The best way will be to invest in mining or something like that. Or you can just buy some bitcoin and day trade them or you can just sit on them waiting for a price increase
Fauceting is the easiest but the slowest way to earn btc as it just pays a little for a lot of time as you said.
Online mining is not safe anymore but if you are talking about offline mining then i don't know but i've heard that mining bitcoins is not profitable anymore as it needs a lot of electricity.
And the last suggestion of yours is the best, buy some btc and sit on them until the price goes up and then sell them and count the profit.