Apparently I lied. Rugore doesn't actually have -Aga spells apparently, which is pretty lame. But you get some [not very] exciting spells like Blink, Comet, etc, assuming you don't have half of them already >:[

there is some nice gold armor and some protips about the mysteeeeeeeeeeeerious castle down to the south (and some hints about how you can fight the enemies inside!)

Anyways, stock up on gold armors and wizard hats and equip your best Beastmaster with !Control and head down to the castle!

If you're like me, you enjoy your levelling a little more when it's tinged with that extra hint of sadomasochism.

Excellent setups here would include:
Holy Waters
Any classes you want to level up x3 + Beastmaster x1 (not necessarily has to be a beastmaster, but you will be doing a lot of controlling here)
#First Strike (times as many as you have slots for)
!Time (especially Haste)
White Magic
and something nice and simple to attack rather passively with, like. . .
!Gaia. (But I guess !Animals or !DragonSword would work too. Just save before you try these ;D)

Save outside the castle.

Save outside the castle.

Put everyone in the backrow and head inside. (Just to be safe. I'm level 30, so his attacks didn't really kill anyone, but there is a significant Zombie threat, which may instead).

Go ahead and run through the first room, then circle back and forth just inside the door in the second room. Eventually, this nice creature called Shield Dragon will come say hi
(hi!)

shield dragon has some fairly impressive stats if you've never met him before. 19999 HP, 40 Def, 25 MDef. . . You realize that the monsters you passed on the way here have somewhere between 0 and 5 Def and MDef? yeah, I know.

HOWEVER, that is why we have this funtime trick!

Hopefully, you will get a preemptive strike, if not, well, all is not lost!

Cast haste on your Beastmaster, have your Beastmaster use Control (and pray it works), Have your auxilery attacker (!Gaia!) attack, and your fourth guy stand by.

If the Shield Dragon gets Controlled, congrats, you just got 10000/4 exp, 1000Gil, and 5 AP! (well, not immediately, you have to use his Blaze attack four times in addition to at least one auxilery attack).

If not, well, keep everyone alive and unzombied, and try, try again!

For me, the danger is what makes this kind of levelling more interesting than the easier ways. Of course, I also spend hours upon hours fighting nutkins hoping to get the solitary skull eater. That's just the kind of person I am.

[edit- you also run the risk of running into the occasional ExDeath Soul in this castle, but they're not quite as scary(to me). You can run away if you really want to (or really want the chicken knife)]