Pokemon. Apoyime of Team Sunset described it as "an immnese burst of power, though while it felt odd, it was without pain".
I can't tell for sure what causes pain during Mega Evolution, but it seems as if it, like the phenomenon itself, only affects certain Pokemon. I can only tell you that, if you're capable of Mega Evolution, be extra cautious when using Awakening items.
It is likely that the Awakening items are tied to the very origin of mystery dungeons. But before I can explain how, I need to talk about said origin.
3000 years ago, from what the records say, our very world was torn asunder. The skies darkened, the ground shook, and it was as if the world was going to end.
But it did not. Instead, what we now know as mystery dungeons formed. They were even more plentiful then as during the modern crises, and so the first adventuring squads formed, in order to figure out what these strange places were. The records say that Empowerment Seeds and Awakening Emeras were far more common in those first few years of mystery dungeons existing, and were in every adventure squad's supply.
Now, during a visit to the human world with the rest of the World-Savers' Council, I discovered something interesting. 3000 years ago, it had its own calamity. I'll spare the full story for now, but a king wrought with grief from his friend's death in a war, determined to bring them back to life and end the war. He harnessed the power of Xerneas and Yveltal in order to create an "Ultimate Weapon".
This was a weapon of horrifying, unimaginable power. It did what it was built to do. It brought the king's friend back to life, at the cost of many, many other lives. The war stopped, for the casualties were too great. The essences of the Pokemon killed by this weapon were trapped in stones, that in the modern day can impart Mega Evolution.
Just like the Awakening items.
Our world and the human world are closely connected. While it's mostly humans who cross over, it is not unfathomable that energy, too, can enter our world from the human world. Such as the energy from the Ultimate Weapon.
My theory is as such: The Ultimate Weapon affected our world, too, leaving "scars" on it, that we now know as mystery dungeons. Whenever the world is in danger, these scars are "agitated", and more temporarily appear.
I believe that energy from the Ultimate Weapon lingers in these scars, and is what causes the Awakening items to form. Items similar to the Mega Stones of the human world, except in the form of seeds and emeras.
Even 3000 years later, the energy still lingers, imparting its power on anyone who's lucky enough to come across it in physical form…for a price.
While there have been attempts to make wearable items to impart the Awakening effect on a more permanent basis, they have famously been unsuccessful. I'm sure I don't need to remind anyonne about the tale of Marian the Cubone, or the "Ultimate Scarf" incident.
But I'll share one more story, to drive in how dangerous using these seeds in crafting items is.
Once, there was a Doduo who wanted to make an orb that could Awaken a whole group of Pokemon at once. They took an All-Power-Up Orb, soaked it with water filled with 10 ground-up Empowerment Seeds. Nobody knows what the orb looked like, but midway into the soaking process, the orb exploded, and the entire area where it was being soaked became a mystery dungeon. Only one of the assistants escaped, and the others were never found. Doduo's corpse was found in a search and rescue expedition of the dungeon, and I'll spare the gruesome details, but their body had become a mystery dungeon of its own.
I can't stress this enough, do not use Empowerment Seeds in crafting items unless you're very, very well versed in what you're doing.
And that's all I have for Awakening items! Very powerful items, that come with great risks, and should be used with caution and care.