at level 22 here's my adivce.
Go spam quests until you get to 24, buy the next level animation pet and feel OP again.
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20-24 is the FeelsBadMan time of animation pets where the HP value drops off, the damage value drops off, and they are 3 dagger costs per summon.. can get costly inventory-wise.
What I personally did to get past that gap was doing bandit sash quest. It wasn't the best exp in the world but gave tons of money and was fairly easy compared to charm kiting and dying over and over again because RNG decided it hated me 80% of the time instead of that 20% of the time everyone remembers as being "good".
charm is honestly just not worth it below 29. Too much risk vs no good rewards. Quests are really good at the power gap of 20-24, so I suggest hitting up any you can do fast/easy that give you "some" exp.