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The mapping expeditions may be over, but I couldn't present the map grid just yet. The southwestern map from Episode 9 still contained a few blank pixels, so to fill them in, it was time for a thousand block trip to the snowy plains of the far west!

Now here's the officially completed map grid:

Having returned home, I gathered the armadillo scutes we had acquired from our explorations and crafted my first set of dog armor. I tested the look on one of the so-called pale wolves, but the color was rather bland, so I took it off (making the advancement Shear Brilliance) and dyed it blue. Now that looks neat!

I had over two dozen stacks of raw iron to smelt, and while I did have plenty of coal, I decided to set up an infinite lava source. I used deepslate tiles for the design of the "farm," and as someone who rarely uses deepslate or its variants as building blocks, I have to say that the tiles look excellent.

I then installed two hoppers above the blast furnaces to ensure that no fuel would be wasted, since you could only place in 64 items at a time and lava buckets provided enough fuel to smelt 100.

With that done, I inspected the state of the village. A recently grown villager had acquired a fletcher profession and now offered to purchase sticks, which, paired with the giant spruce tree farm, would make emeralds even quicker and easier to obtain.

On the negative side, an iron golem had spawned inside the common house. I would have to be particularly careful when I trade with villagers now ... one misclick would lead to almost certain death. I would need to somehow remove it soon and then summon my own, but that's for a later update.

The growing population of the village meant more cats to tame:

The villagers also demanded more housing, so I chopped down some giant spruce trees, cobbled some deepslate to cut them into tiles, and built this monstrosity:

I would go as far as to say that this was the worst-looking house I've ever built in the game. That's it, we're back to stone bricks. I'm definitely not a good builder with deepslate.

I placed several beds plus a lectern in the house and spent a whole day attempting to transport an unemployed villager to the library, which still contained several spare lecterns. For some reason, they were always attracted to the barrels and the brewing stand rather than the correct job site block! Even after removing the barrels and the brewing stand, the villager refused to budge. So, here's the only solution I could think of:

It might be a bug, but the minecart repeatedly turned black when it collided with a grass block on the slope leading up to the village. Eventually, the villager decided to stop giving me a headache and finally accepted the librarian profession.

Time to secure the Infinity book trade! The enchantment may be rare, but the price was set very low.

Another villager also grew up around this time, but they were far less of a trouble to deal with, offering me the desired Unbreaking III book trade after less than ten rerolls.

The Mending librarian had recently levelled up and now offered an Aqua Affinity book as a second enchanted book trade, so I purchased it. This would reduce the number of librarians we need, and I was very thankful for that.

I then checked what enchantments the enchanting table had to offer.

Sweeping Edge III! Another librarian we wouldn't be needing.

After that, I made several "dummy enchants" (unpurposeful level 1 enchantments that still reroll the enchanting table) and was rewarded with:

One step closer to fully enchanting my armor. Full Protection IV was probably unnecessary for fighting the ender dragon, but this was Hardcore mode and I would like to be as close to "invincible" as possible.

And speaking of invincibility:

In total, I would brew 12 slow falling potions (I later obtained a fourth phantom membrane as a cat gift), each having a duration of four minutes. That makes 48 minutes of slow falling, which should be enough for the battle. I mean, I really hope it is.

After that, I got back to enchanting, combining the Protection III, Aqua Affinity, Unbreaking III and Mending books together into one powerful book before applying that powerful book to my helmet. Ah yes, the satisfaction!

Out of curiosity, I then decided to see what enchantments awaited my second bow, not that I was planning to enchant it anyway since I had already secured the corresponding villager trades.

Infinity?!

Too late for that though, I suppose.

My next goal was to secure a Power IV or V trade. Another villager had recently grown up, but their behaviour ... suggested otherwise. I spent nearly a whole day rerolling the trades before they eventually offered a Power IV book for 22 emeralds, which had been increased to a costly 36 as I had accidentally left-clicked them multiple times while checking the trades. I hate it so much when that happens!

I decided to wait for them to calm down (so the price would be lower) and spend some time enchanting books with the enchanting table, which would require a considerable amount of XP.

And to obtain XP quickly, we needed to breed chickens.

And to breed chickens, we needed seeds, which I'm running unusually low on. Who knew I would harvest wheat for the seeds, not the wheat itself? For a quicker harvest, I dumped some water in the farm, which would uproot nearly all the crops.

There were some excellent ... but unneeded ... book enchantments.

In the meantime, I applied Efficiency III and Mending to my Silk Touch pickaxe. I always keep on forgetting that these were chances to rename my tools, although I wasn't sure what I would call them.

My next librarian offered Flame, which was a desirable enchantment. This would be useful during the ender dragon fight as the trajectory of the arrows I shoot will be made clearer and therefore show how I should aim at the end crystals.

Well, that made a maxed-out bow!

With all the enchanting table business we'd been at recently, we were out of arguably one of the most abundant ores: lapis lazuli! So I headed down into the mines, created a new tunnel at y:-2 and was able to locate a small cave with exposed lapis lazuli within minutes.

There had actually been a skeleton the first time, and it had began shooting at me, so I attempted to strip mine for lapis lazuli. After around twenty minutes without success, however, I gave up and headed back to the cave, where I safely mined two veins.

The two veins yielded nearly two stacks with my Fortune pickaxe. Looks like we won't be heading back down here in a long, long time.

The first thing I did upon heading back to the surface was to breed my chickens for XP. I was completely out of wheat seeds, and the wheat itself was not even ready for harvest, so I had to resort to beetroot seeds.

I managed to tame two more cats, one gray-and-white and the other orange.

Funnily enough, our fish supplies were actually dwindling, but we were making considerable progress towards the Complete Catalogue advancement.

I already had a Sharpness III book but was rewarded with another one from the enchanting table. I combined them for a Sharpness IV book, which I would later apply to my sword for Sharpness V. Another step closer to fully enchanted gear!

But the luck didn't end here, because we've got another Protection III book.

I combined it with a Mending book and applied it to my chestplate:

Next, I applied another Mending book to my leggings:

I then applied Sweeping Edge III and Unbreaking III to my sword:

At this point, I felt I should be ready to make the long journey to the stronghold and take on the ender dragon. Full Protection IV armor, a Sharpness V sword and an Infinity bow should be enough. So, I pillared up to the roof of my house and threw and eye of ender...

