Sounds like you are on correct path.  Between fusions I recommend doing the following for early gamers.

1. Keep champ storage full 

2. Run brutal 12.3 (incubus, diabolist will go to mailbox)

3. Make "fat" chickens, 20s 30s 40s

4. Skinny chickens are collecting in mailbox

5. Only pull 3 greens a day for quest, these shards are your fusion lifeline for summon/chase

6. Pretty much ignore every event/tournament/CvC that uses resources beyond the energy you collect daily.

7. Use all expiring resources (tokens, keys, ...)

8. Save anything in mailbox you can (DO NOT COLLECT ANY ENERGY, 2XP from tournament or event -- it will all go to mailbox)

9. See #8 for CvC rewards,  DO NOT COLLECT ANYTHING DURING CvC)

10. CvC (Tag Arena, forge, GH, books, ascension)

1. I've been running 12.3 brutal for quite some time, but I constantly have to pull like 50 shards regularly for enough fuel to get enough 4 stars to be ready for 5 star. My energy cap is 122 right now, and I think something like 80 energy to get a 2 star to a fat 2 star (level 20), are you saying I should just only use the Incubus and Diabolist I get for fuel? Or are you saying that during off time I shouldn't be pulling shards? 

6. Yeah I only use the Daily 90 minute, the Daily Quest and Advanced quest refills. 

8. I have about 11 full energies saved up, I'll try to be better about not collecting from tournies, didn't know that. 

9. for CVC, you're saying that the Clan Rewards in the tier go directly to mailbox if I dont collect them? That's awesome. 

Id add , be careful when hoarding in mailbox since everything has a timer and its not always 99days !

This is correct, I think most rewards are 6 days til expiration.  But this does you allow to manage them for specific fusion events fairly well.

most are 99 days , cvc are 6-7days(?) and maintenance gift are 2 days , and there's also the space limit to consider ^^

Oh should I also try to complete Nightmare campaign with where I'm at? It awards a Sacred but wasn't sure if I should blow that energy.

Nah wait till later later to do 3 star nightmare campaign 

like when you can 100% it no issue and have the energy to spare! There no actual rush on that one since its energy costy and the last one , can even keep it on the side once you can 100% it easy ... Theres nothing after it ^^

100% no. Not a good use of energy. Much better off doing Dungeons or leveling up food right now. 

Strong advice here.

Trips, was it you that came up with the Skinny versus Fat chicken concept? I can't remember.

I do like the way and setting about it , can now split my chickens into fat and skinny and it has a whole meaning to it :P

Hey Trips, for the point you made about saving the things from tournaments, are you saying that in the following 2 images I don't need to collect these, and they will for sure go to my inbox? 

i

i

These will 100% go to your inbox. 

I'm at a similar level as you, maybe about a month "older". Here's what i do regarding this specific issue with NM campaign. You will find that some days, your XP bonuses just expire, and you might have a day or 2 to wait before getting another. That is when i run a few NM's. I will complete the daily quest with those runs, and advance slowly through the map

Why? because to 3* those maps, you can't bring food in there. In other words, you'll be using 2 maxed champions who will collect 0 XP between themselves. Might as well do those when you dont have the 100% bonus :P 

So this strategy will take you a dozen days of a) having no live bonus XP and b) getting the "complete 7 campaign missions" (the other to kill 3 bosses is no good for this). Having these 2 occurences on same day will most likely be about once a week, so running an average of one run per day in nightmare will not be much of an energy burden :P