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[Mirage]

Yeah, it's kinda strange. This game went from being probably the slowest leveling to the fastest practically overnight. I'm not even sure if it was intentional by SE, or if the damage was already done by the time they noticed that people leveled 8 times faster than before.

Either way, the cat's out of the bag now, and there's no way to undo it without massively screwing over new players like you. Imagine how fun this game would be if you have to level the slow way now that everyone else has gotten everything to 99 the fast way. You'd feel pretty lonely .

For some more tips:
Regen is the best hp cured per mp spent until you get cure 5 and a bit of cure potency gear. Always carry echo drops in case you get silenced. You're the dude who's gonna cure everyone else's silence, so you can't rely on others un-silencing you.

And lastly, talk to Joachim the moment you hit lv30, and make sure you get the starting cutscene for abyssea. This is what makes you start accumulating traverser stones, which are required to keep yourself inside abyssea.