Most of Aura's power comes from stuff like blacksmith upgrades, drugs/elixirs, books, whatever skills she can learn from people/books, and challenging people to duels.
Playing the game 'right' involves talking to npcs to learn how certain mechanics work, learning what mechanics specific enemies use, what their weaknesses are, and knowing when you are strong enough for fighting them to be worth it.
Also avoiding unnecessary fights. Unless an enemy is either a boss or a human(oid), there's no loot, which means that the only reward for killing a monster is that you no longer need to sneak/run past said monster.