Wait ... nope. I wasn't ready yet. There were still a few builds left on my to-do list. And this was Hardcore mode, so to be extra-safe, I needed to make sure I was dealing as much damage as possible. There were two more enchantments I had in mind, but first, I traded feathers with the fletcher, which was somehow providing them with a vast amount of villager XP. Just look at that XP bar go!

It might even be more desirable than the stick trade, given how often I use my chicken farm.

And as for the enchantments...

I had actually been hoping for Fire Aspect II, but after over a day of rerolling without success, I couldn't take it anymore, and the price was set reasonably low as well. So that'll have to do. I could combine them with an anvil anyway.

Here's the fourth cat I tamed in this update:

I forgot to mention this before, but their somehow laggy movements made taming them incredibly easy.

And as for the sword:

That should be finished. The main reason I wanted to apply Fire Aspect II to my sword was because if any angry endermen were after me, I could set them on fire, making them behave in a neutral state for a few seconds.

I had been running back and forth from my house to the village, from the village to my house, and decided to take a break and start working on some dog house builds. But seeing this postponed the project:

I was genuinely jumpscared.

First of all, why did they spawn? I always thought my whole base counted as a village, but I now suppose it didn't as there weren't any accessible beds near my own house. This meant that I should start developing the village towards the western side of my base, but that'll be after the ender dragon fight and the end city raid (if I manage to kill the ender dragon without dying).

Secondly, I needed to remove them without killing them. Because if my base did somehow count as a village, then a raid would instantly commence. And believe it or not, it was only a few days before the release of 1.21! For those that didn't know yet, raids can no longer "accidentally" be triggered in this new snapshot. Instead, you needed to drink an ominous bottle that illager captains drop. At least that's my understanding of things.

But we're still in 1.20, so I had no choice but to leave my own base and wait for them to despawn. I strolled over to the southern village before coming back and finishing my first dog house build, this one for the three pale wolves:

I still had a few more left to build, but a villager had recently grown and I decided this was an opportunity to acquire the final enchantment I had in mind: Thorns III. It may not be effective, but again, I would like to deal as much damage as I possibly could.

One of the villagers offered it after a day of rerolling, but the price was rather high (and yes, I did accidentally hit them):

After the villager calmed down, I continued rerolling. They eventually offered it at a very satisfactory price.

I would need four of them.

As I headed back to my house, I was greeted by a wandering trader party with some mediocre trades:

I did consider buying some red sand but then decided that I would only need it in large amounts and might just as well locate a badlands biome.

And here's yet another cat we tamed!

This one was rather greedy, requiring 8 cod and 2 salmon to tame (I had to switch to salmon as I had ran out of cod). Nevertheless, I now had six cats in total, and they were all of different species.

Back to enchanting, I applied the Thorns books on my armor:

That completed the enchantments. Yay!

Not only that, but Day 400 was finally here, marked by the appearance of a ... pillager patrol.

Why was one of them taking damage? Suffocating in a wall? Good for them. They deserve it. Again, I left my base for the southern village and returned to find that they had despawned as intended.

I was met by a second wandering trader party as a reward.

I somehow forgot to take the screenshots, but the trades were excellent. I purchased two blue orchids, five nautilus shells and a bucket of pufferfish. This trader made some real business, and they knew it.

Eventually, I finished all of the dog houses.

The spruce one housed the pale wolves, as mentioned before. The oak house was for the woods wolves, the bamboo house was for the lone rusty wolf, and the acacia house was for the spotted wolves.

With the wolves gone, our house is such a quiet place, right?

I had gathered all the cats in one corner and the parrots in another. I'm actually surprised at the number of animals we've tamed on this world so far, and this might just as well be the last time we see them. Because in the next update, I'll make the journey to the stronghold...

Here's what I took with me on the journey to the stronghold, covering pretty much everything one should bring in Hardcore: enchanted diamond gear, a maxed out bow and basic supplies like food, torches and wood for crafting. I also brought nearly a stack of glass bottles for collecting dragon's breath, which might come in handy in the future. The fire resistance potion and milk bucket were unnecessary, but I kept them anyways.

Apart from ten extra slow falling potions, my ender chest also contained a generous supply of scaffolding, extra food, and ender pearls plus paper and gunpowder for fireworks in case I decide to raid an end city and acquire elytra after (hopefully) defeating the dragon. I also brought an anvil and a book enchanted with Unbreaking III and Mending which would allow us locate more end cities upon obtaining said elytra.

With the supplies sorted, I said goodbye to my villagers, golems, and pets, who all wished me the best of luck. And then ... it was time to leave.

I headed northwest, following the path of the eye of ender that we had thrown midway through the last update. I did consider rethrowing it for a good establishing screenshot but didn't want to risk it breaking. Not like it would matter much, but I wanted to minimize losses.

I crossed the jagged mountains...

...and descended into the birch forest below, where I threw a second eye of ender (the first one on this journey).

The eye had changed direction. At Sunflower Valley, it had flown northwest, but here, it flew almost due west. The stronghold was nearby, which wasn't surprising considering that Sunflower Valley was already over a thousand blocks away from the spawn point.

I continued through the birch forest and came to an area of stony shores. For reference, this was on the boundary between the southwestern map and the northwestern map. As for the eye of ender ... it went backwards!

Here unfolded my three days of frustration. I don't have much experience with eyes of ender as this was only my second time attempting to fight the ender dragon. I didn't know that they actually phased into the ground if the stronghold was directly below. I just estimated (incorrectly) the spot where the stronghold could be, and mined down.

I spiralled down, attempting to avoid the caves, and mined straight tunnels, hoping to uncover the much desired mossy stone bricks of the stronghold, but found absolutely nothing apart from a few iron ores which I couldn't even mine because of inventory limitations. So I pillared back up to the surface. This would serve as a marker for our stronghold locating failure.

I then found a new spot where I would mine down. It failed again. I even had to set up a supply depot in the tunnel to store the extra stacks of stone I had unintentionally acquired.

It was only after a bit of research that I discovered how to properly use eyes of ender. So I made a third attempt, where the eye of ender actually phased into the ground as opposed to falling midair. Surprisingly, I hadn't broken one yet, although I did lose one when it somehow disappeared in the forest (it must have phased into the ground, but I didn't know that could happen at that time).

