Getting Started:
     Skip past the intro and blah blah blah, you've completed the tutorial and village underground quests. Now you're ready for some fresh air and a nice walk around the town (Fresh air void for dwarves). Ok right then and there, pick journeman class, don't wait to think it over, just hit that yes button. The sooner you get those speed and dodge skills the better. Now that you have some new skills to play with, ditch your weapon if you still have it.

Now before you start training, just a bit of advice. What I did with my main MA is I used +3 int jewelry the moment he got out of the villiage head, since this isn't my main char I had my mage buy them and bring them to him (though I do play all my chars seperately a little item sharing now and then is a ok in my book). If this MA is your first char don't worry about it, if you want the jewelry you can get the +2 stuff really cheap. The reason I used +int? Because MAs need a lot of MP. Especially during training. But you won't need so much mp after training that you'll wanna be pumping int like crazy, so the added int from a little bit of jewelry helped give me just a little nudge. Other jewelry would work too, if you think you might not be too reliant on dodging, get some +con jewelry. But that's just a side note, this is an unnecessary option.

Edit: Let me just add here that another good reason con isn't as important to MAs as other classes is we have the ability to heal ourselves in and out of combat. So this is yet another reason Mp will be more important to you in the long run. Just thought I'd point that out for you die hard Con fans

On to main training. Like most other characters you want to train around your villiage when you first start. Get up a few levels, try to keep your level and the level of the creatures you're fighting even, if not even you want to be lower. You shouldn't have problems. Also cast Acceleration in every single fight you get into. You'll start needing mp pots for this. You can get mint paste at the healer shop or from other vendors for 65 bucks a piece. You should be able to get enough cash to pay for your mint paste addiction from combat, I never loaned a penny of money to my MA and never had a money problem training.

Stat Distribution:
     Now at about this point you'll be wondering ok, I know what I'm doing, but where should I put my stats? Like I said you'll want mp, but I don't recommend pumping int early on, just let the random stats throw that in. Con too if you can handle being without pumping con early. Some people are so afraid to not pump con early on that they can't help it. There's nothing wrong with an MA having a little con, but I would set a ceiling of 25-30 on it if you go that high. Con is unimportant for you, you want to work on other stuff. So my suggestion is from the very beginning pump 2 str and 1 dex every turn. That's right, I'm contridicting everything you read everywhere else. I'm not making dex your main stat. Now this will make your training a breeze. You'll be hitting harder than most anyone at your levels. So I would wait to add your dex until a little later. The one point per turn of dex you pump should be quite enough for you. Also you can use your play dead skill to level up your dodge, but to do this you must either be in a party or have your pet in combat mode. I don't recommend training a MA in parties at all. You'll want to use all of the skills you can in combat, and since most of your skills don't do anything but help you get out of the way, most people won't want to train with you anyway.

Now that you're at level 10, you've finally become a martial artist.  Congradulations, now you get to train even more skills. From here on out you'll want to train your Fighting Will and Force skills up. I know leveling your acceleration, dodge and fighting will skills up is pretty boring. But look at it this way. The quicker you level up dodge the quicker you get the Mirage skill, not to mention the better you'll be able to dodge. The quicker you level up your speed skill the quicker you can cast invisibility. This is an amazing skill when you're doing training. Using this and mirage you can train with a small party at almost twice your levels ability. This can help you gain amazing experience. And at only level 15 of Fighting Will you get the Rage ability, which increases your attack power for multiple rounds, which is extremely helpful. And once you hit level 30 you get Fury baby This lasts the entire term of combat. And increases your defense and attack by a lot. And fist skill you can't avoid leveling that up, just hit things with your fist. All you need to do is level these things up.

