After seeing a rank-based target for Golem Overlord at my friend 
I decided on Prestige as the metric to track and set a goal for, but in my cockiness I haven't made any calculations (which would have been the bare minimum I should have done), and just thought: "I am at Prestige 20, I want to reach Prestige 30. I have 12 months, so a little over a month for each level (more for higher levels). How hard can it be?"
Turns out it's pretty darn difficult, lol. At the current max rep conversion rate of 50.5, I need almost another 24 days to reach Prestige 21. And I have added some XP since my upgrade to level 20 from a few days back. So, let's say it's a little less than 30 days because I don't remember exactly when I upgraded. But that's the easiest of the upgrades. It will only get harder from here.
So, unless I can boost my max rep conversion rate, it's quite unlikely to reach Prestige 30 by the end of the year. That won't be a major roadblock, I could extend it to 2026 as well, but I'd like to see if I can make it in 2025 nonetheless.
In the meantime, I made my research, something I should have done before setting the goal, but hey, sometimes we are lazy or don't treat something seriously, and then, it's more work down the road.
These are the four ways Prestige level can be increased quicker, once you reach the max rep conversion point of 50 XP/h, knowing Prestige is a slow-growing stat in Golem Overlord:
1. Arcane Library Research Tree for Guilds
There are at least these 3 guild skills from the tree in Arcane Library that would boost the max conversion rate significantly:
- reputation conversion I (up to 45%)
- reputation conversion II (up to another 45%)
- reputation conversion III (up to another 100%)
Other guild skills reduce the amount of rep burn per conversion, which isn't the same thing, but you can use PART/COMP elsewhere instead of pushing more often to Reputation.
Unfortunately for my Prestige goal, my guild is focused on increasing Bunker skills, and I only have a 1% bonus from the first skill at level 1 (thus 50.5 instead of 50 max).
2. Equipment Giving % to the Max Rep Conversion
Unfortunately, I don't have such an equipment yet. From what I read, we are speaking about modules where this stat could be found. Anyway, this either depends on luck or on paying quite serious amounts of Hive on the market to buy them, since they are very high in demand.
3. Base Level of Faith Above 600
That's another restrictive method to boost your max rep conversion. I currently have a base level of faith of 192 (not total faith), and while I am only in the 900s area of the leaderboard, I don't believe many players have the base level of Faith above 600.
For every level above that, you gain 0.5% to max rep conversion.
4. Weekly Quests
I missed this one until now. It appears there is a weekly quest for Top 200 SHARD burners every week. The rewards don't seem super-exciting, but one of them is XP (at least this week, not sure if every week).
Conclusion
If you money/HIVE to throw at this challenge, probably the easiest route to boost max rep conversion to a limited degree is via an equipment (module) stat. Guild training is a slow process and it depends on the strategy of the guild. Weekly quests maybe can be a way, but I doubt the XP earned is significant, and that comes at the expense of lots of burned SHARD. Raising the base level of faith to above 600 may be a solution if you are already up there, otherwise it would take lots of PART and COMP and probably time too. Unless one buys PART to level up, but we are talking about massive amounts.
That doesn't give me high hopes for reaching Prestige 30 by the end of 2025, but let's see how it goes. The way I see it now, without significant changes, it will probably be a goal that extends into 2026. But I'd be happy to complete it in 2025.