Episode 19 of Kill the Dragon, Michael Deering's December 2016 Minecraft Hardcore Challenge, starts the morning after the pearl hunt. Basket walks back to town to find out how many ender pearls there really are. "We have a bunch of ender pearls at the end of the last episode, so let's head back to town, which I'm fairly sure is that way."
Fourteen pearls
First stop is the villagers. "I gave them extra food. Give them all my bread. They don't care." Then the count. The inventory shows 14 ender pearls. "So I feel like that's probably going to be enough." With the pearls sorted, the plan changes from hunting to gearing up.
Rolling the enchanting table
Basket goes down to the enchanting room with level 34 on the screen. The bow ends up with Power IV and Unbreaking III. A new pair of diamond boots comes out with Protection III and Depth Strider III. "So I do want depth strider, because I have a plan." A second pair of boots gets Fire Protection and only Feather Falling I, which isn't what Basket wants. So Basket crafts a pile of cheap iron swords and enchants them at the lowest level, just to change what the table offers next. Sweeping Edge, Looting and Knockback roll past. Then Feather Falling III shows up. Basket decides to hold out for something better. "So I won't enchant anything else and I'll try and get 30, or I'll settle with feather falling three." By the time Basket stops, the level counter is down to 4.
Plain iron for now
The new diamond gear stays in the chest for later. "I don't want to use up my new stuff just yet, but we do have a lot of iron." Iron ore goes into the furnace and Basket crafts new iron leggings. One of the reroll swords comes along too, with Bane of Arthropods II, Knockback I and Sweeping Edge III. By the time Basket heads out, it's getting dark. "It's night. So now we'll just go fast."
Back at the zombie spawner
Cobblestone rides on the hotbar so Basket can dig in and block the hole behind. "Okay, we're safe. So down to the dark zombie spawner. This is my sweeping sword." Some of the zombies get stuck below. "Oh, they can't get up." Basket digs them a new path in. "I could make a different path for them to try and get to me, so I can kill them easier from in here." It works, and the levels start coming back. "It's adding up pretty fairly fast."
The water plan
Between zombies, Basket finally explains the Depth Strider boots. "You can put water down, but then the dragon can also take it out or knock you outside of the range." The idea is to cover the ground around the pillars with water, and to have Feather Falling IV as backup. Healing is the other worry. "I have a lot of steak, but if I don't have a golden apple then I might not be able to heal up as fast." The stronghold libraries might have something useful too. Basket knows it's turning into a long build-up. "This'll be maybe like the March-December Minecraft Hardcore Challenge for me."
The episode ends in the dark spawner room after one more round of zombies, with Basket alive and the level counter back up to 16. Basket switches to a third-person view, which shows the character in iron armor. "Tune in next time to find out what enchant I get after the Feather Falling 4." The end card follows, with no gameplay after it.