Hopefully I can help because I had the exact same question and didn't find any real help in the forums. Several people who asked the question, later responded that they "kinda" figured it out (you have to research in the Adventure branch), but they were very vague. It's very nice to post the answer to your own question if you do figure it out, otherwise it will be asked a thousand times.
Hopefully, someone can respond with exact detail, but I at least have enough info to get you closer.
Yes, there are two separate levels (Quest and Notable Location) that are completely different from your character level. They are raised by researching in the Adventure branch. The first tech actually has "Quest" in the title - this will raise your Quest level to 2. There's another tech that actually mentions the word "notable" in the description - this will raise your "Notable Locations" level to 2. I can't remember exactly which tech raised my quest to 3 because I was scrambling to get my Notable Location level to 3 (had a ton of junk just lying on the ground). I know my Quest went up to 3 first on my way to Notable 3, which I finally landed with the tech about some dudes journal (his name started with an "E"). There may be a quicker path to either, but that will get you to three in both. That's as far as I've gotten.
I haven't researched any of the resource techs in Adventure because they sound like they only reveal new resources. I could be wrong about them though because I haven't touched them.
