Questions

I started 3 or 4 months ago. I'm on s2 heroes, to give an idea.

I joined a state and I really like it but there's only like 6 active members out of 32. I'm a f2p or suuuper low spender so I don't do big damage so I'm worried if I leave this state, I won't get accept elsewhere. So my question is:

How do you join a state that's active because all the ones I found are usually pretty dead or require an application and only still have 6 or 7 people active? I'm not the most active, myself, but I log in to do my dailies and try to complete the events I am capable of completing.

My second question is the furnace; it's level 26 but 27 takes eighteen days. Is this just gonna be the common, that it takes nearly a month from now on to level up? I'm doing my best to get all the bonuses and research to lower these times, but I feel like I'm running into a brick wall.