So, I decided to play the game again after a few years. I used to do a lot of life skilling but this time around I want to focus on grinding mobs, so I'd like to get my gear up. Unfortunately, I missed Seasons but I'm trying to work with what I have. So this is my current gear:

I've got a Dandelion and a Bheg's I was working on before I stopped playing as well as about 2 billion silver, and about 2,000 black stones (armor and weapon collectively).

I'm open to any suggestions on how to advance from here. From the guides I've looked up I think I need to get my boss gear TET and go for the guaranteed PEN. However, maybe I should save my money and wait for whenever the next season is so I can get the Tuvala gear. Any advice?

I'm no expert by any means but from where your at you might consider Narchillan gear which falls between Duo and Tri Blackstar.  That will save you money and help you progress to better options.

I did hear someone mention Narchillan gear. I'll see what I have to do to get it.

This is not advice, it is just what I have always done in Black Desert.

First I don't play the refinement game often, the only time I do is when I cannot buy armor and weapons "off the rack" from the Central Market.  I normally buy Akum TRI assuming it is available and I can afford it.  At TRI you can feed armor and weapons Caphras stones (what else are you going to use them for?) 

Next assuming I don't want the Akum or it is unavailable, I then go for Grunil TRI (green armor)  if you can't get it at TRI, you won't have as big of a job upgrading it to TRI.  I buy 10 weapons or armor upgrades (roughly 4 million) and create an Ultimate Reform stone.  This will make any armor or weapon to gold rank.

Most of my characters average about 275 AP/DP with those builds, you can place this on a new character and get them to level 60 without much more effort.  My sorceress Venomcraft yesterday fought Kzarka wearing her Heve's Ultimate wardrobe, she is by far not my strongest; 209 AP/250 DP / Awakening AP 228 but she did well there.  I also have sets of Grunil and other costume armors for her to wear. I use Patrigio's apparel bag to quick change.  But I didn't bother since it wasn't Nightmare Kzarka.  

Remember it doesn't matter how well your armor works, as long as you can leave a good looking corpse.

Have fun!

Your ap/do is enough for Valencia region spots. You can earn decent money grinding there. You will need a lot of silver for the guaranteed pen quests. You can also do some pila fe scrolls and save the memory fragments, will need a lot of them too. Do not waste money tapping any gear yet. Wait for the next season and get the pen capotia neck, and full pen gear. Later on I'd tap TET blackstar main weapon and awak weapon if you want to play awak. Start working on Jetina's pen accessory quests. Get pen kutum from Jetina later. Save caphras for dead god gear you and your kutum. Work on accessories later.

PEN Heve c11

TET Blackstar armor

TET Blackstar gloves

TET Blackstar boots

PEN Main hand

PEN Awakening

PEN Sub

TET accessories

Lightstones

Upgrade your accessories with the 1 bill stones

Vells heart

x2 Garmoth hearts

Adventure logs

You will still get 1 comboed in PvP even after you do all of the above i've mentioned you ^

Now it's up to you to do them or not.

PEN Heve and TET Blackstar armor parts ? Oo

Thanks, for the replies everyone.

It seems like the Seasons are the best way to get my gear up. If that's the case, I'll look up some grindspots in Valencia and see if I can earn some silver there. I might upgrade a piece or 2 if I absolutely have to. I just checked apparently theres TET blackstars sitting on the market. That's neat.

We don't have info on the next season yet, but in the meantime, you can start an alt and go through the quest to get Naru gear to exchange for Narchillan.

That's going to be a very handy back-up/alt set as you move along.

https://grumpygreen.cricket/narchillan-gear/

This handy website will help you figure out what your next step will be. Put in your character stats, log books and equipment. Then you can work your way up. You can create different milestones as well. Make sure you save your progress! https://www.garmoth.com/