After making your character, do the main story quest* until you are called out of the Training Ground for a Goblin Attack.

*Be sure you pick up the spell from the quartermaster when getting your other spells.

• Kill Goblins on Stone Street outside of Training Ground.
  
• Move crates for NPC to cart in Town Square.
  
• Report back to Stone Street.
  
• Talk to Ebsworth in Potion Shop.
  
• Run to East Beach where Brown Kelp can be found, killing goblins in Eel Street Bridge.
  -The quest wants you to grab one kelp, get 12. (~4 minutes)
  
• Teleport back to Hopeport, and show Ebsworth the Kelp.
  
• Chop (all) the kelp and show Ebsworth again.
  
• Make a potion and use it on the unconscious guard.
  
• Go back into Ebsworth's shop and buy a stack of bottles and make the rest of the potions.
  
• Sell remaining potions to Ebsworth.

You should now have the following levels:
2 Guard
0 Cooking
0 Fishing
2 Gathering
2 Alchemy

• Buy Fishing Spear from Melv's Fishing Supplies.
  
• Return to East Beach and catch a full inventory of Flounder (24).
  
• Run to Eel Street and sell the flounder you caught.
  
• Move north to Eel Street Bridge and catch a full inventory of Lesser Eel (24).
  
• Move north to Delectable Dab and deposit the Eels.
  
• At this point you should be just past level 6 fishing.
  
• Head south to Wilhope Crossing (Next to Fish Vendor) and catch a single (1) Sandy Puffer fish.
  
• Head back to East Beach and fill the rest of your inventory with Olive Flounder (23).
  
• Run to Fish Vendor and sell inventory (should be level 8 fishing now).
  
• Head north one map and catch an inventory of Gray Eels.
  
• Deposit in Ingredient Storage (Should be level 10 fishing now).

You should now have the following levels:
2 Guard
0 Cooking
10 Fishing
2 Gathering
2 Alchemy

• Buy Secateurs from Forager's Warehouse.
  
• Outside of Forager's Warehouse, gather two full inventories (48) Creamy Wall-plant.
  
• Deposit Wall-plants into Alchemy Ingredient Storage.
  
• Run to Brannof Boulevard and Gather two full inventories (48) Periwinkles.
  
• Deposit Periwinkles into Alchemy Ingredient Storage.

You should now have the following levels:
2 Guard
0 Cooking
10 Fishing
10 Gathering
2 Alchemy

• Buy 12 Basic Bacon and Bread from Kevin's Ingredients
  
• Make 12 Bacon Sandwiches and sell to Head Chef.
  
• Buy 12 Gelatin from Kevin's Ingredients.
  
• Make 12 Jellied Eels using Lesser Eels, sell to Head Chef.
  
• Buy 24 eggs at a time, making 24 omelettes, and sell to head chef.
  -Repeat twice for 48 total, or until level 8.
  -From level 9 on, check the bounty board before selling food items, it can be worth it to do these bounties for quick exp/silver if they are not too far.
  
• Buy 24 Basic Vegetables, make Vegetable Stew, sell to head chef.
  -Repeat twice for 48 total, or until level 10.

You should now have the following levels:
2 Guard
10 Cooking
10 Fishing
10 Gathering
2 Alchemy

• Go to the Town Square and buy 24 Brown Kelp from the Potion Reagents Vendor
  ~500c each, if you want to save money you can farm these yourself
  
• Go to Apothecary and make 24 20% healing potions.
  
• Sell all these potions.
  
• Do this another time for 48 total sold.
  
• Go back to Town Square and buy 24 Horn Shells
  ~700c each, if you want to save money you can farm these yourself
  
• Go to Apothecary and make 24 5% XP Hopefort potions.
  
• Sell all these potions.
  
• Do this another time for 48 total sold.

You should now have the following levels:
2 Guard
10 Cooking
10 Fishing
10 Gathering
10 Alchemy

• Go to Old Street East, fight Deathcrow until level 6.
  
• Go south to Tim's Alley, fight Thieves until level 8.
  
• Go north east to North Walls fight Goblin soldiers until level 10.
  
• Go up onto the wall and talk to the commander to begin the quest The Obelisk.
  
• Finish quest. (Pretty straight forward)

You should now have the following levels:
15 Guard
10 Cooking
10 Fishing
10 Gathering
10 Alchemy

• Return to Training Grounds and get your ranged weapon.
  
• Return to Kitchen
  
• Make 24 Gray Jellied Eels.
  
• Sell to chef (check bounty board as well)
  
• Make 24-48 Appetizing Bacon Sandwiches (or until level 15).

You should now have the following levels:
15 Guard
15 Cooking
10 Fishing
10 Gathering
10 Alchemy

For a total level of 60 and you can now keep going in the main story.

All in all this takes maybe a couple hours.

• Explore as much of the whole map as you can, as soon as you get in each zone; discover everything.
  
• The Immunity spell is your friend.
  
• Clicking the mini-map to move saves a lot of time.
  
• You can rearrange the icons around the screen by click dragging them.
  -You can also drag to resize the side bars, to make the inventory fit nicer, etc.
  
• Cooking is some of the fastest money/hr.
  
• You can change actions to be a single click in the settings menu.
  
• Save whatever purple equipment you find, you can use them (way) later to make orange ones.
  
• Getting skills to 20 is important for the ability to earn XP offline.
  
• This game is not meant to be finished one city at a time, move to new zones as you unlock them and progress there too.
  
• Fighting mobs at your level can be dangerous. If you find yourself dying often it's okay to kill things way lower level than you until you have full equips of that level.
  
• If you're free-to-play, avoid gathering bones (horns, etc.) in Hopeforest, unless you don't mind sitting there to drop them all.
  
• If you're grinding cooking (or some other money making activity), it's worth it to go to the Apothecary and get a 1 hour XP potion (32 silver), since you will make way more than that in profit.
  
• Enchant your tools whenever you can. Permanent XP buffs add up over time.