A Little Trick
     Ok that's about all you should need to know for that much. There will be more but I'll have to split it up a bit due to skills and pet differences everyone will have. But here's my little trick to leveling up fist. Some of you haven't read it, or didn't really understand it. So I'll put it here in different terms. Most of you know when I started out my MA I gave him a reser water monkey. A water monkey when reset grows pure dexterity. When you equip this to your weapon slot, it increases your hit rate depending on your pets current dexterity and your current hit rate. Being a martial artist you'll notice that no matter what your dexterity is that you already have a higher than average hit rate just do to your class, but I didn't use this puppy just for that. I used him to train my fist skill. I equipped it into arms and went into southern grasslands to beat me up some cows. The first two fights I went through I pummeled those cows down in one hit each. Then I went into fight number three, and there were two polis. Now if you don't know this yet, the polis in southern grasslands are earth, and water element isn't too good going up against earth, infact it down right sucks. I beat up the two cows with him in one hit each, then I started hitting that poli. Now I was doing in the range of 25-30 damage. But the thing was, is if you've fought most earth creatures you know they almost always do one thing all the time in combat, they cast regeneration. Now the poli was healing 20-25 points of damage every round, basically nullifying the damage I was doing to him. Now the ones who don't know this already from reading my previous post may be thinking, well man that sucks, I don't want to do that. Yes you do. My fist at that current time was already over 15, it's kind of timely to level up the fist skill after that, but after hitting that poli maybe 20 times in combat till it died. There was the skill level up noise. The fact you have the elemental disadvantage gives you more chances to use your attack against him, meaning you can level up your skills faster! Now he might hit you ever now and again, but guess what, that'll level up your dodge skill more too. "But what if my damage gets to low?" Lookie there and opportunity to level up your Force skill. Every level of Lesser Healing Force you get it heals an extra 2 points. Regular and greater healing force are much more. You can only level up your Force skill however if you have less than full health, if you cast it and you have full health, you get no experience, no hp and still lose the mp. You can also use Force skills outside of battle. An amazing plus at later levels I have to tell you.

Now that you should be well on the way to training, now onto a very important part of this. Your pet. If you read the previous stuff you'd know I had a water monkey. I didn't keep the water monkey(and 5k for the monkey 16k for reset isn't cheap if you just started), it's not useful later on, only for training. So I traded it away. So what you'll want to do is figure out what you want to do for your pet. You only need one starting out, no need to waste a bunch of money. So if you want to use my exact strategy and not blow all that money on a pet you won't even want. You can do two things, you can go or get someone to take you to the water temple and get faith points there (problem here is it will change your defense to water too, so you'll take a bit more damage from those polis when they get their hands on you, and since they cast avalanche now and then... you'll need to heal more, but hey, you'll get to level it up faster) The other way would be to get a water spider. Cheap, low level and you can throw it away when done. Now if you don't want to use that strategy a good starter pet for you might be a red beetle. Either one of these pets can be achieved in the underground quest with a new character. What you can do is just go through the quest till you get the one you want, then start playing. That's what I'd do .

Pets:
     Now as a martial artist I use 3 pets total. I use a water skeleton for my main arms pet, I use a red beetle for my back up pet (better in pks and does more damage to mobs, but I got it so I could have 2 different elements in combat, incase I encounter higher level wood and earth element mobs) and finally my armor pet, a nice cheap mud slime. The mud slime has a high constitution/luck combo package, and when equipped in armor, unlick wood crabs and pie aibos, it not only increases your defense but also your armor class (this boils down to being able to dodge better). These aren't the only pets out there though, these are just what I ended up with to be my personal favorites. I didn't even expect to have the red beetle it just kind of fell into my lap, and now I don't know what I'd do without it sometimes.

So in sum for pets, I wouldn't suggest having no more than 2 or maybe 3 at the max. If you do want three, get your first 2 up and raised and to 100 intimacy first, you also might want a bit higher int than usual. I pumped a few points into mine so I could support 3 pets without losing any mp. You could even get a magic enhancer, but you won't notice too much difference in your spells, so I don't recommend this. So now on to what pets would be good. I'm not going to do these in order of element, because frankly I don't think all elements have a use for all characters.

For Armor, these are pretty much the same for all classes:
For Defense and Dodgre Rate: mud slime, mutt, earth slug, and earth poli.
For High Defense only: Wood Hog, Wood Crab, Pie Aibo

For Weapons:
     Here you can take a different path than me, I chose a pet that really helps my hit rate, the water skeleton, however you being a MA you already have a high hit rate.