Diamonds?!

If there had to be one time that I did not wish to find any (remember my inventory issues), it was now. But I hadn't found any in a long time, so I still gratefully mined the juicy vein of eight diamonds with my Fortune pickaxe. I obtained 20.

I guess this signified good luck? I ought to find the stronghold soon...

And, after mining all the way down to around y:-15, I did!

To be honest, the process of finding the end portal room might even be nearly as tedious as fighting the dragon itself. If you didn't already know it, I really despise caving. Raiding structures and fighting bosses, I accept it. But caving, no.

Apparently, I had mined down into one of the "jail cells" of the stronghold.

For a moment, I couldn't find the rest of the stronghold and panicked, thinking it had somehow generated without anything else. However, I then remembered to mine through the walls (with my Silk Touch pickaxe obviously, despite its low durability, to prevent silverfish from escaping).

And it worked. I'm relieved.

I cautiously made my way into the room and ensured it was free of mobs. It was a large staircase room containing a chest with some very basic loot.

I considered taking the gold, but I had inventory issues. Perhaps I'll grab it once I return from the end with a whole load of shulker boxes ... who knows. I still needed to locate the portal room and kill the dragon first.

Heading upstairs, I looked through a wooden door and found one of the two stronghold libraries!

Despite the pitch darkness, I found nearly no mobs here, although the walls were cut through by a narrow cave tunnel which I quickly blocked up. I had safely made it inside!

Since strongholds were one of the few places where you could find cobwebs, I decided to take out my shears and collect some in case I needed them for some sort of haunted house build in the future.

I checked the chest on this floor. It contained an eye armor trim (my first armor trim on this world, funnily enough, despite the number of shipwrecks I had raided) and some paper and books. I took the armor trim only.

It was here that I encountered a hostile mob. The floor was cut through by another cave, almost identical to my survival world, and a zombie had found me. I had the higher ground and killed it without trouble. Unfortunately, I don't have a screenshot of that.

I the climbed the ladder leading to the next floor...

...where there was another chest containing nearly exactly the same loot.

It was a shame we didn't find any enchanted books, but I had inventory issues anyway ... so I guess it didn't matter too much?

I also heard some bubbling lava around here, so I mined around, hoping to miraculously unveil the end portal room. Unfortunately, it was just a small lava flow from a nearby cave.

With the library now fully explored, I headed along a nearby intersecting passage, placing torches as I went and always on the lookout for hostile mobs. When I did encounter a monster, I would mine out a block on the bottom and secretly snipe it from my safe location.

The passage eventually led to a large room containing what seemed like a well and ... a small storage space?

I climbed another ladder to the storage space, which contained a chest.

I opened it and ...

Oh.

On the plus side, I did restock a bit on my coal supplies.

The well room also included a spiral staircase which led down to a dead end.

To be honest, I like seeing dead ends in these maze-like structures, because it means I have fully explored an area and can finally move on, knowing I've found everything there is to be found.

With that, I made my way back to the large staircase room which I had mined through upon first entering the stronghold. Apparently, to locate the end portal, you should always head down the alleyway when you encounter these rooms. I had headed up, so I didn't find it. There was another passage to the left, but I decided to follow the guide and head down, which led me to another staircase room. I continued down the alleyway.

Here, I found another prison cell which housed a skeleton in full chainmail armor.

I shot it with my bow and ... wow.

It dropped two of its chainmail pieces, and that wasn't even with Looting! Since chainmail armor was so rare, I decided to leave them in a supply chest which I had recently placed down in the cell where I first mined down through.

After hearing some hissing silverfish and making my way through several more rooms, I finally found it.

The end portal. The portal that would lead to the end dimension, and perhaps the end of my world as well.

One of the lava pools of the room had generated peculiarly and allowed the lava to flow out, so I fixed that.

Before entering the room, I dispatched some silverfish from the spawner, releasing one from a nearby infested stone block as well. But they were troubleless to deal with. My full Thorns III armor had also came into play here.

I rushed in the room, broke the spawner and filled in the lava pools. One of the portal slots were already filled in, so I crafted eleven more eyes of ender. As I placed the last one ... I messed up. I misclicked and the eye flew away and phased through the wall. Oops. Luckily, I still had plenty of blaze powder and ender pearls left, so I crafted a new one and filled in the last slot.

And with a whoosh, the portal activated.

I drank a slow falling potion.

And jumped in.

Only to realize that I had forgotten to place down my bed and set my respawn point for my return to the Overworld. But it was too late for that. Time to face the dragon for real this time.

The obsidian platform I had spawned on was exposed but partially situated above the main End island, which thankfully meant no bridging was needed. I headed towards an obsidian tower in front of me, constructed a pillar of scaffolding, and dumped a water bucket at the bottom for extra insurance. Just as I started climbing, the dragon knocked me off and then into the air, at least a hundred blocks above the island. Although I had the slow falling effect, I couldn't waste any time falling, so I pearled down.

Trying again, as I climbed, I was knocked off, although not into the air. Not only had I been hit three times in one second by the dragon, I had not fully recovered from the first attack. Eventually, however, the dragon started descending towards the end portal at the center of the island, signifying the beginning of its perching stage. This was my chance! I climbed up the tower, carefully shot the end crystal and, using my height to my advantage, sniping two more. Upon descending, I placed torches on the obsidian towers that I had successfully disabled.

This was essentially the routine for the rest of the crystal breaking stage of the fight. I waited until the dragon began perching before climbing up the tower of scaffolding and shooting the end crystal at the top plus a few more that were near enough. I would then jump off the tower, using slow falling to my advantage, and place a torch on it and the other disabled towers. Occasionally, I was thrown into the air by the dragon but I still had an adequate number of slow falling potions and ender pearls. I was also sometimes showered by the dragon's breath, which I gladly collected in my glass bottles. During all this, I only angered one enderman.

After around six or seven minutes into the fight, I discovered that the ender dragon was no longer healing and realized that all the crystals had been broken (without me even knowing it!), and so began the second stage. As if on cue, the dragon started perching! So I gladly headed over, skirting around the dragon's breath, and decided to melee the beast's head with my sword.

It didn't work.

