If you touching the mobs in fjords, many also can reach that kinda levels. By just clearing broken valley and sentinel island mobs only and not touching majority of side quests, ones level can already reach 18. And by turning in the rest of side quests, reaching lvl20 is easy before facing laiken. Quest reward items scales with your level, just like locked chests.
You first need to get the creature quest from a necromancer call naberius. He located in the cave near the broken chapel in broken valley woods. Then you just need to follow what he ask you to do and you can get your creature upon completing his quest.
