What to do when out of leves? Grind?

[Leknaat]

And secondly, no I haven't done any side quests because my personal preference in any MMO has just been level now, do the quests later. Because I absolutely hate spending a bunch of time on a quest only to get to a part where I need to kill something and I'm not even remotely high enough level to do it.

And this is where your assumption is slightly flawed. The mainline quests for this game are currently designed that even a crafter without any combat skills should be able to clear it.