On my first night in a foreign place, I stayed up overnight in a PC Cafe, one which had hundreds of computers in it. I could hear loud noises from all sides. The sounds of gunfire from CS players, the sounds of battles from Starcraft, and some other online songs in the background, were mixed with the sounds of people breathing and choking while they smoke. However, these were unable to suppress the excitement that I had as I was about to participate in my first competition.

I found a computer in a remote spot and I logged on the forums for Clan Home. I saw many posts there and realised that many of my fellow clanmates who studied in Xi'an would be coming down the next day. I have to train! I opened Internet Explorer and entered the Home webpage. Then I registered my name "Home.Sky" on the site. There were so many people in the channel that day which surprised me.

Just when I was about to ask people for practice games, Xiaoyao whispered me. "Damn kid, where have you been?"

I completely forgot to say hello to Xiaoyao when I went to Xi'an. After all, Xiaoyao had shown me the most concern, among all our clan members.

I quickly replied, "Sorry man, I'm here in Xi'an to participate in a competition. However I posted many times in our clan forums. Haven't you seen them?"

"Well, I saw the posts long ago, but I am asking you anyway. You didn't even bother to tell me about your arrival. You might have gotten lost here."

Haha, Xiaoyao knew about my lack of directional sense. "How could you say that? Even though I don't really know my way around, I can still speak in Mandarin to ask for directions."

"Forget it man, only I can understand your Mandarin. If you tried to speak with others in Mandarin, then you can go kill yourself..."

A picture of Sky from 2005

"Attention all players participating in the Starcraft competition, please report at the counter to register your name. Attention all players participating in the Starcraft competition, please report at the counter to register your name..."

Even though the sound from the broadcast reached my ears, I was still in a daze. I struggled to open both of my eyes. Oh. My neck, my poor arm. My entire body felt numb. I realised that it was already 9 when I looked at the bottom right corner of the screen. I still remembered that I was unable to find any practice partners at 5 in the morning so I chose to listen to some music.

After listening for a while, I felt like climbing onto the table for a while. The middle part of my body was feeling uncomfortable so I got up a few times and switched my positions. As I listened to the repeated announcements, I tilted up head towards the counter. "Oh my god, why are there so many people?" A throng of hot blooded youths were gathered around the counter, struggling to register their names. Even though the counter of this PC cafe was quite huge, it was completely surrounded by those people.

I got up from my chair immediately and rushed to register my name. Once again, I got up too quickly. As soon as my butt left my seat, my legs started to feel numb since I had been sleeping for too long. I dragged my two numb legs to the counter and stood among the horde of people, waiting for my turn to register my name.

"ID?" "Dinosaur"
"ID?" "darknight"
"ID?" "Home.Sky"

I eventually had my name registered and heaved a sigh of relief. I heard from someone that the competition could only allow 128 participants and they would stop allowing people to register after they had attained the numbers. A huge line of people were queueing behind me to sign up.

Suddenly, somebody tapped my shoulder. I turned around and felt puzzled as I faced the person who just tapped me. "Are you Home.Sky?" The guy in front of me was one size larger than I was. I guess he was a fat guy. But I didn't seem to know that person. I replied, "Yeah, I am. You are?"

"I am NYLL from Clan Home as well. My real name is Li Guang and I'm here to watch the games. I saw your forum posts about your trip to Xi'an to participate yesterday. I also heard you registering your name just now so I found out who you were," the fat guy said with a smile.

Looking at my cheerful teammate, I asked him, "Ah, I only arrived yesterday to prepare for the matches. Are you from Xi'an?"

Li Guang shaked his head and said, "Nope. I'm only here to study. My hometown is in Henan Nanyang." It turned out that he was a fellow townsman from Henan province. When I was in Luoyang studying, I still did not feel that anything was different as everyone was still speaking in rural dialects. But once I arrived here, it felt totally different, as though I had left for a place very far away. Suddenly, I felt much closer to him.

At that time, another announcement was broadcasted, "All registrants for the Starcraft competition, please quickly make your way to the competition area to draw your groupings." I glanced at Li Guang and informed him that I was about to leave, "The competition is about to begin. I have to go."

Li Guang replied, "Please go, the reason why I am here is because I wanted to watch you play. Iori and I are good friends, and he told me that you are one of the strong players within our clan."

I shook my head in embarassment. "Don't listen to his nonsense. There are many others in the clan who are much better than me, like Lao B, Coro, Hero. Who knows how long I will take to reach their level."

Li Guang chuckled, "Coro is someone who can defeat Grrr. If you are able to defeat them, then you can take over as the clan leader. However, all of you are way better than me. I haven't been playing this game for very long. You have a lot to teach me."

"Yeah, no problem, no problem." I agreed to his request readily. At the same time, I started thinking about the matches which were about to start.

