I just started playing on Friday and since I've had a busy weekend, I haven't had the chance to play the game itself much but I have had the opportunity to click on lots of skills to learn. I've already learnt 13 skills and will learn a handful more before I get a chance to jump back in to the game. It just doesn't seem right. While in real life, someone could sit in a library, pick random books for a while and learn some skills in stuff without actually doing them. However, it doesn't make sense from a game play perspective.
I can see that you have wanted to make the early skills really easy and quick to pick up to ease players in to the skill tree and to make players feel proud about how much they have learnt. However, adding some more basic requirements to the skill tree won't add to the time, nor much to the difficulty of learning skills. For example, I don't see why I would have Animal Kinship V without having touched an animal outside of the tutorial section. Where adding a basic requirement such as "Pet 5 animals" (or whatever appropriate number) to Animal Kinship II and so on up the tree, would provide a greater sense of accomplishment while not forcing players to do something outside of normal play patterns at low levels. It will also provide an opportunity to include more "Achievements" which players lap up in droves. Such as "One with the animals" when a player "Pets 5 animals" etc.
Also, why is Smelting I a Level 2 skill, when the other requirement for it is Refining I; and the two requirements for Refining I are Element Handling and Mining I, both Level 3 skills?