These are points shared by all characters in your family that get spent mainly when interacting with NPCs and objects. They are a renewable resource, and individual to each character.
This means that, if you have a maximum of 50 energy points, you can spend 50 points with character A, and also 50 points with character B.

Energy is mostly used to become friends with townsfolk, to acquire knowledge entries, and for certain life skill activities. It can also be used to learn skills without going to a Skill Instructor NPC, and for a variety of content such as checking the price of trade goods in another town from a distance.

Energy regenerates gradually; 1 point of energy will be recovered every 3 minutes when you are playing with that character, and 1 point of energy will be recovered every 1 hour when the character is logged off. That means that in order to quickly recover the energy pool of a character, it is better to stay around within Black Desert's world.

When your character is lying on a bed installed in a residence, the energy recovering speed will be increased. The same is also applied to certain locations around the world, like hot springs. You can also use crafted items such as energy potions to quickly refill your energy points if necessary.
Finally, some quests, usually daily quests requiring you to use energy, will give you back energy points as part of their quest reward.

Maximum energy begins from 50 points, and will be increased every time you complete a knowledge topic category. For example, the category Residents of Velia.
The easiest way to increase your maximum energy is to talk to every NPC within a town, and every node manager out in the world.

As seen in the image above, you will need to spend energy when obtaining certain knowledge entries found throughout the world. In the image you can see that, from a total of 543 energy the character possesses, 10 are required to be spent to interact with the object and obtain the entry.

• Conversation
NPC conversation is one of the first features you will encounter. Conversations with NPCs are carried out to increase your amity with them. This is done to unlock interactions with them, such as quests and knowledge entries.
The NPCs with whom you can converse are preset, and conversation cannot be performed if you lack the knowledge topics the NPC is interested in.
The initial amount of energy needed to start a conversation is 2, but it will increase as your amity with the NPC increases.

➤ You can read more about this topic in the [Amity] page.

• Greetings

Approach an NPC to view its interaction options. Click on the hand icon, or press the hotkey F5 when the interaction options appear, to make your character wave its hand to greet the NPC and increase your amity with them. 3 energy points will be used, and you will gain 3 amity points.

• Stealing
After you reach a certain level, the stealing icon will become active when you go behind an NPC.
If you use 5 energy to try stealing, you may be able to steal the NPC's belongings.
However, if you fail, the NPC will be disappointed with you, resulting in a significant decrease in amity, and a decrease in your character's karma as well.

• Learning Knowledge from NPCs
There are many NPCs throughout Black Desert's world that will teach you knowledge entries. To do this, you will usually need to spend energy.
Each knowledge entry requires a different number of energy points which you must spend to learn it.

➤ You can read more about this aspect of the game in the [Knowledge] page.

• Returning Defense Tokens
Returning defense tokens give contribution experience. You can get them by defeating certain monsters forming raiding parties at night near gateway nodes. Every defense token returned will require you to spend 3 energy.

➤ You can read more about this in the [Contribution] page.

• World Chat
When you participate in the World Chat, every message sent will cost you 1 energy.

• Gathering
All gathering activities consume energy. All gathering activities except for fishing will consume energy. 1 energy will be used every time you gather something. The more you level up your gathering life skill, the less energy will be consumed over time. The same applies to the farming life skill when gathering crops.

• Fishing
You can consume up to 10 energy each time you throw your fishing line. This will give you the chance to obtain one extra fish.

• Trade Bargain
When you try to bargain with a Trade Manager NPC, 5 energy will be used for each attempt.

• Hiring Workers
Energy is consumed for watching the different workers available for hire at a Work Supervisor NPC, and for hiring one.

➤ You can read more about this in the [Workers] page.

• Checking Trade Prices
Energy is consumed when checking trade prices from the World Map screen and Order Contract window.

• Node Investment
You can invest energy in a node to increase its level.
Increasing an invested node's level will increase the item drop rate from the monsters within that area.

➤ You can read more about this in the [Node] page.

• Black Market's Secret Shop
You must use energy every time you want to see a new item offered in Patrigio's secret shop.
The selling price of the items it offers in his secret shop is not constant, and you do not know which item they will offer to sell you, but they sometimes sell rare or useful items.
Keep in mind that the price they ask for the item might be above what one can pay for it in the Central Market.

• Energy Potions
Thanks to certain characters in the world of Black Desert, such as Alustin (Velia), Purajin (Valencia City), and Celphie (O'draxxia), you can bottle up your excess energy for later use.
These energy potions can also be sold to other Adventurers via the Central Market.

If you use all of your energy points and then wait for a bit, you will see you start recovering them.
As a renewable resource, if you do not use your energy whenever you can, it is as if you misuse the time you are given in which you could use energy that otherwise remains refilled but unused. 
However, if your maximum amount of energy is higher, whenever you use it, it will take longer to refill all of it, so you will not have to think as much about its constant use.

Since energy is useful in so many ways, increasing your maximum energy pool is greatly beneficial.
You can increase your maximum energy pool by completing knowledge categories.

Not all knowledge categories will increase your maximum energy, so please check them before attempting to complete them. You can check which ones do by looking at the Knowledge screen (hotkey: H).

In the examples above, you can see that completed categories increase your maximum energy by a certain amount, usually a few points each.
Every time you complete a knowledge category, the game will notify you on the upper part of your screen by saying which category was completed and how much your maximum energy pool has been increased for.

When beginning your journey in Black Desert's world, an Adventurer starts off with only a maximum of 50 energy points.

You will not be able to converse with NPCs, gather many items, or even reach level 2 when investing in nodes with that amount of energy.
Since 1 energy point is replenished every 3 minutes, you may wish to wait for it to refill so you can use them again, but for example, it will not be possible to view items at the secret shop, as each item viewed requires 50 energy.
 
