Pro Tip: Novice gears make you stronger in the lower levels than you would be as a first job class character at those levels (unless you have awesome gears) - my recommendation is that you stay a novice until level 35-40, then change job (you can train in payon dungeon or ask someone where metallings are - both are good training for novices above level 20 or so with novice gears, and once you get to first job you can get a few job levels in payon dungeon or orc dungeon, then keep on killing the metallings when you're strong enough again (since without the novice gears, your fighting power will drop a bit at first).
-Acolytes can go to prison with level 10 heal, although you'll use a lot of GJ. You can go as soon as you have heal level 10, however you will die if a monster ever touches you so you have to be able to move fast. The technique is called hit and run, and once you learn it you can get very good at it even on the nubbest characters with little or no gears. You can do this with mage class too, using soul strike. Since prison is a ks zone, feel free to ks people - that's the best way for your class to level up!
-Merch can mob with cart revolution, so one good place to train is at poison spores (go to Geffen city and go into the tower in the middle of the town, then go down the stairs until you reach the basement).
-Thief could try any of the places mentioned, starting with orc dungeon or metallings. You could also try toy factory level 2, since you can also make a bit of money there by getting cakes. If you get a bow, you can kill geographers (ask someone where they are) but don't get too close to them when you're fighting them.
Once you get to job level 40 (you may wish to wait until job level 50 for the aco, since they need more skills) you will change job, and since first job class characters are pretty weak job levels are your primary focus so you can quickly get to second class.
-Leaf cats is good for job levels, once you are strong enough to kill them - merchant can mob, thief can't, but both should be able to kill them at some point (just avoid the monkeys) - sometimes nice people with stronger characters (such as myself, when I'm not busy) may be willing to tank/mob for you, that is to make a big mob for you to kill without getting hurt by the mob. That's pretty fast levelling for any class that can kill mobs (in your case, the merchant).
-Another good place for job levels is Mi Gaos, but you will need someone's help for this (preferably a monk, since they can freeze the mi gao for you to kill, or perhaps an aco which can decrease agility on the mi gao and then run around to avoid getting hit and killed by it) - have them provoke it somehow, then kill with fire property weapon or spell. These give very good exp both to job and base, but they are a bit hard to kill and you do need help to do it.
