Stardew Valley: The Masteries Guide — Order of the 5 Pillars and Farming 100,000 Points

The Mastery Cave is the true endgame content of the 1.6 update, and the one most French-language guides skim over: they stop at level 10 in the five skills, which is precisely where the system begins. Behind a door in the Cindersap Forest lie five obelisks, fifteen rewards, and a counter of 100,000 mastery points.

The 2026 context makes the topic concrete: the latest published version remains 1.6.15, released on December 20, 2024, and 1.7 — social content, a new farm type, Clint and Sandy announced as marriage candidates for the game's tenth anniversary in February 2026 — still has no release date. The masteries are what's left to do.

Here are the numbers that matter: the cost of each tier, what each obelisk grants, a reasoned unlock order, and the activities that actually fill the bar — because they're not all equal, and farming is quietly penalized.

Opening the Mastery Cave

The door is located in Cindersap Forest and requires level 10 in all five skills: Farming, Mining, Foraging, Fishing, and Combat. Too early, and the game displays "Only a master of the 5 ways may enter. (X/5)". No waiting period, though: the cave opens the very day the fifth skill reaches level 10.

Inside: a letter from Grandpa in the bottom right corner, a pedestal engraved "The Final Path" that displays the progress bar, and the five obelisks lined up at the back, viewable at any time.

Warning for old save files: experience earned beyond level 10 before 1.6 is not converted. A 2018 save loaded today starts this counter from zero.

100,000 points, and a hidden penalty on farming

Mastery points are experience points earned beyond level 10, once all five skills are maxed out. They form a single pool: regardless of which skill produces them, they can be used to claim any obelisk, in whatever order you choose.

The catch fits in a single line of the 1.6.4 patch notes: farming experience only counts for 50%, while the other four count at 100%. Anyone living exclusively off their crops must therefore generate 200,000 points of farming experience. On an ancient fruit greenhouse, that's the difference between two and four in-game years.

An opposite quirk works in your favor: the bar resets as soon as a tier is crossed, even if you don't claim anything right away. So you can accumulate the full 100,000 points and then unlock all five obelisks in a row. The message "You have reached a new level of knowledge..." signals each tier becoming available.

The fifteen rewards from the five obelisks

Once all five masteries are acquired, a candle lights up on each pillar and a hat appears on the pedestal.

What order to unlock the pillars in

Nothing can be missed: the order doesn't lock away any content, it's about pacing. Here's the order that pays off the fastest at the following stages.

• 1. Mining. The only pillar that's self-sustaining: the gem doubling affects the most profitable nodes, and mining remains the skill that gives the most experience per hour. The Big Furnace also sorts out the smelting bottleneck.
• 2. Farming. The Iridium Scythe is the only item on the list that saves real time every single day: it harvests any crop without individual clicks.
• 3. Combat. Until this pillar is taken, every trinket picked up is dead weight, for lack of an equipment slot.
• 4. Foraging. Golden mystery boxes and the Treasure Totem decorate progress rather than speeding it up.
• 5. Fishing. Last, unless fishing is your main loop: in that case, move it up to first, as the two-bobber rod and the Challenge Bait directly transform your days.

Where the points actually come from

This is where most players lose weeks. Here are the values that matter, as they appear in the game's data.

Mining — diamond node and mystic stone: 150 XP; emerald node and ruby node: 80; omni geode node: 64; iridium node and Calico Egg node: 50; aquamarine node and jade node: 40; lava geode node: 32; gold node: 18; amethyst and topaz node: 16; iron node: 12; copper node: 5. An ordinary stone from the Mines gives nothing, unless it drops coal or ore (5 XP).

Combat — putrid ghost: 25 XP; iridium bat: 22; mummy, snake, royal serpent, tiger slime, iridium crab, carbon ghost and shadow sniper: 20; hot head: 16; lava bat, magma sprite, ghost, shadow brute and shadow shaman: 15; skeleton: 8.

Foraging — large stump or large log: 25 XP; giant weed from the Green Rain: 15; dug seed spot or artifact spot: 15; felled tree: 14; foraged item picked up from the ground: 7; mushroom from a mushroom log: 5.

Fishing — the formula is XP = ((quality + 1) × 3) + (difficulty / 3), with quality being 0, 1, 2, or 4 and difficulty ranging from 5 to 110. The result is multiplied by 2.2 with a treasure chest, by 2.4 on a perfect catch, and by 5 for a legendary fish, in that order. A crab pot yields 5 XP per pickup.

Three routines that fill the bar

The Skull Cavern with bombs

This is the only place that feeds two skills at 100% at the same time: mega bombs open up nodes while mummies, serpents, and carbon ghosts drop 20 XP each. Watch out for a change in 1.6 that many guides haven't accounted for: rocks destroyed by monsters no longer grant mining experience. Bombs, however, still count. Letting serpents break stones for you therefore no longer pays off. Another change from the same version: creatures killed on your own farm now only give a third of the experience, which disqualifies slime hutches as a source of points.

Crab pots, the passive income

5 XP per pickup, regardless of the catch: not much per unit, but free and daily. With the Luremaster profession (Fishing level 10), crab pots no longer consume bait. Forty pots along the river and beach yield 200 points a day, or roughly 22,000 over a 112-day in-game year: a fifth of the way there, while you sleep. The Statue of Uncertainty in the Sewers lets you change professions for 10,000g.

The Green Rain, the best day of the year

The Green Rain occurs once per summer, on a date drawn from days 5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 18, and 23. It spawns massive amounts of trees and weeds throughout the valley, except on the beach and in the Calico Desert. Each large weed is worth 15 Foraging XP and each felled tree 14: no other day comes close to this yield. Check the weather the day before.

The Bookseller: buying points, at what cost

Once the cave is open, skill magazines directly grant mastery points: 250 points per magazine and 1,250 for the Book of Stars. The Bookseller, above the Joja Mart across the river, visits twice per season on dates marked with a balloon on the calendar — in summer, on days 9, 12, 18, 26, and 27.

Their stock always includes one magazine for 5,000g, a second for 8,000g 80% of the time, a third for 10,000g 60% of the time, and the Book of Stars for 15,000g one time in four. At 5,000g for 250 points, that's 20g per point, or 2 million gold to reach the full 100,000: only the Book of Stars is cost-effective, at 12g per point.

The Bookseller therefore remains a supplement. The same magazines drop for free from mystery boxes, fishing treasure chests, artifact spots, monsters, and the Traveling Cart: never sell a duplicate.

The plan over a year

A single in-game year is enough for anyone who structures their days: crab pots run in the background, every rainy day is spent bombing the Skull Cavern, the Green Rain day is reserved for the axe, and every Bookseller visit brings home a magazine. Expect one pillar per season, with the last one — 30,000 points — often spilling over into the following year.

1.7 will add social content and a new farm type, without overturning what already exists: arriving at it with the Iridium Scythe, the Big Furnace, the trinket slot and golden cookies in your pocket means tackling a new farm without having to redo anything.