You reach floor 100 by descending, not by clearing every floor. A run fails when the player treats the Skull Cavern like the regular Mines: clearing monsters, mining each ore node, and waiting for a ladder while the clock consumes the real resource. Prepare for one fast descent, skip hostile layouts immediately, and begin mining only after greater depth has improved the ore field.
The strategy reflects the released 1.6 rules as reviewed on August 15, 2026. It covers the normal Secret Note #10 visit to floor 100, not Qi’s Hungry Challenge or Skull Cavern Invasion. Those later Walnut Room orders change healing or enemy rules and should be planned as separate runs.
Confirm three gates before packing the bag
- Reach floor 120 of the regular Mines. The chest there contains the Skull Key.
- Repair the bus. Complete the Vault room at the Community Center or buy the bus development through Joja, then pay Pam for Desert travel on a normal bus day.
- Read Secret Note #10. Reaching floor 100 without the note can still produce loot, but it will not trigger the Mr. Qi health event.
The first visit to Skull Cavern also starts a separate letter quest that asks for floor 25. Do not confuse that objective with the Secret Note #10 event. Open the Journal and verify the active wording before committing to the prepared run.
Build a descent kit with separate jobs
| Inventory lane | Job | Failure it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Staircases | Delete slow or dangerous floors instantly. | Spiral, infested, prehistoric, and sparse-rock layouts consuming an hour. |
| Bombs | Expose several ladder checks at once. | Breaking rocks individually while the floor remains shallow. |
| Unbuffed healing food | Restore health without replacing a useful meal buff. | Eating the speed/luck food every time a Serpent connects. |
| Buff food and drink | Add speed and luck; food and drink buffs can coexist. | Slow movement and poor ladder frequency across the whole run. |
| Warp and exit plan | Reach the Desert early and leave without walking. | Losing morning hours to the bus schedule or gambling the return trip. |
There is no magic quantity that fits every save. A first serious attempt might carry several dozen bombs, a staircase stack large enough to skip every known bad layout, and more healing than seems necessary. The correct test is functional: can the player place explosives without ration anxiety, heal after consecutive Serpent hits, and skip ten or more floors without consuming the entire staircase reserve?
Crystalariums turn Jade into a repeatable staircase supply. The Desert Trader exchanges Jade for Staircases on Sundays. This avoids spending 99 Stone per crafted Staircase and separates quarrying stone from the descent budget. Collect the trade before the run rather than discovering the wrong weekday at the Desert.
Choose the day, then start before the bus
Read the Fortune Teller. High daily luck makes ladders and shafts appear more often and improves the chance of treasure rooms. Luck does not decide how many floors a particular shaft drops, so take every safe shaft instead of waiting for a “better” one.
A Desert Warp Totem or Desert Obelisk starts the run hours earlier than waiting for Pam. Apply food and drink buffs immediately before entry. Place the weapon, pickaxe, bombs, staircases, and healing food on neighboring hotbar slots so a panic heal does not become an inventory search.
Leave farm chores automated or deliberately undone. Petting every animal, processing machines, and watering an oversized field can cost more depth than another stack of bombs can recover.
Use one decision loop on every floor
At the ladder, read the floor before moving:
- If a free ladder or shaft is visible, use it.
- If rocks form a dense cluster near the entrance, place a bomb while moving away from the blast.
- If the layout is long, spiral-shaped, infested, prehistoric, or mostly empty, place a Staircase.
- If a ladder appears, leave immediately. Pick up only loot already on the route.
- If the blast opens a shaft, check health, then jump. A shaft cannot reduce health below 1, but arriving at 1 beside a Serpent is not safe.
Do not chase a single Iridium Node on floor 18. Iridium becomes much more common as depth increases, with a sharp improvement through the climb toward floor 100. The floor-100 objective and an ore run therefore share the same opening: descend first, harvest later.
Fight only to protect the next descent action
Serpents punish long tool animations and narrow healing margins. Face the incoming line, swing before contact, and use knockback to create enough room for a bomb or staircase. Do not run across the map after a lone enemy unless the floor is infested and combat is the only exit.
Mummies can be knocked down with a weapon but require explosive damage to finish. If several are already lying together, a bomb can clear them while testing nearby rocks. If they are spread across a poor layout, staircase out rather than turning the run into a mummy hunt.
Heal before a hit becomes lethal, not after the health bar reaches a memorable threshold. Consecutive Serpents and bomb splash can erase a thin margin. Keep healing food free of buffs so it does not replace Spicy Eel, Lucky Lunch, Pumpkin Soup, or another chosen run buff. Triple Shot Espresso or Coffee can occupy the drink-buff lane beside food.
Treat the ten-staircase line as dialogue, not a rule
After reading Secret Note #10, Mr. Qi comments on how the player reached floor 100. Ten or fewer used Staircases earns the “honorable” version; more than ten earns a different line. Both versions award Iridium Snake Milk and the same permanent 25-point maximum-health increase.
If the goal is the reward, use as many staircases as the save can support. If the goal is the alternate dialogue, reserve the ten uses for floors whose time cost is worst: infested floors, prehistoric floors, spirals, and layouts with few rocks near the entrance. The game does not remove the reward for an efficient descent.
Know when to abandon ore and protect the run
- Behind pace before floor 50: stop mining exposed ore, staircase bad floors, and use bombs more aggressively.
- Bombs nearly gone: switch the objective from ore to floor 100 and spend staircases; a half-equipped hybrid plan usually reaches neither goal.
- Healing nearly gone: leave while valuable stacks are still safe. A failed health bar can remove items as well as gold.
- Secret Note not active: decide whether treasure and practice justify continuing. Do not expect the floor-100 cutscene.
- Late arrival at floor 100: take the event or chest, then use the planned warp. Do not start a new combat after the objective is complete.
The cavern has no elevator and each visit restarts at floor 1. Failure is still useful if it produces a concrete correction: more early speed, a larger bomb stack, faster hotbar access, or a clear list of floors that deserve staircases. Repeating the same kit on a worse luck day is not a new strategy.
Bus access begins with the route decision in the Community Center and Joja guide. Later, Qi’s harder cavern orders and the Perfection monster goal fit the Perfection cleanup plan, but neither is required for the first floor-100 reward.
Version and descent references
Use the official Steam listing for current game metadata and the official 1.6 changelog for the shipped feature boundary. Official Wiki mechanics anchored the descent checks; readable walkthrough references were used as a secondary route audit.