Episode 22 of Kill the Dragon, Michael Deering's December 2016 Minecraft Hardcore Challenge, opens with Basket climbing the ladder out of the zombie spawner room with level 33 on the counter. It's finally time to spend it. "We're gonna head back to town, enchant, and then possibly, if we are done enchanting and we think we're ready, possibly head to the dragon this episode, maybe." Finding the stronghold isn't a worry: "I have the coordinates."
Back in town
The walk across the plains ends at the village. Basket checks on the villagers on the way in and isn't impressed. "I gave them a bunch of bread, give a bunch of food, they don't care." Two door rooms are set up, and it "doesn't seem to matter to them."
Boots first
The plan starts with a book. Basket enchants one for Feather Falling IV and gets Efficiency III along with it, then puts the book and the boots in the anvil to see the price before spending anything else. The anvil wants 4 levels. "So I need to reserve at least four levels for that."
Then comes the sword. Basket crafts a diamond sword, but the enchanting table mostly offers Unbreaking III. "Really all I want is sharpness." The roll comes back plain Unbreaking III anyway. "It's just Unbreaking. That's amazing."
The armor goes better, in small steps. The diamond helmet gets Protection I. Projectile Protection and Fire Protection turn up on the leggings ("Fire protection. Doesn't help me."), so Basket crafts a few spare iron swords to burn through the offers. The iron chestplate and leggings both end up with Protection II.
With the rest sorted, the book goes onto the diamond boots at the anvil. They now carry Protection III, Depth Strider III and Feather Falling IV.
A Sharpness III sword
The spare iron swords pay off. Basket combines two at the anvil for 5 levels and gets an iron sword with Sharpness III. "So we have sharpness three." The diamond sword probably won't get used. Most of the other swords get dumped, with one kept as a backup.
Arrows, at night
Next on the list is arrows, and that needs wood. Basket makes an axe and the sun goes down. "Oh, it's turning night. That's exciting." Traveling at night "seems like a bad idea," so the trip waits. Basket chops logs by the wheat farm, crafts arrows, and goes digging gravel for more flint. "Flinting, the most exciting thing." Running out of arrows in the End is the worry, "because you can't come back out."
Packing for the dragon
"Okay, so flint, we have lots of flint now." Back at the chests, Basket packs a new shovel, the bow and arrows, the Looting sword, the books, the enchanting table "just in case," and blocks to pillar up with in the End. Basket wanted golden apples, but there's only one apple and not a lot of gold, so Basket crafts a single golden apple. A few empty buckets follow, for the water buckets Basket wants to bring.
Next stop, the portal
"This will be the end of this episode." The plan is to head for the portal next time, and fight the dragon the episode after that. In the last seconds Basket switches to the third-person view inside the village house, with the sword and shield in hand. The episode ends with Basket alive in the village. The end card follows, with no gameplay after it.
