After the meal is finished Lie Mo starts exploring the surrounding area. He is in a wide valley. The stream in the middle there are no signs of beasts. But there are plenty of animals, just not enough for beasts to appear.

Lio Mo found several traces of different wolf packs. And he also found traces of bears. Further down the stream is a tiny lake.

Next to the lake is a hill with a cliff right at the border of the lake. The hill is about three times the size of the surrounding trees. And the cliff goes a bit more than half way up there. The safest place for his shelter would probably be somewhere at that cliff. It would at least be save against most of what nature has to offer. But every human who expects someone here would start to search there. And every human who can travel out here is dangerous.

The sky turns dark and he ends up sleeping in the desolate forest again. Several days pass by exploring the surrounding.

The surrounding is safe. Surprisingly safe. There really is no beast or human traces anywhere.

Lie Mo climbed the tallest hill in the surrounding and didn’t see anything besides forests and hills.

He didn’t just climb the tallest hill. He climbed every hill. Most of the valley is pretty flat, but the hills on the side have quite a bit of exposed cliffs on there. At one place the hills are full of stone peaks and ravines. This terrain there is really difficult to move on.

And he tries to explore every cliff to find a hidden place. One that is hard to find and easy to defend.

After searching most of that hillside he finds the perfect place. The path from the stream to the cliff is relatively short and with no noteworthy obstacles. Then he has to climb up a steep hill. To the right side is a difficult but possible rock to climb on. The path is basically completer invisible from this point onwards. There is a tear in the rock where barely a person fits through. And one misstep later the person falls down into a deep hole. A exactly three curves later there is a latch about one armlength higher than a person can reach. With a good jump it is doable to grab up there and pull yourself up. And there is a platform hidden from all sides. Only the sky is open.

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The platform is big enough for a small house, and a garden. The only problem is that there is no soil and no building materials. But there are two indents with water in it. The one in the back is deeper and the one in the front is wider.

“This place is perfect. Now there are only two questions. How do I bring building materials up here and what happens when I have an accident.”

“I need an outpost and hidden stashes for when something happens. This fortress can be build up over time.”

In the end he chooses an outpost on top of a small hill. It is hidden between the bushes.

After finishing his outpost he starts building the shelter in his fortress. It is big enough for a bed, a table, and all his newly made tools. And right next to the shelter he builds a storage for food and wood.

By now he has hunted several deer and boars. And with their leather he build bags for food, water and soil.

His hunter and gatherer method is optimized to be invisible. He never takes the same path twice. And he doesn’t leaves behind half a tree. He also never digs for dirt at the same place twice. Because of that even skilled passerby’s shouldn’t notice his presence.

There is only one thing that isn’t hidden. He caught a pair of bunnys and created a small den for them. And the location of this den is slightly hidden in the desolated forest. He feeds them so that they never starve. He also put down dirt and grass as a floor for their den.

So far the grass with the dirt form outside looks healthy and the grass in the original desolate forest dirt looks slightly dry. The bunny’s are healthy as well.

Apparently the soil of the desolated forest isn’t too healthy for plants but everything else seems fine.