How should I progress at around 45 crystals?

Hello. I've gotten the magic book, grid width, and I'm about to max the apprentice and auto-scout rituals. Next run I'll try to get the lvl 3 ritual of culture but I'm not sure how to progress now.

I'm now on a dilemma of trying to increase storage or accumulate crystals to ascend faster. It kinda sucks that I have to pick because of the mana cost of the stacked storage upgrade.

Should I just keep ascend like 12-15 times to get the 50 crystal storage upgrade? Feels a bit bad that there's not anything new after getting the board cleaned with underground storage.