Red had reached a bottleneck. He had formed five complete thought threads, but no matter what he couldn't form a sixth one. Energy would circulate within his brain but would be suddenly blocked by an impediment. He had been considering that perhaps this was the limit of the skill, since historically the most talented individual to ever practice it had also formed five threads so he started to think about what the next stage of mental cultivation would be.
All along he kept meditating and circulating the energy around his brain's pathways. He wondered about the threads. What exactly was their purpose. Thought threads were like his senses. For each of his five senses existed a thread. With the formation of each thread he had felt his sensory capabilities and perceptive powers increase. The next stage, he hypothesized would possibly be the integration of his five senses to a coherent whole.
Individually, each sense when elevated does have an increased impact on perception. But a lot of response is based on the combination of several senses at the same time. With this epiphany, Red decided to run his Threading exercise through the five threads that had formed trying to fuse them together. The five threads coalesced together slowly and initially they were repelling each other. But with each run of the threading exercise through a thread, the threads were forcibly brought close to each other and began twisting like coiling snakes.
As they came closer, the threads suddenly began to glow with a golden hue. Seeing this happen inside his mind's eye, Red was surprised and delighted. This really did appear to be the right track. With a powerful renewed vigor, Red put his full force into practicing.
The threads started coiling together and slowly Red could feel as if his five elevated senses were fusing together. But the closer the threads coiled, the brighter they shined and the more repelling force was created between the threads. Beads of sweat started percolating as Red forced himself to continue the threading exercise but he wasn't being able to push past that final bottleneck.
Just when Red thought that he couldn't go any further, a curiously volatile energy was suddenly squeezed out from his brain. This silvery berserk energy vibrated and twisted its way to the threads who were reluctant to fuse together and like a glue stuck between the five threads. With a final push the five thought threads coiled around each other and fused, a brilliant golden aura clouding the threads before slowly subsiding. The five threads had now completely fused together and morphed into a golden silvery chain.
Red finally heaved a sigh of release. He had broken through in his mental cultivation past the blockade! His senses had suddenly had a massive change. He could suddenly see his heartbeat, hear colors and feel textures from smelling. His senses had intertwined and formed a coalesced whole. Each time he observed anything, be it the food in front of him or other objects in the container he was in, he could suddenly picture the object through all of his senses and get a greater experience out of analyzing it than any single sensory perception could.
Considerable time had passed and Red had spent most of his time in silence, meditating. Suddenly, he opened his eyes. "It is time." He murmured to himself. Through his senses he had already simulated the hasty steps of the ship's crew as well as the breathing and sudden murmurs and anxiety that was palpable in the air to realize that the pirate ship had been spotted. Suddenly there was a loud explosion and cries of fear. The entire ship trembled and Red vibrated along with it.
Without worry, Red kicked the door of the container. Without resistance, the door flew apart. He may not be a martial artist, but on Puratynt B his physical body had been augmented by the planetary evolution to the extent that he had become very powerful despite being a commoner. Picking up his backpack, he calmly walked out.
The ship's captain used the announcing system to alert the crew. "Prepare your weapons! Pirates are boarding the ship!" He yelled through the speakers. Red ignored the craziness in his voice and calmly walked out of the storage area. His walk was stable and stead, but silent as the night. All the battle intent that had been ingrained into him in the past few years of harrowing despair had seeped into his bones, the art of killing.
With his almost superhuman sensory abilities, he could literally see crew members hiding behind corners and walls so to speak. He could see through the vibrations of the floor and from the sounds and feeling of the breaths of air. While the area in which he had this godlike perception was only a few meters, within that halo like area he nothing could be hidden from him.
With a sudden and quiet appearance he appeared behind a crew and hid him on the back of his neck, immediately knocking him out. Red wasn't looking to kill the cargo people and knew that the crew trying to resist the pirates would only result in unnecessary deaths. So he took his time to silently knock every crew member out one at a time.
When the pirates finally entered the ship, they were dumbfounded. All the crew had been knocked out and were unconscious. The entire ship was silent and there was only one young man who didn't look to be 20 sitting calmly, as if waiting for the pirates.
"I believe you owe me a ride." Red said calmly. "I took the liberty of knocking them all out before you folks arrived." The pirate captain who looked dumbfounded suddenly laughed loudly. "Boy, you are sly, haha. You have my thanks." Before he gestured his mates to quickly start taking out the cargo. He then went and sat beside Red, who took out an envelop and handed it to the pirate captain.