Played Skyrim for the past two days and enjoyed it, but I got some questions. I have the Xbox Version of the game.

1. I have fully crafted myself an Elven set of armor. How do I craft the Elven GILDED Armor and the Weapons - because I can't find Quicksilver anywhere in the shops.
2. I leveled fast using a technique I found online... making tons of Iron Daggers... any other ways to level up fast?
3. I don't know much about the Lore of the game, but is this correct: Cyrodil is home to the Imperials, who created The Empire, and conquered Tamriel including Skyrim - home of the Nords. But now, Ulfric Stormcloak has risen up to free Skyrim from the Imperials Empire and seeks to return Skyrim to Nord control. Also, Imperial Empire Legions are based off of the Romans - whereas the Nords and the Stormcloaks are based off of the Norse and the Goths, correct?
4. What are legit ways to make money in Skyrim? What are tricks/cheats to make money in Skyrim?

1. You can find quicksilver veins. Be sure you're carrying a mining pick. Most of the veins I know of have been in the snow fields to the far north.

1. You should be able to Smith Gilded Armor if you have the Perk for Elven Armor. If not go kill some Thalmor. I find Elven Gilded more then Elven Light (which I think looks better).
2. There's a Speech trick with the Head Chef of Castle Dour. You can use an Intimidate on him over and over, and over.
3. Uhhh... I guess? Lol..
4. Legit way make a bunch of enchanted Iron Daggers. Cheat way, go on YT there's a few locations with "Hidden Chests" that shopkeeps use for selling Inventory. You can do a bug to keep getting 750+ gold everytime if you do it correctly.

1) There's quicksilver veins around, but yeah, the ingots/ore show up in blacksmith's inventory at level 18. Just keep checking back!
2) Speechcraft bug with the dude who works the counter at Black Briar Meadery. You can use the same Persuade check on him over and over again. Sneaking is also easy to level up, just crouch and follow a guard around at night.
3) Yeah, that's close enough. Imperials are based off the Roman Empire, which is shown between games as in Mororwind/Oblivion they had more Latin names, whereas in Skyrim, they start to have Italian names, showing the passage of time.
4) Gold comes out of the damn walls in Skyrim. Just go adventuring and grab stuff that isn't so heavy as to over encumber you, sell it off, bam, money. Or start on the Thieves Guild to get a fence and steal everything in sight then sell it off.

1. Dawnstar has a Quicksilver Mine.
2. Joining the College of Winterhold can give you a quest to purify "Focal Points" that will allow a character to repeatedly cast Muffle to level Illusion, Detect Life to level Alteration, and Soul Trap to level Conjuration. The Mana Recovery boost is temporary. Alchemy can be spammed, and Enchanting can be spammed, but both skills require lots of ingredients/items/filled Soul Gems.
3. Nords helped found the first Cyrodillic Empire, Imperials were slaves who were rebelling against thier Ayleid(Altmer) Masters under Allesia, Nord warriors helped the Allesian Revolt. Skyrim has always been an ally of the Empire, but they have also been responsible for overthrowing corrupt Emporers, and most of the actual Emporers were of Nordic descent.
4. Chop Firewood, Hunt ingredients and pelts to sell. Find out about Bounties offered by Nobles in the different holds. Kiling and looting Bandits/Necromancers/Rogue Mages.
The >UESP< has a list of many of the cheats people have found to exploit.

Alright I got it.

I am going to try to make money, and level up by doing the Iron Dagger thing. I am also trying to get me an Elven Sword.... I might not worry about the Gilded Armor. Since the game began, I have kept the items I get from Dragons I killed, as I plan on Smithing me some Dragonscale Armor as well.

I accidentally sold Adrianne in Whiterun all my Elven Armor, and she did not pay me ANY gold for it, so I had to reload a previous saved game... luckily though, everything was okay.

Hate when that bug happens. ><

But yeah, as for gettting certain ingots/ore, if you just check back periodically like when you get back from an adventure, it will probably turn up. Also Adrianne and her husband have different inventories, so make sure to check inside and outside that shop.

Well I go to Belethor's Shop, buy all his Iron Ingots and Ores, and then buy Adrianne and her husband's Iron Ingots and Ores. I then Smelt all Iron Ores I purchased, then I make lots of Daggers (usually about 40 Iron Daggers, but once I made 56) and then I sell all them to Adrianne and get a very low sum of money. But anyway, I get loads of Smithing Levels - and level up overall as well.

I am starting to wonder if I should even get better armor... I am happy with the way the Stormcloak items look.

The iron dagger technique will be noticeably less effective after Xbox 360 users receive the 1.5 update. When that happens, the value of the item created will matter more. So you will benefit by creating and upgrading expensive armors and weapons after that. And making jewelry will be more useful for power leveling smithing.

There is a bandit camp near whiterun called Halted Stream Camp. It's often one of the first bounty quests and quite easy. You can find a transmute there. With that you can make silver and gold ores out of iron ores. You can level up smithing by making rings and necklaces, too. And make more money. You can also find mammoth tusks there. The spikes and the fire pit there can hurt you and it may be useful for leveling up restoration.

If you're going to spend time smithing consider enchanting too. Trick there is you'll need filled soul gems but you can make your daggers worth an order of magnitude more valudable when enchanted.

Yep. But there's nothing to spend all that gold on....

Enchanting is my favorite way to make money. You can also make lots of money making potions, but it's more complicated. Ever since I tried alchemy, I can't stop picking every flower, every mushroom, every ingredient. I thought it was nice in the beginning, having to appreciate the little things in the (skyrim) world, but now it has grown into a full blown disorder.

I don't suggest leveling up just for the sake of leveling up. If you want to raise a skill, that's all good, but just jacking it up to increase your level and then not getting any use out of it actually makes the game harder.

Alchemy can be a very good way to make a lot of money once you get your skill up a bit. The site in my sig will let you figure out profitable recipes. Potions / Poisons can also be very useful in themselves, if you go that way. Its also a pretty easy (and profitable) skill to level up with no real risk.

Most money I spent on one sitting is on training. Master trainer going from level 80 to 90 can cost you 35k or 40k. If the trainer is a merchant, like many magic trainers are, you can get all the money back with 2 dozen enchanted daggers you made just earlier. I guess it's not a problem for you because you probably do not spend money on training, because you hate leveling up. (I remember an earlier post where you mentioned that you have mod installed to slow down your leveling.) Training feels like cheating a bit sometimes, especially the free training with followers. That very often feels like cheating to me, although I somehow can't resist its lure.

I'm considering a playthrough without getting any training. I wonder if it will be more satisfying.

Yah, I don't train. I level (with the mod) very slowly overall. I like it that way, though probably most wouldn't. But truthfully.... even if I were paying for leveling..... I'd still have about 50k gold sitting around. Or more., hard to actually figure how much. Gold flows like water in this game - and truth to say, this is the ONLY TES game in which gold has been.... like water.

I crafted me a set of Legendary Dragonscale Armor, and it looks nice too. I like it. I am only level 21, so I am going to level up and do the main quest. I also met up with the Thieves Guild, so I might do that quest-chain next.