I wish I could upvote your post, awein99 -- I've never been happier completing a "game" than when I finished Clicker Heroes. A total sense of "I'm never touching this thing again!" If there had been a physical representation, I probably would have crumpled/burned it up and thrown it away like photos of a hated ex.
No, you're not missing the point, Anton ... this game is horrible.
There are a few master players out there who might be able to complete this last quest within a few days or a week or whatever, but for most of us mortals, it will take a lot longer than that.
It's been three months since I finished the quest, so I don't quite remember all the strategy, but I believe once you get to the 300-level or so, it becomes a little faster/easier. Also, I resisted "Ascending" for a while since that seemed counter-intuitive to getting to 500 as quickly as possible. Once I realized ascending several times over meant being done with this game sooner, things started ... ahem ... clicking along.
Read through the previous pages of this forum thread for other pointers. You'll get there eventually. It's just going to be agony as you do so.
>spent several months without ascending
seriously, you're doing it very, very wrong
[url]http://www.reddit.com/r/ClickerHeroes/wiki/faq#wiki_ascension[/url]
Which you should definetely do as it gives you access to more Hero Souls which allows you to summon various Ancients for more damage/gold/souls.
It can start out a bit a slow but with the right ancients you can easily start breezing through the first few hundred levels to farm more souls until you get tired of it.
Hey, so I don't know whats up with mine, but the achievement for 25+ clicks a second popped when i wasn't even clicking, and the one for beat stage 50 popped in stage 31.