Minecraft wiki entry for Defeating_the_ender_dragon, associated text: A more sophisticated method to find a stronghold is to make use of the exact functioning of the eye of ender, as well as the generation rule of the stronghold. An eye of ender points to the chunk where a spiral staircase, the first room generated in the stronghold, is located. The center of this entrance staircase is always exactly at the chunk coordinates 4, ~, 4, although the eyes of ender leads to chunk coordinates 8, ~, 8 (the center of the chunk). So if the eye of ender starts traveling downward, the player should go to the 4, ~, 4 chunk coordinates (or one block next to it, so they don't fall down the middle of the staircase) and start digging downward. This method requires a lot of practicing and sufficient understanding of the mechanics, but is so far the least time consuming method to find a stronghold, and is widely practiced within the Minecraft speedrunning community. Note however that this doesn't apply to bedrock edition as the eye of the ender leads straight to the starting staircase.