Pets in AION 2 are collected, not bought one at a time. Almost every creature in the world has a Soul attached to it, and killing the right monster enough times turns that creature into a permanent entry in your collection — one that usually doubles as a mount and always feeds a passive stat bonus. The process is the same whether you are chasing a level 12 mushroom or a dragon.
Quick answer: Open the Pets menu, check the pet’s Source tab to find the monster that drops its Soul, farm that monster until you have the required Soul Points, then select the pet and hit Equip.
When the pet system unlocks in AION 2
You do not get the Pets tab immediately. It opens up during the early story chain, around level 11, after quests including Game Changer and the Odel Collection. Those quests run out of Dawn Legion Base in Verteron, so if the Pets tab is missing from your main menu, the fix is simply to keep pushing the main story until that chain completes.
You also start with a mount before any of this — the Armadon is handed out early, so you have ground movement while you work toward your first collected pet.
Reading the Pets menu: categories, Collection Status and Owned Effects
Open the main menu and select the Pets tab. The left column filters the roster by genus: ALL, Cogni, Fera, Natura, Varian and Special. Each entry shows a 3D model, its Collection Status, and a Pet Insight panel describing what owning it does for you.
The important line is the Owned Effect. Fungen, a Natura pet, grants +3 Stamina. Once a pet is unlocked, that effect stays active permanently — you do not need it equipped, and you do not need to summon it. Every pet you collect stacks another small passive onto your character, which is why the All Owned Effects panel fills up with things like Might, Accuracy Bonus, Critical Hit and damage multipliers as your collection grows.
Use the saddle preview icon on any entry to watch its riding animation before you commit to farming it. Many pets double as mounts, and the movement feel varies a lot between them.
How to unlock a pet with Pet Souls
The unlock loop is identical for every soul-based pet. Fungen is the clearest example to follow, since it sits in an early zone.
C — the horse icon hotkey — to summon and ride the active pet.How to confirm the pet actually unlocked
You get an on-screen notice the moment the last Soul Point lands. For a Natura pet, that reads Natura Pet Genus Insight Level Up. After that, three things should be true in the Pets menu.
- The pet’s Collection Status flips from locked to owned.
- An Equip button is available on its entry.
- Its Owned Effects show as active — for Fungen, Stamina plus Mount Ground Move Speed.
If the Owned Effects line is live, the passive is already applying, whether or not the pet is the one you are riding.
Pets you cannot farm from monsters
Monster drops cover the bulk of the roster, but a chunk of the 400-plus catalogued Souls come from elsewhere. The database tags sources as looted from monsters, quest, ranking, trade and shop.
| Source | Example | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Monster loot | Soul: Fungen [Bound] | Kill the listed mob |
| Shop | Swift Lugi | Daeva Pass [Season 1], level 45 |
| Ranking / clear race | Red Dragon | Early Chalice of Muspel clear |
| Pre-registration | Pagati | Plus one of four choice pets |
The pre-registration choice pets are Black Smoke Molt, Konutin Worker, Silver Blade Rotan and Papis. Dungeon and PvE rewards and limited-time events also hand out companions that never appear as world drops, so those windows matter if you care about completion.
What unlocking pets feeds into: Genus Insight
Every unlock pushes the matching genus forward. Genus Insight is the second progression layer, with its own tab covering Cogni, Natura, Fera, Varian and Special. Each genus has a nine-slot analysis wheel, and every slot rolls a stat from a table of possible values and probabilities across rarity tiers.
You reroll slots with Auto Analysis, spending crystals. Once you hit a roll you want, you lock the slot — but each lock raises the crystal cost of the next reroll, so locking early is expensive. Preset tabs at the top let you keep separate PvE and PvP stat setups and swap between them, and the Applied Effects panel shows what is currently live.
Collecting Souls is no longer handled separately for each character. On one server, all characters share pet ownership and Genus Insight; Insight takes the highest value reached by any character, while pet levels combine together, letting work done on a main help its alts.
Pet leveling and the reduced level requirement
Pets gain levels largely through normal play — they come along while you quest and farm, so progression rewards consistent play rather than dedicated grinding sessions. A system change lowered the maximum level requirement from 5 to 3, cutting the amount of farming needed to max out an individual companion.
A pet picks up its owner’s loot automatically, shortening the pauses between pulls during grinding. The Pet Auto-Loot Ticket activates this feature, and each character can purchase two tickets per character per month at most; the tickets may be sold for Soul-bound Kinah.
The efficient approach is to stop treating pet farming as a separate activity. Check the Source tab for pets whose monsters already sit along your leveling route, pick up the Soul Points as they drop, and the collection fills itself while you play. The stat bonuses are small individually, but they are permanent, they stack, and they carry across every character on your server.