Veterans Adventurers will often recommend taking certain steps to increase your maximum energy pool in the early stages of your adventure.
Increasing your maximum energy pool mostly involves gaining knowledge entries, which can be obtained by discovering new areas, conversing with NPCs, defeating monsters, and completing quests.

You can check the various knowledge categories in the Knowledge screen.
Filling up the list of entries in most given categories will increase your maximum energy pool.
Since most categories will only require 2/3 of the list to be filled up, if your goal is to increase your energy pool rather than collecting all available knowledge, it is rather doable.

Collecting entries and filling up the different categories in the Knowledge screen (hotkey: H) can be an enjoyable goal to pursue should you wish to do so.

◈ Acquiring Island Knowledge

One of the easier ways to increase your maximum energy pool is to gain entries through NPCs and locations.
Most highlighted NPCs give an entry just by meeting them, and you can easily acquire the entries about the world's topography naturally while you journey doing quests.

However, there are knowledge entries that you cannot acquire unless you are actively trying to get them, and those of islands are some of them.
Unless an Adventurer is fishing or has a questline that asks to visit them, there are not that many reasons for them to visit the many islands in the archipelago north of the continent. Thus, those that focus on combat quests, trade, and other life skill activities rather than fishing will often find the sea areas of their world map still covered in a dark fog.

If you would, however, like to increase your maximum energy pool to its full potential, then it is a good idea to start this objective by preparing a ship. If you find a fishing boat too expensive, a rowboat will suffice, though be warned that they are quite slow.

Additionally, if you play through a season with a season character, you can obtain a challenge reward for reaching Lv. 56 that will eventually lead you to acquire a 7-day Splat Fisher's Clothes costume. You can equip this costume to quickly swim to all the islands.

If you have your transportation ready, you can embark on your exploration voyage. You can sail from Velia, Port Epheria, or any other place with a wharf on the coast, such as Altinova.
While at sea, explore every island you come across, acquire any topographical knowledge you can find, go to the node manager on each island, and talk to them in order to gain their entry. In some cases, they will be necessary to unlock the island's entry as well.

Just by doing this, you will be able to easily increase your maximum energy pool by 30~40 points.

Islands of various sizes dot the seas north of Velia. The potential maximum energy pool you can gain here is considerably large.

◈ Acquiring Topography and Character Knowledge

If you have found all of the islands, the next step is to acquire knowledge entries in towns and villages.
Most NPCs dwell within towns, but some roam the landscape or require specific conditions to be met in order to gain access to the entries they hold, so it is not that easy to acquire them.

If your objective is to increase your maximum energy as fast as possible, it is recommended that you get the knowledge you can and move to the next town quickly.

When acquiring the topography and character entries in a town, it is better to get the topography ones out of the way first. After gaining knowledge on the topography in a town, you can open your world map (hotkey: M) and right-click on the node to locate the node manager, reducing your chances of getting lost while looking for them.

If you are about to give up looking for the topography entry, try talking with NPCs near the town.
By increasing your amity with them, you can sometimes acquire the topography knowledge without having to move around. This does take a lot of effort, so do this as a last resort.

The picture on the right shows that you need to meet another character before you can acquire the knowledge entry for this one. The name of the NPC you need to find will be highlighted in yellow in their dialogue text.

◈ [Tip] Useful Information about NPCs

◈ Acquiring Ecology Knowledge

First open the Knowledge screen and check the Ecology category. All knowledge about monsters you have gathered so far will be listed there.

When you expand the different categories, those that are marked "Increase Energy by 2/2 [Obtained]" in color blue indicate that you have gained all available entries in that category and you cannot fill it any further.
You should instead look at the categories marked in white, those that tell you the energy increase is at 0/2 or 1/2. There will be some entries within those categories that will show up in question marks (?????? or ?????????) that need to be filled. You can move to the appropriate monster zone to fill up the category.

There are certain buffs obtained from equipment items and consumables that will increase your chance to get an entry when defeating monsters, but they are not an absolute requirement.

◈ [Tip] Useful Information about territorial ecology knowledge

◈ Acquiring Adventure Journals/Academics Knowledge

When you have gathered some topography, character, and ecology knowledge entries, it is now time to look at the adventure journals and academics sections.
It is possible to gather these knowledge entries naturally while traveling around Black Desert's world together with the black spirit, but much knowledge is hidden.

You can discover these hidden entries through the following methods.

• Quests

When you veer away from the path the black spirit takes you on, and just go around meeting NPCs at your leisure and doing their quests, you can acquire many adventure journal entries.
They are the record of the journey an Adventurer has experienced.

Finishing quests may sometimes award you a knowledge entry.

• Conversing with NPCs

There are many NPCs in Black Desert who each have their own stories.
If you meet an NPC for the first time, try to speak to them first. By checking your amity with them on the upper left side of the screen, you can check what kind of stories this NPC will tell you when you become friendly with them.
The process of increasing amity might be difficult at times, but considering the maximum energy gain obtained, and if you enjoy learning their stories, it definitely is worthwhile to check out.

You can acquire the Velian Bookshelf knowledge entry once you reach at least 100 amity with Sealus, the furniture dealer in the town of Velia.

• Interacting With Objects
If you see a stone statue, or a bookcase, get close to it and try to interact with it if possible.
Many knowledge entries of these categories are waiting to be discovered by Adventurers all throughout the world. Sometimes they may be easily identified, like the above examples. Other times they may be better hidden, like the view of the entry to a cave telling you rumors about it.

Some NPCs' interests for conversation to earn amity with them require entries of these types, so collecting them is considered important.

As seen in the image, at times you can obtain entries from specific objects in the world.

◈ [Tip] Useful Information regarding Adventure Journals / Academics