I pillared up until I was almost touching the dragon. I continued slashing, but the dragon wasn't taking any damage. What was going on?! This technique worked so well on my survival world, so why not this one?

I was then thrown into the sky yet again, this time to a frightening height of at least a hundred blocks. And I didn't have slow falling.

I quickly threw an ender pearl, but my aim was poor and it somehow went diagonally instead of straight down. It could all end here! I threw a second ender pearl, which luckily went straight for the ground this time. Only about half a second before I would've landed and probably died, I was safely teleported to the ground. I hurriedly took out some more slow falling potions from my ender chest and drank one. That was close.

I could do nothing but snipe the dragon with my bow. Although my accuracy was dreadful, I was making progress, slowly but surely. I did continue to attempt to melee the dragon when it perched, but it just didn't work. Although I did get thrown high up into the air again. It wasn't worth it, I decided at last. All this time, I had also been dodging the dragon's fireballs and carefully collecting the resulting breath.

Eventually, the dragon had only about a quarter of its health left, and this is where the video comes in.

I decided to make one last attempt at meleeing the dragon, and not the head this time. I even pillared up until I was practically touching the dragon, and despite this, the effort was to no avail. My game was also rather laggy at this point: at 0:12, as I pillared down, I couldn't pick up the stone bricks for some reason. Failing to pick up dropped items has been a problem ever since I've revived the world a few months ago, but it hadn't been that bad yet.

As I waited for the dragon to stop perching, I decided to eat, but instead accidentally dumped my water bucket.

The rest of the fight was just me trying to snipe the dragon and failing most of the time or dodging the fireballs and obtain even more bottles of dragon breath, nothing too interesting, although I did learn that you couldn't collect the breath while the dragon was perching (2:09).

As the dragon was leaving its perching stage on this particular instance, I was attacked yet again. My full Thorns III armor was really doing its job here.

A couple of snipes later, the dragon essentially only had one or two health points left (3:12), and it was annoyingly perching again. So close, yet so far. I decided to heal up while it was perching so I could safely shoot it once it left its perch. But that happened much earlier than I thought, and I was attacked yet again ... and that was how I won the fight. Not with a sword or a bow, but with my own armor. The dragon had tried to attack me but died doing so.

As I looked around for the victory firework display (3:23), I accidentally looked at an enderman, which ruined the show as I got distracted fighting it. It then somehow disappeared: it had went into the end portal, as I would find out later ... (ominous foreshadowing)

After that incident, I gladly collected all the XP, repairing my nearly broken Silk Touch pickaxe and getting myself to level 65, before collecting the dragon egg (4:46), finishing off the video.

While this is not shown, I later pillared up to the end gateway, which thankfully was not situated above the void, and pearled through, making the advancement and hoping to find an end city nearby. Unfortunately, even after raising my render distance to the maximum, I could not find any on my island or the surrounding ones. A task saved for next time. I needed to restock on slow falling potions.

I then jumped into the portal to the Overworld ... and it was disastrous.

It was the middle of the night, and I was back at world spawn, where our journey began nearly half a year ago. The enderman I had looked at during the dragon death scene was just there, still on fire, teleporting around and attacking me. I took care of that first.

A horde of zombies, one of them wearing gold armor, had spawned nearby and were now pursuing me, so I pillared up an acacia tree to snipe them. A skeleton was also sniping me during this time. After taking care of some of the monsters, I tried to sleep on the tree, but phantoms started attacking me as well, reminding me of my prolonged absence in the Overworld. Eventually, I remembered about the extra slow falling potions I would need and gratefully killed the phantoms (obtaining one membrane) before enjoying a good night's rest.

Come morning, I dispatched the rest of the mobs before making the journey back to Sunflower Valley.

The first thing I did upon arriving was to attempt to brew three more slow falling potions, but my brewing stand had ran out of fuel and I realized that I had left all my blaze rods and some other essentials back at the stronghold to conserve inventory space. So, believe it or not, I made another thousand block journey to the stronghold, where I retrieved my items as well as some extra loot I had not taken. Now this is where the update can properly begin!

-

My first task was to fully enchant all of my gear, and the only enchantments I lacked now were Efficiency V on all my tools and Silk Touch specifically on my axe and shovel, if you didn't count my unenchanted hoe. I already had an Efficiency IV book, so I applied that to my Silk Touch pickaxe. The XP we'd acquired from killing the dragon really came in handy here!

However, I needed Efficiency V on all my tools, and it would take too long to try to enchant and disenchant a bunch of books, so I offered one of my fishermen a new job. After a day of lectern fiddling, we agreed on the trade plan.

To be fair, 23 (or 22 if I hadn't accidentally hit the villager) emeralds for such a valuable enchantment was an excellent deal.

I applied the newly acquired book to my Fortune III pickaxe.

Just three more tools left!

It was at this point that I decided to make a brand new diamond axe and shovel, the reason being I preferred Silk Touch instead of Fortune III on those tools (the former for breaking bookshelves, melons, and campfires, and the latter for grass blocks). Luckily, while making my way down to the stronghold last episode, I had somehow found a vein of eight diamonds (which turned into 20 upon using my Fortune pickaxe).

After securing a Silk Touch trade ...

... I combined the book with Efficiency IV and Mending and applied that book to my new shovel.

And then my anvil broke.

Thanks to the mountain mapping trips, I had a lot of iron to spare!

After a lucky round with the enchanting table and some villager trading, I was able to max out my new Silk Touch axe.

The final tool to enchant was the hoe. I was again greeted with good luck from the enchanting table: the first round straight out offered Fortune II and Unbreaking III. I decided to test my luck and see if I could enchant another book with Fortune II to make a Fortune III hoe, and ... I did it! I still couldn't believe all this.

I then bought an Efficiency V and Mending book and maxed out my hoe.

My main set of tools were now fully enchanted! The days of XP grinding on this world are pretty much over.

My next goal for this update was to build a large "treasure room" / storage house. The double chests in my house were overflowing and rather disorganized, and I would also be able to create a display area for the dragon egg.

For this build, however, I would need to first acquire amethyst, so it's time to set out on a mini-expedition!

I headed east towards the nearest ocean. The plan was that I would drink a night vision potion and scout the deep ocean floor for a geode, as those could generate up to y:30 and would therefore often be exposed below the surface. While looking for the geode, I came across some landmarks on my return journey from the nether fortress, namely the jungle island and ocean monument.

