That seems WAY longer than it should take you. Play around with the level you are fighting in, the furthest level isn't always the best to fight in. During the early ascensions I often find that you want to work on one-shotting the enemies, level your damage equipment first (honestly the other equipment doesn't make a huge difference early on, as long as you aren't dying too often, I generally keep my sword:other damage items:other items around a 4:2:1 ratio of levels. Then I usually focus my farming area around gold/s rather than anything else, that often means that I'll be almost 100 levels ahead of the max level of the zone before moving on. However the first 2 (even 3rd) ascensions do seem to take an inordinate amount of time to farm up the gold.