To grow in strength you need to upgrade your equipment, the maximum armor upgrade level is 40 for each part, but only Celestial Set can reach this level, each armor has its own upgrade cap, check sets

Up to level +10 you can use Upgrade Stones or Catchup Stones. Acquired from monster essences, archlight crates, wild bosses, quests.

To upgrade your gear from +11 to +20 you have to use Legendary Stones. Acquired from monster essences, quests, sigils and transmuting upgrade stones or soul and rune soils.

To upgrade your gear from +21 to +30 you have to use Awakened Stones. Acquired from monster essences, quests, sigils and transmuting Legendary Stones.

To upgrade your gear from +31 to +40 you have to use Relic Stones. Acquired from monster essences, quests, sigils and transmuting Awakened Stones.

Healing Rune is the main source of healing for most of the vocations and not just early game. at the beginning of the era u get beginners rune that CANT be upgraded and by the time u do quests u can get better runes. T1 Healing rune obtain on character creation. T2 Healing rune can be obtained from Hereos Quest. T3 Healing rune can be obtained from seven trials quests. T4 Healing rune can be bought at Forgotten Island for 750 Forgotten Gold.

While Soul Rune is the main source of damage for most of the vocations and not just early game. at the beginning of the era u get T1 Soul Rune upon reaching level 300 or can be bought frrom the runes seller npc at dp +1 south-east. unlike Healing Rune you can instantly upgrade your T1 Soul Rune upon receiving it. T2 Soul Rune can be bought at Forgotten Island for 1250 Forgotten Gold.

Up to level +10 you can use Rune/Soul Soils or Catchup Rune/Soul Stones. Acquired from monster essences, archlight crates, wild bosses, quests, ritual bags ,legendary keys, heirloom crates and by breaking all type of higher stones at blacksmithing station ( Awakened & Relic ).

From +10 to +15 you can use Awakened Rune/Soul Soils. Acquired from monster essences, legendary keys, quests, sigils , crafting 4 rune/soul stones by professions and by breaking all type of higher stones at blacksmithing station ( Relic ).

From +15 to +20 you can use Relic Rune/Soul Soils. Acquired from monster essences, legendary keys, quests, sigils and by crafting 4 Awakening rune/soul stones by professions..

This stage only available AFTER using rune enhancement tokens on the healing or soul rune ( can be bought from gustavo npc at dp +1 south for 1.5k wargate currency) From +20 to +25 you can use Relic Rune/Soul Soils. Acquired from monster essences, legendary keys, quests, sigils and by crafting 4 Awakening rune/soul stones by professions..