You could take the path less taken and get yourself a fire bear or a high strength pet (str/str). Remember hit rate is important for you, but since you have a lot of hit rate boosting skills... why not go for the gold, blow a little money and deal some serious damage to those swordmen making fun of you for picking the MA class These will also help you train super fast as your damage will be amazingly high, especially with fury and your fist skills.. (str/str)

High dex low str pets (dex/str): Water Skeleton, Water Rock (floating rock I think the official name is)

High Str low dex pets 9str/dex): Red Beetle, Red Butterfly, and Flame Pegasus

I may have missed a few of the pets you may have to choose from, I didn't use any references I just speed typed this whole thing from the top of my head. If you have any questions feel free to post them here and as soon as my fingers start moving again I'll answer them ASAP.

Where should I go to beat things up now?
     This is asked so many times it's absurd. The reason I didn't originally put this in the guide/faq, is because there's a lot of different ways you can play and pump stats, and different elements and pes you could have. They all make your decision on where to train different. Now the one thing I put in here was the water pet with no str super fist leveling trick. That I think is a marvelous little trick, but that's for leveling your fist, not for leveling you. Now I'm going to make a generalized list of places you can train. These are places you should be able to train solo at the level stated. As you might have already figured out, the MA is not a social character early in the game when you're trying to level your skills up as much as possible. This is because all of your skills help you avoid being attack, or help you attack better. This does nothing for anyone else in the party, which is why not a lot of people will enjoy you tagging along with them. But the plus side is, if you make a proper MA, you can solo just about wherever you want to once you get it up and running. Here's a little chart to use for REFERENCE. These are to give you ideas, not specific directions on where to go and when! Remember, this is for soloing! If you find a party that'll super train you, go for it.

Level 1-10- Don't live the villiage little boy/girl. It's dangerous out yonder! Stay around the place you originated, in illium stay in the valley of fear. In greeville or gion, stay in the smiling forrest or nothern grasslands.

Now here starts the diverse part. Seeing as how there are two major ways to play the martial artist. You might have a fire combat pet, or you might have a water combat pet. I won't consider armor here since you'll be dodging and healing all the time anyway.

Fire Pet for Combat:
     This one gives you an easy advantage over most things that are in the common areas, so finding training spots are pretty easy.

Fire has a 55% bonus against metal and a 20% bonus on wood. And a 50% disadvantage against water, and 15% against earth.

10-15- I recommend playing in either the southern or western grasslands. Warning: Don't go into the slime cave this early. A few reasons: Wood puppets absolutely LOVE casting timber strike on you, and since you just came out of the journeyman factory, you don't have a healing skill worth anything and your dodge skill is fairly low. Wait till you get your dodge skill up a lot, get your fist skill at least to 15, and get your healing up as much as you can. Remember, every level you get, light healing gives you +2 more life.

15-20 NOW you can venture into the slime caves, but be forewarneds, it's not going to be like skipping through candyland. Those puppets will timber strike all the time. And you're a LOT less likely to dodge spells than you are physical attacks.. minor drawback... spells are pretty hard to dodge.. So make sure you bring some mp pots with you, you should get some good Force skill training in there and getting your other skills up too, but don't venture too far into the caves, just in case you run low on pots (unless you want to spring for some teleport dust to bring with you .

20-25: Now that you've got some mad skills on your MA, you can go do some real fighting. You can go to a couple of places. The first part of snow white forrest would be almost the same exact fights you had in the slime caves. With wood beetles casting timber strike and the occasional firebear. So this should be no sweat for you and some good exp. If you're looking for a little diversity, head over to the secret plains, those earth spiders and metal lions and such should be easy pray for your fire enhanced super fist. Then there's genie desert, these are light and dark creatures. Which means you won't have an advantage against any of them, but you won't have a disadvantage either.. With the lizards throing dimension distortion at you it could be a real challenge training there, so if you want to keep it simple then stick with the other two.

25-30: Here's where the gloves come off and you start the real fighting. Now for the most part this is where you can start going out and joining parties and going off to have fun and kill the puppet king and what not. However if you still want to be an anti-socialist and stick to some solo combat for a while. You've got some fighting ahead of you. Now you can go deeper into snow white forest. Here will be similar fighting, the fire and wood mobs being together and all, but you won't be pushing those wimpy bears around, you'll be up against flame pegs. Those puppies have some high dex, so you'll want some too if you plan on butting heads here. I was fine agianst them at this level the way I pumped. So most everyone should, unless you didn't pump dex for 20 levels or something because you thought charm was the way to go...

