1 First steps

I, Anton lived for 25 years, I would not say my life was interesting: I was jobless, in long depression, overweight, and other stuff that I don't really want to speak about. My life was normal: no big accidents, no life changing experiences - simple and quiet life.

When I was living on earth, I was just your normal man and just like a lot of people, I was interested in reading novels, playing games, talking with friends, sometimes streamed games( not really effective or interesting stuff).

Why am I saying that I was living? Because I think I died. I think.. I am not sure.

So you might ask me who am I talking to? to myself obviously. There are no one to talk to then myself, and if I don't think, it becomes too quiet. It is extremely creepy and scary. I can't explain this feeling, but closest explanation would be: extreme fear… one, like I never felt before and it is creeping all deeper and deeper inside me, the longer I keep quiet. It's like fear of tight spaces for claustrophobic people, multiplied every other second.

I don't know how long I was in that condition, but the only reason I continue trying to think because when it all began I heard a voice that was saying something like "Installing new AI", "progress is 0%... 1%... " and so on.

From time to time I heard this sound, extremely mechanical and emotionless sound. And soon it will be 100%. I am so happy!!! You can't imagine. The only strange thing for me is that I did not give up half-way like I usually do. Strange.

"Installation Complete"

"Starting .. 1..25...50..100%... Complete."

___________________

"Ghhhmg.... " I open my eyes , but with no difficulty, what surprised me a lot. I try to stand up, but I can't. It is strange. "AAAAHH ... WWWWHATHEFCK" I try to look at my hands and can't see them. I'm scared. I can't even feel them, it means that my body doesn't even think that it should have hands.

"I need to find something to look at myself, and understand whathefck is going on!!"

Looking at my legs I almost begin to shout, but before I could even yell a little bit, I see that I am hovering above ground. It is strange situation. I feel nothing special, but I am hovering. FREAKING HOVERING !!!!!!! How the hell?

I really need to find a way to look at myself.

As I think about it, I seem to be alive, and as novel reader, I try to say stuff like :

"System!"

"Open System!"

"Status!"

"Open Status!"

..

"Start the System"

..

.

and after a couple of minutes it worked.

"TURN ON THE MOTHERFCKNG SYSTEM"

'brnnnnnn* I begin to hear a sound and in the next moment I see the panel in front of my eyes. At the bottom of my view, and surprisingly I can understand what it is. It should not be possible to see something at the bottom of view, as human eyes can't really concentrate like that. But I can. and it seems like I am not human. Huh...

I am surprisingly calm, this is good. I expected myself to panic, but you will never know until you experience it.

Now I need to understand what is this system, who am, and what we both could do. First of all this layout seems similar to StarCraft panel, but much more complicated. MUCH, MUCH more complicated.

"Wow wtf" As I begin to try to interact with it it expands to the whole field of view and it begin to show almost transparent 3d model of a Robot. And this Robot looks familiar, it reminds me of Probe from StarCraft. "Fuck. Is it me? Am I not a living being? "

"FUUUUU.... not really that bad" no more need for exercise, food, no more fat belly. NICE!!

" Hmm now, back to the model" as I can see buttons to the left of the model, it looks like I can view outer view, inner view and all my parts in detail. But detailed view seems to be locked, I can't access it no matter what I try.

On the outer view model I can see parts durability, condition, protection values( I don't really know what it means, I will need to find out later), color, and some other technical information that I don't understand completely. Like - what is this [Protorium] material? what is it?

On the inner view I can see what looks like small Pylon but more transparent and is named as [█████☻█████]

Yes, I can't understand what is written there. It is odd, is this thing broken? Have no access? Or is this something that I should not know about? I will try to remember about this. Maybe someday I will find out.

The only thing that I seem to understand about it is that plasma-like rays come out of it and looks like it provides energy for all inner components. It seems to be Generator of some kind, at least it seems to be used as one,

Other things that I can see are [Shield core], [Gravitational engine], [Eye sensor], circle that is named [Manipulator] and is placed around the eye, and many more.

I don't understand most of it, but some functions could be understood from names. [Shield core] must be providing Shield that protects all protoss, [Gravitational engine] must be the thing that allows me to move, [eye sensor] - don't even ask, [Manipulator] - must be the thing that was used in the game to build, collect resources, and attack. Because there is nothing else that I can see that would be able to do this.

"OOOFH", "that is a lot to take on, I will need to look at it more at some point, but for now I should try to find out where am I, how dangerous is this place, and find a safe place" I began to talk to myself as I was used to it - I talked to myself for a long time in that place.

So I began to look around. And the first thing I see is a tree. Not really that different from any other tree that I know about - this is good, it means there is some resemblance to earth and I will not have to get used too much to this world. How do I know that this is not earth? I just know.

All around me are trees, land and sky, nothing more. It seems to be a forest.

"Soo... what should I do first? maybe try to climb a tree to look around?" I said while getting closer and closer to the tree.

As I try to climb on it I begin to understand - I can't do it. I have nothing to latch to the tree to climb up. And as I try and try again to do this, idea comes to my mind. What if I just chop down this tree and place it onto the other? so I could go onto it as on the hill? "i hope it works" I say as I begin to use manipulator to chop down the tree.

To my surprise, it cut through the tree like nothing. What did I expect? this is protoss technology for Fcks sake!! as I cut it, it begin to fall down and I caught it using manipulator and felt nothing, like no weight was added to me. MARVELOUS.

As I try to use it to place it like a slope I begin to get used to it. It is too fast, but I will not say no to this. It is good for me.

"I placed it, time to see where am I and hopefully understand what is this world (hardly possible, but hope dies last). As I climbed it I saw forest, around the forest I could see green plain with some birds relaxing under the sun( I suppose it is pretty warm), and on the opposite side of the forest I could see mountain, and the sea on the other two sides. I see no villages or towns - this is concerning and at the same time good as I am not human anymore, and humans are not the kindest beings in the world. Especially to things they don't understand.

" I think it would be better to get on the top of the mountain for better observing point, as I can't see anything else from here."

"Moving through the forest without need to watch out for roots or caring about scratching anything or getting branches in to the eye is AWESOME" I say to myself while hovering through the forest and evading all the trees at pretty fast speed.

After some time and easy climb on to the mountain( or a hill - don't really know the difference) I begin to look around. What I see is extremely good and extremely bad news at the same time.

Bad news are - I am on an island and I see no settlement of any kind.

Good news are - I am on the Island and there are a lot of space here and no humans.

Behind the mountain is a sea. Not a river - sea. I Can not see any other Landmass. Plains are pretty big and beautyfull, but they too lead to the sea.

Good that probe have good eye. I can see very far away. Too far away for my comfort. As I am used to seeing earth horizon and it seems much farther than on earth. This leads to the only reason im my mind - this planet is bigger than earth.

___________________________________________

" Nooow... what should I do? Maybe look at what Functions I, as Probe have? Yes. This is it!!" I say while opening menu in full screen again.

Looking at what I could understand - I have storage inside me. Need to test it's capabilities and limits later. Also it seems that I can build some buildings, but all of them except what looks like a Pylon and a Nexus are locked.

"Hmm... Nexus should be first... but let's finish reviewing my functions" I mumble to myself.

Other functions include

[Personal modifications]

[Total modifications]

[Escape mode]

[Lockdown mode]

[Knowledge stream]

[Trading portal]

[Other functions] button that is currently locked.

"Looks good. Now it is time to place Nexus!!!" I say happily.

{NOT ENOUGH MINERALS} Says mechanical voice in my head.