Walked slowly, using machines and light. Cleared the treasure zone on week 4. In MT, an inconvenient guard appeared; I had to jump over the outpost on week 3, luckily there was a war path, which I cleared quite quickly. Leveled up Vitya in parallel; by the end, he was level 22, and with the ring of machines and OSs, he cleared the max crypts easily with one-time meat. Through the second portal, I reached the mage at the castle and killed him without a doubt. Although the mage's stats were low, he had decent perks - attack, defense, summon.
Thanks for the game.
P.S. I indicated the play time incorrectly, not 522, but 225 :)