Now, I'm quite new to this game, so I'm probably one of the "noobies" mentioned, but I found that grouping was extremely effective. Now, this was probably an extreme case (2 Griffon Barbarians, to be exact) but we weren't just killing twice as many monsters. The ammount of XP we were getting rose exponentially. Lv. 1s killing Bakemonos and Goblins and obviously Zaks quite easily (God bless Bash). By the time we actually went to an inn to rest, I had enough XP not only to get all my Amateur skills to Very Good from a friendly mentor (I think there were 2 or so at Good, but that was his fault
) and learn like... 4-5 languages. I was amazed at the ammount of XP we managed to get in the same ammount of time it would have taken me to maybe get a level and a half or so and a couple plat.
However, like I said, extreme case, mileage may vary.
Hehe. Just out of curiuosity, was that mentor a scout, with a human woman with him?