SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will - Chapter 425 Moon's Curse

Moon spent the next six hours out with Mirage, practicing his new skills on every beast he could find. At the same time, his spirit roamed within a kilometer of his position, hunting independently and feeding Moon a steady stream of lives, experience, and spiritual energy with every kill.

Moon kept the spirit close in proximity to avoid its death. He needed to be close enough to help it in case things went wrong, losing a spirit with S-Rank potential wasn’t something he wanted to experience.

When Moon finally stopped and looked behind him, a smile crossed his face.

Ten beasts followed him. Panpigs’, boars, large felines, a variety of different beasts, all at the peak of 0-Star ranking. They moved in whatever direction Moon willed without hesitation.

“Ten loyal beasts at the peak of 0-Star. Not bad at all.” Moon muttered. “They’ll be very useful.”

His curse worked on them. But there was an issue, just as he predicted, complex commands were beyond their ability under the curse. He couldn’t order them to set up an ambush, coordinate a flanking maneuver, or prioritize targets in a specific sequence. But they could kill. And they could defend. Those two directives were simple enough for their instincts to latch onto, and under the curse’s influence, they followed them without question.

There were other limitations too.

The cursed beasts couldn’t be stored in any pocket dimension. His beast taming skill only worked with bonded companions like Mirage. These creatures were controlled, not bonded. They had to travel with him physically, which meant managing a small army on the move.

He would have gladly stored them in his beast taming space had he been able to, but his skill only allowed for him to store a single beast.

“I need to find an Epic-Rank beast taming skill.” Moon thought aloud. The image was already forming in his mind. A legion of powerful, unique beasts stored inside his beast taming space, ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. An army that traveled with him invisibly, emerging only when he commanded it.

The potential was staggering.

There was another flaw he had identified during his practice. When the cursed beasts killed something, Moon received nothing from it. No lives, experience or spiritual energy. The kills were theirs, not his. The connection between him and the cursed beasts was one of control, not partnership. Unlike Mirage and the spirit, whose kills fed directly back to Moon through their bond, the curse provided no such link.

Which explained another piece of Layla’s choices of subordination.

She had used human subordinates exclusively. Not because beasts were only useless to her, but because humans were more profitable. She could command them to hunt, grow stronger, accumulate lives, and then milk them whenever she pleased, like a cash cow. Her subordinates weren’t just soldiers. They were livestock. Living, breathing farms that generated lives for her to harvest.

Beasts couldn’t serve that purpose. They were useful as weapons, but worthless as investments, for the most part.

Moon looked at the ten beasts trailing behind him and accepted their limitations. They weren’t going to make him richer. But as disposable front line fighters for the attack on the spirit pavilion, they were exactly what he needed.

Besides, he could always create disruptions in the eco-system within the island. Using them as bait to farm spirits, or other powerful beasts.

[Charm] [Proficiency: 29%]

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[Curse] [Proficiency: 71%]

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[Mark of Omen] [Proficiency: 56%]

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Moon stared at the numbers. Curse was progressing well, already approaching full comprehension. Mark of Omen sat in the middle, reachable with more practice. But Charm was lagging far behind.

“How can I improve the proficiency of a passive skill?” Moon muttered. “It only gains proficiency through time spent with it active.”

He sighed in frustration before shaking his head.

Charm wasn’t useful in combat. He didn’t care whether people found him more attractive or charismatic. That wasn’t why the skill mattered. It mattered because of how it interacted with the other two.

The three skills were designed to complement each other. Charm softened the target’s resistance. Curse broke through it. Mark of Omen sealed the deal. Each one strengthened the effects of the others when used in sequence. Without Charm laying the groundwork, Curse had to work harder to take hold, and Mark of Omen’s illusory empowerment was less convincing.

Comprehending all three would give Moon the complete class of The Witch of Charm. Missing even one weakened the entire chain.

Without any other option, Moon continued practicing. He cycled through Curse and Mark of Omen on the beasts around him, refining his understanding of their mechanics while letting Charm run passively in the background, accumulating proficiency one slow percentage point at a time.

Layla had been a powerful Evolver. Someone with the potential to reach Surpasser rank easily if left unchecked. Her class was genuinely formidable, a toolkit built for dominion over others that scaled with intelligence and patience rather than raw combat power. Unfortunately for her, she had encountered Moon, and her road ended early.

By taking her skills, Moon wasn’t just adding tools to his arsenal. He was positioning himself on the illusion path.

He hadn’t forgotten the Supreme Rank Core of the Three-Tailed Illusion Fox sitting in his storage ring. The core he had gained from the S-Rank gate, the one that could grant a core trait to anyone walking the path of illusion.

But he wasn’t going to rush it.

His Eye of Truth had been very clear about the consequences of using the core without being in the Illusion path.

The risks were severe, potentially fatal. Consuming it without being firmly established on the illusion path could destroy the core entirely, wasting something irreplaceable. And feeding it to Mirage without understanding whether the horse was truly on the illusion path could kill him.

Moon refused to gamble with either outcome.

He wanted to explore the River of Paths once more before attempting anything with the core. He needed to see his own path clearly, understand where the illusion branch connected to his existing skills, and confirm that he was indeed capable of doing so.

Until then, the core stayed in his ring.

‘Patience. The core isn’t going anywhere. But if I use it wrong, it’s gone forever.’