Most of this just comes down to experience, repetition, and research.
At first you won’t know what to do, but after time and persistence, researching things you don’t know you’ll learn about them. This will continue over and over and before you know it when you look back you swill see the enormous distance from where you started.
I started hacking about 2 years ago now. Started with Wifi and didn’t really know much. Learned most of it with google and practice. Today though lol I’m doing pretty good and still learning much. I mean, then and now… I could have never foreseen the changes.
If you want to learn it nose down and focus. Repetition, repetition, repetition.
Focus on learning right. Building good habits and doing your best to avoid the bad.
Get comfortable sitting in the seat of not knowing and the struggle of looking at something you don’t even know where to start at… where you start doesn’t always matter in that case but the fact that you just breath deep and start digging in does.
Hackthebox probably isn’t your best resource but that depends on your learning style. If you’re very independent and are comfortable doing research then it’s a great place, but if you want a little more guidance there are other resources that will be a bit better for you.
Like someone said before, it’s a great place to test those skills or see just how far you can push yourself.