Need some guidance on building up my research career in RL

Hi. I am an undergrad (school of 2027), greatly interested in RL.

I came across RL in the second year of my undergrad, and it greatly fascinated me. I will be starting off with the RL courses (online ofc) from the next semester (currently studying Deep Learning).

As I want to become a Research Scientist in the future, I want to know how to prepare along my courses to surely get an MS (Research) or PhD abroad (in Top 100 QS, which have faculties and team matching my research interests) with scholarship. I have heard that I should have atleast one paper accepted in an A* conference in my undergrad years to get a priority in the scholarship being granted. Does getting accepted in A* confs also fetch you some awards to propel your education forward? What else do I need to build a strong background in my undergrad, what do they look for in the SOP to identify deserving candidates? How should I know about the scholarships that I should target for and by when should I do this?

And how do you guys do independent research on your own? As I have not built any strong projects before, I am likely not to get selected in internships in the research institutions. Maybe if I try to reach out I will get, but its better to have a publication out first on your own.

I am new to research and any guidance would be highly appreciated.