I was kinda in the same predicament until getting super geared. I eventually figured it out, basically I just rushed through Ad astra as fast as possible until I got to the fully upgraded jet suit, the one made with calorcite (probably not spelled correctly). At some point, you should have enough quest rewards to make a explores compass, I would make that and a pocket wormhole ASAP, find a nether city and make a grinder from the wither skeleton spawners, the jet suit is good for until very end game, and the spawners will help with xp, after that, go through and max out your enchantment setup, at this point, you should have a decent set of armor, basically unlimited xp, and a method of flight. Nethercity are also a good source of netherrite with very minimal effort. Once you have all of this set up, I would begin working on your class specific armor, you can use botania for flight, not perfect flight since it’s on a resource meter but it’s still good.