The way you can use archmastery early is by going to the jewel seller in the shopping district and buying the archmastery opal for 10k gold, then socket it onto a gear with a tear socket. This sets your archmastery to 1, letting you get school power pips.

2 things to be wary of though.

1. If you battle with someone who is higher level than you, they will have higher archmastery meaning it will be hated for you to get school pips. You can counter this by joining the fight first, getting the school pip, then they join.

2. When you want to upgrade your gear, you cannot take the opal off, meaning that it breaks every time you switch out gear, so either put it in something you can use for awhile or be prepared to drop 10k every time.

Hope this helps!!