30-35- Pinapple hill and candy mountain. Normally when you're training, no matter what the level, you want to keep the mob number down in battle. So for MAs and some other classes you don't want to go training in some of the caves by yourself or you'll get lynched. Staying outside in places like pinapple hill will help you by reducing the number of enemies but keeping their levels up so you can gain some good exp.

35-40 At this point you might bave some decently high Int and a good load of cash... So you may consider getting yourself a light or dark combat pet and marching into moonglow to bag yourself some snowmen with your awesome left hook and your smashing fist skills. First of all.. no moonglows mob spawn is too high for you just yet, stick to candy and crystal mountain and pinapple hill. And second of all, if you're reading this section. You have a fire pet, fire pets have natural high strength. You may have heard some people tell you "Hey you need to get a light/dark pet if you plan on fighting light or dark mobs" or "light or dark pets are better cause they don't have any penalties on any elements but themselves." All you need to do, is raise your arm, bend your elbow so that your forearm is parallel to your torso, extend your wrist so your hand is verticle, then extend your middle finger towards that person and tell them to shut their face. You have a fire pet. It has very very high strength, especially if you have a fire bear. The damage that these pets will add to your attack far outweighs any elemental technicalities you may encounter, especially against light and dark elements. So don't waste your money. If you want to get one though cause you have the money to blow, go for it, there's not harm in having one, you just don't need it.

40 and beyond- Well right around here you should be in the physical condition to take on some of the caves, but they're still going to be tough with a spawn rate of 6.. they'll be lynching you while you charge up. So my advice to you, is find yourself some parties and go have at this game. Now you can be the most social MA in the world. Go out, go fight bosses, go play around. Even going into places like dark cave or wolf cave or nameless cave with parties you'll still get pretty good experience. So go for it. After you get pretty high you're going to want to find yourself an AoD and make real good friends with him/her, so they can train with you using Dark Ritual.

Now for the path less traveled

Water Pet for Combat:
     If you can do math, this makes it's strengths outweight it's weaknesses. But it's a challenge finding spots to utilize your little beauty of a pet. So this is much harder for you. As the water enhancement is not helpful in a lot of outdoor envirements. But having the water pet is good for a lot of things later on down the line and a few things early on.

Water has a 50% bonus on fire and a 20% bonus on metal. It has a 40% disadvantage against earth and a 15% disadvantage against wood.

10-15- Southern grasslands. You'll have no problem with the fire cows and those polies will help you with your skill leveling. After a little tangoing with them you can move on to fire crabs and mud vultures for more exp.

15-20- Rat Caves and Northern Caves. These are filled with fire monsters. But there are also a lot of earth creatures here to help you level up your skills more, you should find most of them pushovers. But the high mob spawn rate will help you get more exp quickly.

20-25- Level 2 of the slime maze. You'll be fighting water monsters here, but you won't have too much disadvantage there, and you'll be able to plaster those metal slimes with your little pinky. Also you could go to the back of frog swamp or pea lake and beat you up some wood crabs and frogs, if you're not up for heavy fighting. This won't give as much exp, but it'll be like strolling through the park for you.

25-30- Goldburg lake. Here you've got the same scenario, you've got some water monsters but also a healthy supply of metal things to punch at. So you should be find there.

30-35- Crystal Mountain, gold gold gold, it's everywhere your fist should be.

35-40- Pinapple hill or maybe sticking with higher level mobs in crystal mountain will be your way to go here.

40 and beyond- Much like in the Fire pet section this is the part of the game when you'll want to go out and party and do some cave spelunking. By this time you should have amazing strength and an awesome water pet. This will put you at a different elemental attack than most people and give you advantages on a lot of bosses that most people won't have. Also your fury enhanced smashing fist at this level will turn a lot of heads and make you pretty popular. And much like the fire pet section, once you get to a high enough level you're going to want to start making friends with AoDs so they can help train you with Dark Ritual.