I know to reach legendary members is not easy it will take a long time I also started now and have big dreams about how to really know this forum but I believe one day I will reach that goal [legendary] I don't know how long it will take over time and my knowledge here, many people will help me raise the rank as long as we really love this forum I think there are many friendly people here who can help move up the ranks because by looking at the quality value of our own posts, so don't be discouraged even at that time long time to break.
Those people who are you talking about are those merit sources which is they had merit allocation per month to distribute properly and make sure those who deserve to be ranked. It's not helping, it's about how you deserve to be ranked based on your post history they will know if you are deserving to rank up. If you're focused on bounty hunting, it will cause low chances to rank up. So I tend to agree with the comment above of mine.
That will more depend on your actions and not on the time spent here.
However, good luck with the OP it's tougher to rank up these days you need to be more active catching more merits will depend on your action on how you are useful in the forum.