A Scholar of the Correspondence (Guide)/Calculations

Publishing a Newspaper takes 18.5 actions (take a look at the respective guide), and if you can reach 217 (modified) Shadowy, with a High Outlandish Edition the payout is not just 118 x Journal of Infamy but also 4 x Extraordinary Implication, speeding up the process. Due to Newspaper mechanics, the required 104 x Outlandish Copy is only reachable if you opened a station at Jericho Locks (the second station). If you haven't, go with other types of copies, whichever one you can get most of, as the Journal gain scales with the amount of copies you gather. If you have high enough Shadowy, the lost extra Implications won't make too big a difference.

You don't strictly need 217 (modified) Shadowy for this to work. The Newspaper works in a way that the amount of Journals you get scales with the amount of copy you gathered. If you fail a few checks, you still get a good amount of Journals, and this process simply takes longer.

The approximate amount of publishes needed to acquire the needed materials can be seen here if you had none of the resources to being with (NoP stand for Number of Publishes), provided you have 217 Shadowy, and always publish the Most Outlandish Edition, taking into account the excess generation of Correspondence Plaques when up-converting and the extra Implications from the Newspaper:

Newspaper Publishes needed for required items by specific whole SotC level

Current SotC	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
NoP to 21	38	37	37	36	34	33	32	30	28	25	23	20	17	13	10	6
NoP to 20	34	33	32	31	30	29	27	25	23	21	18	16	12	9	5
NoP to 19	29	28	28	27	26	24	23	21	19	17	14	11	8	5
NoP to 18	25	25	24	23	22	21	19	17	15	13	11	8	4
NoP to 17	22	22	21	20	19	17	16	14	12	10	7	4
NoP to 16	19	19	17	17	16	14	12	11	9	6	4
NoP to 15	16	15	15	14	13	12	10	8	6	4
NoP to 14	13	13	12	11	10	9	7	5	3
NoP to 13	12	10	10	9	8	6	5	3
NoP to 12	9	9	8	7	6	4	3
NoP to 11	8	7	6	5	4	3
NoP to 10	6	6	5	3	2

(This assumes having 217 Shadowy and that the resources are piled up to the limit and turned in all at once and you started with nothing. Otherwise, the actual act of using them provides 10 x Maniac's Prayer which could potentiality be turned into Correspondence Plaques or even Aeolian Screams, and this isn't taken into account.)

The combined action cost of publishing, converting, and cashing-in to reach a desired level from a specific whole starting point can be seen below (again, provided that the Shadowy requirements are met, and Outlandish Editions are being used):

Action costs of reaching specific whole SotC levels, using the Newspaper

Current SotC	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Actions to 21	1030	1002.5	993.5	964	914	881.5	847	793	735	660.5	601.5	521	438.5	336.5	253	147
Actions to 20	921	894.5	868	837.5	807	773.5	721.5	667.5	609.5	553.5	474	413	313	229.5	124.5
Actions to 19	797.5	770	762	732.5	701	649	615.5	561.5	504.5	446.5	368	288.5	207	122.5
Actions to 18	693.5	684.5	658	628.5	597	564.5	511.5	457.5	399.5	343.5	283.5	204	103
Actions to 17	609	603	574.5	544	513.5	461.5	428	373	318	259	181.5	102
Actions to 16	529.5	520.5	473.5	462.5	432	382	327	291.5	235.5	160	99
Actions to 15	449	421.5	413.5	383	352.5	319	267	212	155	98
Actions to 14	369.5	363.5	334	304.5	273	240.5	188.5	133.5	78.5
Actions to 13	331	285	277	246.5	216	165	130.5	77.5
Actions to 12	257.5	248.5	219	191.5	160	109	74.5
Actions to 11	221	194.5	166	135.5	106	73.5
Actions to 10	167	160	131.5	83.5	52

(The .5 actions come from getting 2 x Whirring Contraptions from Wilmot's End in the Searching out a Missing Woman carousel for the newspaper. It takes 11 actions to get 2 Contraptions, so it takes 5.5 actions to get a single one (on paper). So the true action cost can be made by adding 5.5 to the numbers that end with .5)

(For comparison a full day in reality is 144 actions if you use all of them.)

While these numbers are accurate for the mentioned conditions, they don't take into account that you have to deal with Wounds occasionally. It is simply to give you an idea about the length of this process.

Converting Journal of Infamy into Extraordinary Implication also costs 5 CP Connected: Benthic, but those can be acquire en masse using Endowment of a University Fellowship. The cost of these few actions are not represented in the above table.

If you lack the Shadowy to reliably reach 104 copy, it will, obviously, take more publishes and thus, actions.

Maze-Garden

Another alternative to gain the required items is to do runs of the Maze-Garden. See The Maze-Garden (Guide) for a guide to the grind. Assuming 6.5 Awakening/action, you gain 168 Correspondence Plaque over 18 actions.

Using the tables above, that gives the following values (for correspondents in parenthesis):

Correspondence Plaque requirements for specific whole SotC levels

Current SotC	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Cycles to 21	19 (13)	18 (13)	18 (13)	18 (12)	17 (12)	17 (12)	16 (11)	15 (10)	14 (10)	13 (9)	12 (8)	11 (7)	9 (6)	7 (5)	5 (4)	3 (2)
Cycles to 20	16 (11)	16 (11)	16 (11)	15 (11)	15 (10)	14 (10)	14 (9)	13 (9)	12 (8)	11 (7)	10 (7)	8 (6)	7 (4)	5 (3)	3 (2)
Cycles to 19	14 (10)	14 (10)	13 (10)	13 (9)	13 (9)	12 (9)	11 (8)	11 (7)	10 (7)	9 (6)	7 (5)	6 (4)	4 (3)	3 (2)
Cycles to 18	12 (9)	12 (9)	11 (8)	11 (8)	11 (8)	10 (7)	9 (7)	9 (6)	8 (5)	7 (5)	5 (4)	4 (3)	2 (2)
Cycles to 17	10 (8)	10 (7)	10 (7)	9 (7)	9 (6)	8 (6)	8 (5)	7 (5)	6 (4)	5 (3)	4 (3)	2 (2)
Cycles to 16	8 (6)	8 (6)	8 (6)	8 (6)	7 (5)	7 (5)	6 (4)	5 (4)	4 (3)	3 (2)	2 (1)
Cycles to 15	7 (5)	7 (5)	6 (5)	6 (5)	6 (4)	5 (4)	5 (3)	4 (3)	3 (2)	2 (1)
Cycles to 14	6 (5)	5 (4)	5 (4)	5 (4)	4 (3)	4 (3)	3 (3)	3 (2)	2 (1)
Cycles to 13	5 (4)	4 (4)	4 (3)	4 (3)	3 (3)	3 (2)	2 (2)	1 (1)
Cycles to 12	4 (3)	3 (3)	3 (3)	3 (2)	2 (2)	2 (2)	1 (1)
Cycles to 11	3 (3)	3 (2)	2 (2)	2 (2)	2 (1)	1 (1)
Cycles to 10	2 (2)	2 (2)	2 (2)	1 (1)	1 (1)