"Hello. I am a contestant. My ID is Home.Sky." I looked at the marshall who was holding onto a form. He marked a tick next to my name, and pointed to a computer far from me. "Go seat at computer 36. Your opponent is already sitting across from you. You can begin as son as you are done with the warmup." I thanked him and headed for the computer which was allocated to me.

I couldn't help but laugh out nervously. The computer keyboard was filled with dust. Even the mouse pad was filled with smoke dust left by others. I lifted the mouse pad forcefully and swept the dust off. Then I lifted the keyboard, tilted it to one side, and started hitting it. Dust and dirt from each of the keys began to fall off... "Come on, wipe it off." Li Guang handed me a piece of tissue paper to wipe off the dirt and dust. "Thanks."

I felt grateful for his help. I was actually thinking of looking for any old newspaper lying around. I was a little reluctant to use the tissue paper to wipe the table. I sat in front of my computer and entered the game that my opponent hosted. Then I selected my own race which was Protoss. I took a deep breath to relax myself, and put on the headphones on the table. Then I gestured to my opponent who was sitting across me and told him that we could begin.

START, the countdown had begun. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Suddenly, I heard Li Guang cheering me on. Even though I was already quite excited, his words stirred my emotions even more. It was a little difficult to control them. I tried to calm my nerves again and took a deep breath. Then the game began.

I spawned at the 12 o'clock position at Lost Temple, with the purple-coloured Protoss. I tried to band-box select my 4 Probes (workers) quickly to start mining crystals quickly, just like I had done during my practices. As I clicked the crystals, I started microing something else. Suddenly, my heart was racing again and I felt a surge of excitement. My hands trembled and I misclicked the mouse. My Probes were heading for the area behind the crystals.

"You can't even perform a simple task without making a mistake. Calm down, calm down. You must remain calm," I reminded myself repeatedly in an attempt to remain level-headed. I re-selected those Probes and got them to start mining the crystals. As I looked at those Probes doing their job, I suddenly realised something. "Damn it. How could I have forgotten to train new workers?"

 Immediately I clicked on my main base and used the initial resources given to train my 5th Probe. My mind was completely blanked out. "How can I be playing like that? I can't even handle such simple stuff properly." The 8th Probe was used to build a Pylon, and the 10th and 11th probes were used to build 2 Protoss Gateways (Barracks).

At that moment, I saw my opponent's worker scouting my base. "Why does my opponent have a Probe?" I was confused to see the enemy Probe in my base. I was alarmed that I had even forgotten the race of my opponent. I realised that I had yet to scout. Another thing which was even more disastrous was that I was using a two-barracks strat in a Protoss mirror matchup. I usually played with a mixture of Dragoons and Reavers. But this strategy was meant to be used on the Zergs...

I immediately dispatched a Probe to do some scouting. I grouped it under Group 1, and sent it towards the 3 o'clock spawn point. Since I had already started on this build order, I decided to take a gamble on that map. I intended to use a mix of Dragoons and Zealots to rush him.

My opponent's Probe was like that of a computer's. It was mindlessly standing there, attacking my Pylon which was already constructed. My first Zealot was out, and I got it to start attacking the Probe attacking my Pylon. I expected him to use some insane micro with his Probe but unexpectedly, I managed to kill it. Does that mean that he was as nervous as I was?

At that moment, I finally scouted his base at the 3 o'clock position. I was lucky to have him at the closest possible spawn, since I was using the dual-barracks strategy. I couldn't help but smile. Fortunately I had opted for this strategy, or else I might have lost to a dual-barracks Zealot rush. My opponent's Zealot also came out from the Protoss Gateway and started chasing my Probe. I wasn't going to let him kill my Probe so easily. With some insane micro, I started moving my Probe in circles. I learnt this move from the Korean VODs that I had watched countless times and had lots of practice with it.

When I had gathered a force of Zealots and Dragoons amounting to 40 food, I realised that my opponent had not even killed my Probe. I carefully approached his base with my Probe and found a pathetic force of Zealots. I was a little puzzled... Was my opponent trying to lay an ambush on me? Who cares? I have a straight-forward personality anyway so I decided to go ahead with the rush.

When my forces arrived at my opponent's base, I found the same few Zealots awaiting me. The word "GG" flashed on the screen soon after. All of a sudden I discovered that my heart was racing and I was trembling a lot. Even my hands were shaking. But the game made me temporarily forget about those feelings.

Then I felt someone patting me on my shoulder. I was a little startled and jumped from my seat. I looked behind me to see Li Guang facing me. Li Guang laughed and bended over towards me. He whispered, "Your opponent was horrible. I was standing behind him and watched how he played. He is even worse than me... However, your micro was superb."

I was a little embarassed. "It was luck. Now I'm going to ask the marshall who my next opponent will be."

"Let's go together."

* Sky is from Henan Province, which is a rural part of China. Thus, his native tongue is some other Chinese dialect and not Mandarin.

Source: Sky's Blog