I even collected some more tropical fish for my pond.

At last, I found what I was looking for. There happened to be a shipwreck nearby but I didn't raid it.

After checking that there were no drowned zombies nearby, I dived in.

A beautiful place, isn't it?

There weren't even any monsters inside!

I collected around a stack of amethyst blocks plus some of the crystal "buds." Unfortunately, I didn't find any large-sized crystals as they had not finished growing from the budding amethyst blocks. It was a shame you couldn't obtain budding amethyst blocks with a Silk Touch pickaxe; if you could, I would build a "crystal growing room" at my base. Before leaving, I recorded the coordinates of this geode on my book and quill for future reference.

I began rowing home to a brilliant sunset.

Upon arriving at Sunflower Valley, I released the two fish into the pond ...

... and started terraforming the land for the build. It would be located next to the brewing stand near my house, so my potentially frequent "organization trips" wouldn't be much of a hassle.

I was quickly sidetracked, however, when I heard enderman and baby zombie noises close by. Having these sounds around my base really annoys me, so I dug down, expecting to find some small cave near surface level. And I did.

I lit up the cave (it was large enough that filling it in would be impractical) and slashed at the enderman, which for some reason teleported to my village and was quickly slain by an iron golem. Served it right for stealing a grass block.

After finishing the terraforming, I started building the semicircular stripped spruce frame of the house, which would be two stories high. This is the frame of the first floor:

It was then that I encountered an unexpected 1.21 change: I could no longer strip logs while having a shield in my offhand. This would make me more vulnerable to creeper explosions while building, so I was constantly on the lookout for this destructive monster.

And speaking of monsters, it frustrates me even more how endermen teleport all over my base and steal blocks.

The one in my animal barn simply wouldn't despawn even when I wandered far from my base. Which reminded me of something I've been postponing: summoning more iron golems. But first, I needed to unlock a name tag trade. The reason I wanted to name iron golems was so I would always know which ones were friendly and which ones were dangerous (i.e. the ones the villagers summon).

So to level up my Mending librarian, I wasted some emeralds on lanterns ...

Wait, how does a single ink sac provide that much XP to the villager?

To save time, I quickly went over to the local river, killed some more squids and obtained 21 ink sacs. We're making lots of emeralds today as well!

I soon unlocked the trade I was looking for:

Only for 14 emeralds as well! I had also unlocked numerous other trades in the process, namely a Curse of Vanishing book (pointless) and a Silk Touch book, both for only emerald. If only I had levelled them up before assigning the Silk Touch trade to the other villager, but oh well. I was also offered emeralds for selling book and quills, but since those already require ink sacs in their crafting recipes, I would rarely make this trade.

Come on Dr. Broderick, do your job!

Well done!

A wandering trader party then showed up at the village and offered some decent trades.

I purchased two pairs of lily pads (more decoration for my pond!) and two nautilus shells. I have a feeling I've bought at least something from over half of the wandering traders I have encountered on this world. It would be nice if one of them offered slimeballs soon.

As I was building the frame of the second floor of the house, another enderman showed up on the roof of my house, having stolen another grass block. Why can't they just leave my base alone?!

Hmmm ... which punishment should I choose for them? Iron golem or stuck-in-a-boat? I opted for the latter.

The next morning, it was time for a second mini expedition: I was planning on using calcite as part of my build but didn't have very much on it, so it's time for a trip to our local stony mountain massif. Funnily enough, due to the chunks being unloaded, the wandering trader from Episode 16 was still there, stuck with the llamas on a small ledge.

I searched all over the stony peaks but for some reason was struggling to find any strips of calcite. I'd seen so many of them on the other stony mountain ranges during the mapping expeditions, but not this one.

Just as I started to lose hope, I found one right at the boundary between the stony peaks and frozen peaks. Phew.

Ah yes, the satisfaction of instant mining!

As I mined, I came across some substantial cave openings, including one containing a skeleton with an enchanted bow as well as a creeper. Luckily, they were too far away to be threatening.

I spent several more days finishing up the treasure house, experimenting with all sorts of stair and slab designs until I found one I was happy with. The windows took a lot of work in the end.

Without further ado, here's the front of the house, which I'm most satisfied with. I added some mossy flower gardens near the entrance because ... I just felt like it.

But the back isn't nearly as good. Perhaps those windows are too big.

And to finish off, here's a view of the inside of the first floor, where you'll find all the "treasure" stuff, including my old diamond tools, nautilus shells, and of course, the dragon egg. I also moved my ominous banners and iron armor stand in here, the latter of which encouraged me to waste 17 gold ingots on a chestplate and leggings to complete my gold armor collection, all for the sake of symmetricality.

In the next update, I'll work on building the storage room upstairs and transferring all my items to the corresponding chests, as well as something even more demanding: raiding an end city for my first elytra and shulker boxes on this world. I don't think I'll need more preparation than fighting the ender dragon: fully enchanted diamond gear, a bow, seven or eight slow falling potions, backup ender pearls and a couple stacks of blocks should be sufficient for success.

The only real challenge I'll face is bridging across the end islands without letting go of the shift (crouch) key. I suppose I could drink a slow falling potion before I start bridging and throw an ender pearl at the bridge if I do fall off, but my odds of survival will still be slim. Although slim is better than nothing, I guess? I could build a flying redstone contraption but I don't think it's likely I'll be finding an end city in any time if I do this. Or I could continuously resummon the ender dragon and kill it to open more end gateways, hoping one of them spawns me close to an end city, but that'll likely take even more time than the redstone contraption. There is, however, one thing I'm definitely not doing: throwing ender pearls across the end islands. My aiming is almost always poor and I've died numerous times on my survival world when the pearl "slid" down the island.

Regardless of what I do, though, I'll still dedicate the start of the next update to preparation and organization.

Firstly, just so I wouldn't forget later, I enchanted a book with Unbreaking III and Mending and placed the still unchipped anvil in my ender chest should I manage to acquire an elytra during the end city raids. The reason I planned on enchanting the elytra on-site was so that I would be able to explore for even more end cities without having to endure the ordeal of bridging.

With that out of the way, it was time to put our storage house to use!

