Question about leveling pet skills

So I finally managed to get lvl 5 magic lance and was wondering what specifically contributes to levelling it up. It's now almost lvl 8 and while I've seen guides mention that it's time related, I'm wondering if the skill has to be used on mobs or allowing my pet to hit mobs is good enough to level up the skill.

Anyway, I realize it's probably going to require a big time investment, but I'd really like to know the most efficient way to go about this so I can get to fusion.

 

there are 2 known ways to train pet skills but it is nature specific.

Active- if your pet attacks, this is the only way for you. Pet have to hit the target before it dies to gain exp. If your pet use the skill it have the faster it levels up. Aoe skills of pets is great since it hits a lot of targets.

Passive- as i said before it is nature specific. Only one that can do this is gentle pets, timid pets altho similar is known to use attack skills. Gentle pets can only use support skills and does not attack whatsoever. Thus it is made to leach of both kinds of exp(pet exp and pet skill exp). It is best to level up this pet with a storm mage for faster grind. Personally this is what i use for "skill donor pets" to be fused to a main pet that is lacking the desired skill.

 

Thank you Xiavu! So assuming pet isn't gentle, I can go kill low HP (non 1 hit KO) mobs with a very low atk now for very fast skill leveling?

 

Yah, that is the way for any active pets. The more kills your pet have, the more skill exp it get. I used to train my pets at pova(nectar farm too while im at it.)