Thank you for the kind words!
You can craft the Garnet necklace using the Artifice skill, but you will also need the skill at level 2 and have an Artificing work bench. To get the bench, you need to either craft it with the construction skill, or buy it from the Goblin Merchant, her stock is random every day but on some days she sells crafting benches. Both the Crafting bench and the Necklace can also rarely drop from chests.
That said, I would suggest learning the Climb spec instead as it is probably easier to get it that way. The Climb Specialisation is under the Athletics Skill, and you can get the Athletics Skill by bringing 10 Honey to the Goblin Guard on the 2nd Floor of the Goblin Tower.
As for leveling up. The level up feature is different in this game to the usual RPGs. Here, the Rank is increased due to main story progression and is hence currently capped at Rank 1. However, after gaining Craft/Battle/Sex EXP you can increase your maximum Health and Will power pools by buying them up in the skill manuals. Also, upon reaching max level in a Skill (Level 5) they usually grant you a permanent +1 to a specific stat as well as a Title.
Most of the stats actually comes from the gear you wear in this game, though in the future you will have more ways to increase your stats through Titles and Achievements.