I began by clearing out the double chest in the "living room" of my house and transferring all my old tools and any mob-dropped gear, such as crossbows from pillagers and Soul Speed boots bartered from piglins, into the treasure room. Some of them were even placed in item frames, although, spoiler alert, that'll change later on.

And as for the main storage floor upstairs?

It turned out fairly well. I didn't even have to use all of the chests / barrels.

The double chests are mostly for storing blocks and items that I would frequently use or generally require a large space to store: dirt / grass, wood, saplings, flowers, stones, ores, mob drops, etc. There are a lot of chests, so there's not much point in showing specifically what each and every one of them contains.

The barrels are for storing more niche categories, like glass, bricks, and dyes.

Heading up to the village, I was greeted by a wandering trader party.

I did consider purchasing two of the available items: green dye and jungle saplings, but later decided against it as I already had easy access to a nearby jungle and would only require green dye in large quantities, which I'll need cactus for.

I obtained another lead though. For some reason, the other one didn't drop.

My third task was to tame a horse and bring it back to the barn. I did attempt this long ago, back in Episode 7, but hadn't found any horses, only donkeys. However, I had recently spotted one wandering through the cherry grove to the south and decided it would be a good idea to secure it before it despawned.

Ah yes, that's what we're looking for.

I tamed it, put on a saddle and, after taking a little suffocation damage, successfully started riding!

It's my first time I've ever ridden a horse in the game. They sure do go fast.

I brought the horse back to the barn, where I armored and bred it with the donkey, producing a mule.

Now for my final two tasks before leaving Sunflower Valley: renovating the giant oak tree outside the barn and surrounding it with a colorful "moss garden." I'll work on them simultaneously.

I was going to require around a stack of oak logs for this project, so while I waited for the saplings to grow, I decided to head east to a nearby flower forest (larger than the one to our west, which is below the jagged mountain range) and resupply on flowers, both small and large. I found a couple of interesting things on the way there, including a medium-sized dripstone ravine which I had missed on my numerous trips ...

... as well as a lone pillager that just suddenly appeared a few blocks in front of me!

What a jumpscare. Their crossbow was even enchanted with Piercing.

As evening fell and I went over to harvest some lilacs, I realized that I've never even touched any on this world so far, hence the message:

By morning, I had gathered everything I would need.

Two days later, the moss garden was completed!

The main changes to the giant oak tree were that I had enlarged its trunk to 4x4 (similar to dark oak trees), extended its branches, and even added roots, although those aren't visible in the pictures above. So I suppose you could call it a "half-custom tree." (Oh, and you mustn't forget about the bee nest and shroomlight, the cherries on top.)

As for the small oak tree? I didn't have the heart to chop it down and also let it have a bee nest to itself.

I have to be honest: the garden looks even better during twilight.

Early the next morning, I did the unexpected: I bred the two bees!

Adorable, isn't it?

And now, you guessed it: it was time to risk our life again and conquer an end city!

This would arguably be the third most dangerous thing I'll have done on this world so far, with the first being raiding a nether fortress and the second killing the ender dragon. Funnily, there's nothing too difficult or risky about raiding the city itself, but it's the long journey there that would prove a challenge. Perhaps more of a mental challenge, as you'll see later.

Before I go any further into this, here's what I'm packing:

Spoiler alert: more was needed.

And as for my ender chest, the highlights were as follows: paper and gunpowder for fireworks, nearly two stacks of scaffolding, seven slow falling potions, an anvil, and the book enchanted with Unbreaking III and Mending. I wasn't too concerned about inventory space limitations as I should be able to acquire at least a few shulker boxes at the end city, where said inventory space would most likely become an issue otherwise.

Since I had headed out in the afternoon, I didn't make it to the stronghold before nightfall and slept at the cliffside village situated below the jagged peaks.

The next day, I was able to quickly locate the vertical shaft leading down to the stronghold:

I had to mine straight down (adjacent to the shaft, of course) to reach the stronghold, reminding me that I should build an easier access route, perhaps a ladder system, but this would probably be my last time entering the End anyways. I then shoved all my excess stone-type blocks in a stronghold chest before heading over to the end portal.

It took a long time for me to realize that I had forgotten to set my spawn point. Oh well.

I pearled through the floating end gateway, which brought me to the outer end islands. I had already been here after the ender dragon fight but lost the pictures, so I retook them (my render distance was first raised to 32 chunks).

There weren't any end cities in sight from my rather small island, so, despite everything, it was bridging time. There seemed to be a fairly large island to the west, which would be the general direction I'll travel as I search for end cities.

I pillared up for safety ...

... before drinking a slow falling potion, although not even that would be guaranteed to save me should I fall off the bridge. The only thing that would matter is how quickly I dump the water bucket on the block I fall from. If I do, but too slowly, I'll fall faster than the water and it'll never catch up with me to break my fall.

I was literally shaking as I bridged over the infinite expanse of death.

But when I dared to look up again ... I had made it. *sigh of relief*

But the ordeal wasn't entirely over just yet. I still needed to find an end city, although I was hopeful that I would find one on this seemingly large island. I mean, I really hope I do.

After several minutes of westerly wandering, I did!

Unfortunately, I needed to bridge across to another island, which demanded a second slow falling potion.

And even more unfortunately:

It was the smallest end city you could possibly find (I think?). I guess this will serve as a "taster session" for when I take on the real thing?!

I carefully went around the "city" until I faced the entrance before safely sniping both of the guard shulkers with my bow and obtaining a shulker shell from each of them. I had to wait until the shulkers opened; if I shot them while they were closed, the arrow would only bounce off. It was often the case that they were open as I released my bow but closed just as the resulting arrow approached them. Thank goodness for the Infinity enchantment.

And here we were. "The City at the End of the Game."

I began heading upstairs ...

... to a small parkour course, the top of which a third shulker inhabited.

That one dropped their shell as well. My Looting sword had come into play.

And that was it. Three shulkers. No end ship. No chests. I guess that meant we've defeated an entire end city?! As small as it was, it was still an end city! As I went outside to collect some end rods and magenta banners, however, I accidentally glanced at an enderman down below and ...

It took me five minutes to deal with the offended creature.

After that incident, I crafted my first shulker box, where I would store all of my future end city loot.

