If anyone cares, in ??? (I believe that's the area - the pit when searching for someone later) you can get the dog-type animal to spawn and killing it with Burst gives you like 6K XP. I farmed like 3/4 levels there and minus the one or two from the beginning I was able to beat the game relatively painlessly at 32. Definitely missed at least a couple pieces of gear and didn't buy the one helmet for magic res, which was kinda a waste because the robe of darkness trumps the fire dragon armor handily
Also, plot was surprisingly good IMO. Just get to the point where you outspeed and/or are hard to hit (between gear and lvls) and combat is essentially a non-issue plus you can run from the encounters easily