You may want to stay away from personal combat encounters until you level up your starting slave to the level you need. Assign them to hunting/library, increase their base stats, most importantly - agility, since at the moment evading every single hit your foes make seems to be the way through, and let them carry you to glory (kill enemies that try to run away with magic, mindblast and acid spit are available to you from the get-go and do 100~150 damage from one strike provided your magic affinity is high enough, which it should be because you are a mage above all else, no pressure). Also, if you and/or your starting slave have enough awareness to evade all fights you encounter, just go to the area nearest to your city that has a chance to drop 20 energy chests and scavange all the equipment you need if you find yourself struggling with money for the first few weeks. That should be enough to get you started.
Also, start with fighting wolves. They are dead easy. And remember that once you achieve the rank of Journeyman in the Mage Order. you can buy Invigorate which can be cast onto self with no penalties, and if you rape every bandit you encounter, which somehow does not detract from your reputation in this world, you never run out of mana to fight the baddies.