The old fighter record was out-of-date in terms of strats and knowledge. It wasn't making use of knowledge on how experience gain works. Higher agility makes you gain experience faster. Higher strength helps as well, but to a lesser extent.

So here's the new strat: No more magic. 45 agility and 45 strength. A starting strength of 45 will hit 60 about when I get to the brigand fortress, that's the requirement for the gate. Otherwise I change some of my routing so that I'm no longer training all day on day 2.