What Life did you start out with? I might start with Fisher, then Cook, then go over to the ore/fighting area.
I started out my life as a paladin then went over to miner for a little, then switched back to paladin and am close to the legend rank for that. I am gonna go back to mining and level that up a ways once i complete the paladin life.
Oh um I would NOT recommend attacking the Golden Dragon... unless you have a tone of hp potions and sp potions, and probably like 2 hours to fight it lol, it is certainly beatable but takes about an hour to get it down to half health
the next life i try out will probably be wood cutter or possibly blacksmith