"Yes, Mr. Rook, I'm *looking* for the ancient stones."

Game 0 shell for a multiplayer Ancient Stone-centric power-draw Minh (not listed: 2x Mr. "Rook" from the new expansion). Assumes you have another player who can keep you alive from monsters for the first 2 scenarios (but you're Minh, so sticking with you is rewarding to begin with).

Dr. Elli & Mr. Rook give a massive amount of selection/card-finding to ensure you can reliably get an Ancient Stone and often Analytical Mind out early (and hitting the King in Yellow at the beginning of the game with Mr. Rook is a bonus, as you won't have filled your hand slots yet, and you'll have a full grip to get rid of it, meaning you'll never hit it at an inconvenient time later).

Calling in Favors lets you recycle Mr. Rook once he runs out of secrets, Elli if she misses / once her relic is out of charges, or Research Librarian after getting its comes-into-play trigger.

Unearth the Ancients is a split 2-symbol/economy card, to help you afford several of (Feed the Mind + Ancient Stone + Pnakotic Manuscripts + Analytical Mind + 3-cost ally...) fueled by your excess of 2+ symbol cards, and will often just be played for symbols.

Perception/Eureka/Take Heart all give you (or an ally) a lot of card velocity, and you can still fill the basic clue-finder role between Magnifying glass, your innate, and all the lore symbols on your skills/Unearth/Truth-from-Fiction, before you also turn into a monster-slaying superhero around scenario 3.

Build path (Note: my playgroup voluntarily bans Higher Education. If yours doesn't, you likely want it at some point, though this shell doesn't generate much $ for it, as it prioritizes finding its key cards over running Dr. Milan. A Higher Ed/Milan build would have to incorporate Charisma and would have a big xp bottleneck at the beginning of the campaign).

1st 7xp: Ancient Stone x2, Pnakotic Manuscripts x1. (Drop Truth from Fiction and something to taste). The Manuscripts are a great hit for Elli, and the intended tutor target for your Research Librarian. Use their action to guarantee your max-available-difficulty 'identify the stone' action. Make sure you strong-armed one of your co-players into playing someone who can run Double or Nothing, and saving it for your difficulty-14-or-so investigate.

Next 6xp: Ancient Stone ---> Knowledge of the Elders x2 (Note: if you didn't get as high a number as you hoped last scenario, you can leave one un-upgraded, for another shot at glory. ). Here's the payoff----you now deal testless damage with Mr. Rook (more damage when you draw weaknesses as well ;) ), Perception/Eureka/Take Heart/Preposterous Sketches, and in your upkeep.

Next 6xp: Feed the Mind x2. Massive damage when needed (and reliability for drawing your deck) online. You have lots of cards you can quickly and usefully pitch to keep your pre-draw hand-size under control. When you draw too much, it may take more Ancient Stone secrets than needed, but that's why we went overboard with our 'identify the stone' value in the first place, right? When pinpoint precision is needed, Pnakotic Manuscripts can guarantee you draw exactly 6 or what-have-you.

Further (not in an exact order): Archaic Glyphs upgrades (if you expect a low xp campaign without Delve too Deep/etc., just skip the glyphs in the first place, though un-upgraded they do work as symbols you can recycle with Scavenging; taking 2-randomly-chosen for the price of one seems fine as well), Preposterous Sketches (2), Cryptic Research, the 2nd Pnakotic Manuscripts, Barricade(3), Charisma, + In the Know, etc etc.