Now that we've had our appetizer, it was time to continue on our search! Unfortunately, the island abruptly ended to the west of the end city, and I didn't think I could bridge all that way:

I decided to take a detour to the south, where multiple large islands were connected.

One thing I do somehow like about trying to find end cities is how disorientating the whole place is. Besides the occasional end cities, the absence of landmarks really makes you lose your sense of direction.

The island ended to the south, but on the bright side, the gap to the other islands was smaller.

I drank a third slow falling potion and ... it was bridging time once again. Having ran out of deepslate tiles, I had to resort to my valuable planks, although I should've just mined some end stone instead.

It may not seem like it, but I had now spent two hours in the End with minimal success. I did find one end city, however, so there was no reason I wouldn't find another one anytime soon.

I crossed the island ... found nothing ... oh no, more bridging ... is that an end gateway? ...

At this point, I had consumed four of my seven slow falling potions. On the plus side, however, I was becoming more and more confident about bridging over the void. Nothing bad had happened thus far.

As I started trekking across the next island, I was delighted to finally find another end city.

The delight was short-lived, however: this end city was essentially the same as the previous one but with an extra branch. That doesn't really make it much better though.

And of course, there wasn't an end ship. Perhaps they only generate in large end cities, but that makes sense.

I sniped the guard shulkers with ease, climbed up and came to the building that "branched out" from the main structure, where there was another shulker. I disposed of it with ease as well.

I then pillared to the top of the main tower (I couldn't be bothered with the parkour), where I killed the fourth and final shulker, before descending. Well, that made two successful end city raids, and now we continue on!

Unfortunately, I had reached the western edge of the island, and it didn't extend too much to the south either, so, believe it or not, I mined another stack of end stone, sacrificed my fifth slow falling potion ...

... and bridged over the void yet again!

It wasn't long before I came to the western edge of this next island as well. *sigh*

At this point, I was exhausted of bridging and decided to veer south, where some of the larger islands joined together. And yes, there's another end gateway. If only there could be an end city next to it!

But turning around, I found my wishes instantly granted:

That's a big end city!

And I'll leave it here. It's obvious what the next update will all be about: continuing to raid and search for end cities until we have acquired an elytra! Hopefully, it'll be soon, since I only have two slow falling potions and only several planks of wood left.

The process may be tedious, but I'm certain it'll all pay off in the end.

Now that's a long bridge.

Having safely made it to the other side, it was time to find out what this end city had to offer!

Despite its fair size, I was still disappointed about the absence of a ship. I had now found three end cities in a row without one, and spoiler alert, it would also be the third in a row without any loot chests. On the plus side, we would hopefully be able to stockpile on shulker shells.

I began taking on the two guard shulkers and became overly confident here: I strayed too close to the shulkers while shooting them and was hit by several of their bullets. Luckily, while I was levitating, I managed to pearl down and finish off the immobile creatures with my sword. Only one of them dropped a shell this time.

While fighting the shulkers, one of them had duplicated itself on the second floor, where I was ambushed, although I took care of that with ease.

Sadly, none of the rooms contained anything of interest. The bridges mostly led to parkour towers, at the top of which a singular shulker would lurk. So far, I'd been finding end city raiding not too difficult.

Time to move on!

It was only a matter of minutes before I found this to the south:

The end city was tiny, only slightly larger than the first one we had raided on this expedition, so thinking there'd be an end ship would obviously be silly ... but I decided to head over there anyway. Believe it or not, that was one of the best decisions I have ever made on this world thus far.

After bridging over a small gap to another island (without slow falling!), I noticed another end city to the east:

It was even larger than the first end city in this update (third overall). Come on, this one has to have a ship!

Or does it? Because to the west was a third end city, and this one has a ship!

I was elated. After nearly six in-game days of trekking through forests of chorus plants, bridging over the infinite void, and obliterating the most underwhelming of end cities, luck was finally on our side again.

Right, let's get on with this, we have a lot of end city raiding to do.

Just because it was closer, I decided to raid the smaller one first. Of course we're saving the best for the last.

After taking care of the guard shulkers and making it inside, I couldn't help but constantly glance through the magenta stained windows at the eastern end city, which also turned out to have a ship. Ah, the ultimate treasure was awaiting!

Even this end city, however, was pretty impressive compared to the others I've raided, containing a much larger and open parkour tower infested with shulkers! I pillared up to the middle, where the purpur slabs gave way to end rods for parkouring, and executed my unstoppable plan.

Since I was clearly dreadful at parkour, I thought, why not let the shulkers give me a lift?

As I levitated, I slashed at and stabbed the shulkers that came within range and shot those that did not. By the time I had reached the top, most of the shulkers had died out (some to their own bullets, as for some reason they found my presence the perfect opportunity to wage war with each other) and I was able to snipe the surviving ones from my advantageous spot above them all. After the entire tower was clear of enemies, I descended to collect my shulker shells and glistening XP orbs.

Back at the top, I found my first end city chest room.

The first chest offered an enchanted diamond shovel, pair of enchanted iron boots plus some spare iron ingots, nothing I particularly require.

But it was when I opened the second chest and found even more enchanted diamond tools that I realized I had messed up the end of Minecraft's supposed "storyline": I wasn't meant to max out my gear before the end city raid; I had probably been supposed to collect all of the enchanted gear in the city and use those to max out my own gear. But then again, this is a sandbox game, so oh well.

The diamonds will be useful for when I duplicate netherite upgrade templates.

With this end city raid now completed, I decided to head over to the larger end city to the east as its island was connected to the one I'm on.

After acquiring my first elytra, I would fly over to the western city, the slightly smaller one.

As I headed east, however, I couldn't believe everything wasn't a dream, because a fourth end city, even larger than the one I'm standing in front of, revealed itself! Wow, the progressive excitement.

This end city was pretty thrilling to raid. Besides the usual small parkour towers with a shulker on top, inside were three ender chest buildings, each containing a handful of shulkers. We're really stockpiling on shells with this one!

The rooms itself were fairly difficult to traverse, requiring parkouring skills and block placement, so I simply allowed the shulkers' bullets to levitate me on top of the chests.

The first chest didn't offer too much interest, but as I would always do in an end city raid, I took everything.

Moving on to the second floor (thank you, shulkers) ...

That's what we're looking for.

And finally, the third floor, where I again became too overconfident and somehow lost nearly half of my health, probably mostly to fall damage and rapid ender pearling (although I was still on full health in the picture).

