This is a guide from Starter Wizard to Apprentice Wizard (the current maximum) meant to be as concise as possible.
Leveling and Magic:
When you first make a character, your rank will be Starter Wizard. To start out, create a magic blast that has the lowest possible explosion and blast size. This will allow you to snipe enemies for higher damage than larger attacks would deal. Do quests or kill npcs until you are the right level for the explosion magic type. Make an explosion attack, as that will help with large groups of enemies and breaking terrain. Once you reach the right levels, set your blast count to 20 and explosion count as high as you want. As you rank up to Novice Wizard, look for novice quests (question marks with a green glow instead of grey), as starter quests will now give half the xp and novice quests will give more money. Continue doing quests and killing npcs until you are an Apprentice Wizard, the highest rank at the time of this guide. Apprentice quests give a large amount of XP and money, and aoe is very helpful for them. You can also go out and find randomly generated boss structures that contain useful loot and powerful wizards that drop lots of money, xp, and potentially higher tier gear like dull amulets for high levels, sometimes even over the current level cap. Repeat until you are level 60, the max.
Gear:
You can find gear in chests or shops. When you make a character, you get a random culture out of the current 3: vistarian, castlian, and alaleans. You can only use gear from your culture. Vistarians get a throwable spear that is not really worth using but does high damage if you manage to hit an enemy, and castlians and alaleans get swords with high damage spin attacks that are very effective in combat. Metalworkers are npcs that can upgrade gear by 10 levels, with each item having its own level cap. You cannot upgrade gear past your own level. In addition, there are alchemists that will enchant your gear with a random stat boost.
That concludes my guide to World of Magic. I tried to make it as concise as possible. Feel free to reply with any questions, I will answer any I can (if I remember to check).