Hi and welcome to ROSE!
Soldiers need strength so that should be your focus at first. Then it kind of depends on which weapon you are using and your playing style. The Hero quest is really long. Here is a link to a nice guide on that quest. Francis is on the upper level of Zant. If you put your cursor over the dots in the mini map, you can see the names of the npc's
We have a community Discord chat that you might want to check out. It's a good place to ask questions and stuff. Click on the link in this thread.
If you come to the chat, you can send me a friend request HB#4216 and I'll do what I can to help. Looking forward to meeting you!