Dying here would be so silly. Luckily, the incident did not repeat itself.

The chest offered a fair number of emeralds and gold ingots plus a nearly fully enchanted helmet (sadly with Curse of Binding as well).

After killing all of the accessible shulkers (there were still a few that had teleported and were now hiding in the nooks and crannies outside), I headed over to the bridge "pointing" to the ship.

I couldn't believe I'm doing this!

I sniped the two shulkers outside and started bridging high over the void (again, without slow falling) to obtain my final piece of endgame gear. We were actually doing it!

I broke in at the stern of the ship, where I removed the brewing stand and its two instant health potions.

I then went over to where I thought the elytra would be.

Should be.

But wasn't.

There were no elytras, no loot chests, no shulker guards, no dragon head, all because of one chunk bug that had removed the front seven blocks of the ship, the front seven blocks that I cared about. I was not amused at all.

Let's just hope that the other two end ships wouldn't be glitched. This was where my good luck at the beginning of the update would actually be necessary, since if that had been the only end city around the place then I'd probably have to spend five more days searching for a new one.

I decided to bridge over to the smaller western city. Smaller but still impressive.

I was impatient for the elytra, however: the ship would be the first thing I'm raiding.

After the shulkers were removed, I pillared up until I was at an adequate height before bridging to the ship, this time thankfully not over the void. But the sight of the guard shulker was what I was truly grateful for.

This end ship isn't bugged! We're actually about to obtain an elytra!

I slashed the shulker to death and stood in front of this much awaited sight.

I decided to open the loot chests first. For some reason, I forgot to take a screenshot of the second one, but it probably hadn't contained anything too substantial.

But here's the part we'd been here for all along:

The satisfaction!

The end ship raid wasn't over yet, however, as I would still like that dragon head at the front for my treasure room decoration. With my remaining spare blocks, I carefully built a ring around and a block under it to ensure that the prized item wouldn't fall into the void like on my survival world. Eventually, the dragon head successfully plopped into my inventory.

With the end ship now finished, it was time to test out our first elytra! I first applied the Unbreaking III and Mending book to it, which annoyingly caused the anvil to lose durability.

I then climbed up to the crow's nest, the game-intended elytra launching spot:

And then ... we were off.

I was quick to turn back, however, as I had forgotten something nearly just as important: raiding the end city itself! This one was smaller and shouldn't pose much risk, so I put my chestplate back on and began my plunder, starting with an ender chest room:

More diamonds? I'll take those! The extra gear was welcome as well.

On the next branch, I was faced with a skyscraper full of shulkers! It was once again time to put my unstoppable plan to action.

As I drifted up, I lost a considerable amount of health, which wasn't surprising since I was absolutely overwhelmed by shulker bullets. Some of the shulkers even accidentally shot each other, and you guessed it ... chaos ensued and a handful teleported outside, much to my annoyance.

The rewards at the top were mostly worth it, considering I was also able to obtain quite a few shulker shells along the way.

I shot the final shulkers inside the tower before heading down to collect their shells.

As I headed outside to explore the final branch, more chaos ensued! I was ambushed by the shulkers that had teleported outside, and started levitating again, this time even bypassing the roof of the tallest building, although I was just short of making the advancement of levitating 50 blocks.

Luckily, I was able to quickly pearl down and break through the roof of that building, where an ender chest room awaited along with another handful of shulkers. At least it was much safer indoors.

Although several surviving shulkers were still lurking around the outside of the structure, I had explored and looted all of the buildings and would consider this end city raid "done." There was only one end city left in this area, the giant one to the northeast of the glitched ship, but I honestly felt that raiding it would be unnecessary as I had already obtained everything I wanted: over half a stack of shulker shells, dozens of enchanted diamond tools and armor pieces, and even plenty of diamonds themselves. I also wanted to keep that end city untouched just in case I wanted to build a shulker farm in the future, although that was extremely unlikely.

I saw nothing dangerous about obtaining another elytra and dragon head, however, so off we go!

Here's the end city with the glitched ship:

A view of the glitched part of the ship from outside:

Here we were, at the seventh and final end city of this expedition! (From this position, you can only just make out the two nearby end cities, specifically the tiny one and the one with the glitched ship.)

After killing the guard shulkers, I bridged straight over to the end ship, where I would acquire a second elytra. This one would serve as a trophy alongside the dragon heads in my treasure room.

This seems silly, but for some reason, whenever I raid end ships, I always forget to take a screenshot of the contents of the second chest. But again, I don't think it was anything too substantial.

The first chest was only mediocre.

Perhaps I just couldn't wait to return to the Overworld. After flying around a bit, I located an end gateway near the small end city. How convenient.

Pearling through, I found myself back on the obsidian platform at the main end island, where I had defeated the ender dragon. Since this would likely be the last time I'll be in the End in a long while, I decided to stock up on some ender pearls for my mob drop chests.

As I went around boat-trapping endermen and taking them out, I accidentally glanced at three in the background, which caused them to start attacking all at once. Although I dumped my water bucket, for some reason, the water resulted in a sideways stream rather than a small "pond" like it was supposed to, and I lost four hearts trying to fight them the normal way.

I couldn't wait to enter the portal to the Overworld.

Please tell me it's not nighttime.

And thank goodness it wasn't! At first, I was confused as to where I was, but I then realized that I had unintentionally set my spawn point at the cliffside village the evening before entering the stronghold at the start of the expedition. What a fitting end to it!

I could now look wherever I want without having to worry about some enraged creature running after me! What a graceful welcome, very much unlike what had happened after the ender dragon fight.

On Day 481, we're finally back at Sunflower Valley.

Here's everything I had acquired from the expedition, which I organized into three shulker boxes:

Needless to say, there's quite a lot to add to our treasure room, but that'll be for the next update. It also seemed like I had forgotten about the five extra ender chests I had collected while taking the screenshots, but luckily, nothing else was left out.

In the next update, it'll be time for village expansion: currently, it only contains three buildings that are already filled up with profession sites and beds, and my aim is to fix that and distribute the sites and beds evenly amongst the different houses. But if that sounds too boring, I might put my elytra to use and explore the world beyond what we had mapped. There's still something I haven't seen much of in this world yet...