Does anybody know the best way to raise the character level and increase..

Best way to increase your character level is to increase your major skills. Putting athletics and acrobatics in your major skills will certainly help you level up faster. Best way to increase skills like hand to hand is to use that skill or to train it by a trainer for gold. Putting blade, blunt, or hand to hand in your major skills will help you level your strength up faster because strength is their governing attribute.

You increase skills like Strength and Endurance every time you level up. To level up, you'll have to increase your major skills up to 10 points. (I.E. 3 pts up in Hand to Hand, 6 pts up in blade, 1 pt up in heavy armor.) Then you level up. Increase your Major skills by using them often. But minor skills do not count towards leveling up. If Hand to Hand is a major skill, don't use any other weapon because it won't cause too much damage. If you want to increase the skills quickly, find a trainer. But since you can only train 5 times in one level, you'll have to rack up 5 more on your own. Or increase major skills by 10 points without training, train 5 times before leveling up, then sleep, level up, and train 5 more times which will level you up again.