My relationship with Nel is 5 full bars, and the Dark Forest area is only one or two star difficulty for me (I one shot fairies with any elemental spell) but Nel only goes to the Wasp Forest for some reason
I've been through every area up to the Dark Forest (slime, wasp, beach, cave, magma place) and grinded at them all and am currently level 48
Edit: also how do you increase your SP? Really enjoying the game btw (other than having to spam click every time I train with Nel lol)
Edit 2: First problem fixed, just reopened game, Nel took me to the Dark Forest