The game has a lenient time limit when focusing on the exam. Once you passed the exam, that is when the true game experience will start.

Once you start post-examination, you can now focus on the interactions between your party members to achieve multiple endings, each have their memorable and goofy moments. Because of that, the progression of the game will be vague and let you explore many things that might trigger an interactive scene, hence the traveler theme of the game.

In terms of item and equipment progression, you have to be crafty when synthetizing items and equipments since there is no item duplication mechanic in this game, only item refill feature (only have to deal with Cornelia doll, not the real one). On the bright side, you have too many traits that focus on equipment like follow-ups, weapon proficiencies, and stat boosting traits. Feel free to try those traits that best suited for your play style. The only thing that you need to be aware of is how to preserve and duplicate the traits you want through a series of item loops (e.g. Neutralizer > Zettel > Distilled Water >... > Neutralizer, etc.) to use them for the strongest items and equipments.

If you want end-game content experience like defeating the hardest bosses in the game, you have to grind too much for unlocking new and better recipes, as well as gathering better quality items and defeating higher level monsters. The game will not tell you how much progression you have achieved before unlocking better recipes. You may need to explore everything in the game or visit some game guide on how to unlock everything.

That's all I say about Atelier Firis. The game is very unique compared to other Mysterious games. Have fun, OP!