Square Inch

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Square Inch (方寸)
Alias(es)	Square Inch Space; Square Inch realm
Type	Mysterious inner space / supreme treasure
Controller	Li Shun
Status	Active; expanding through divine sense and Mystic Yellow energy
First Appearance	2

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Initial configuration	2	Consisted of three equal central regions: an intact stone statue, a damaged half-statue, and the puppet Li Shun. White mist concealed undeveloped land beyond them.
Fourth area opened	17	Li Shun opened a fourth plot outside the central core. It could contain people and objects, and revealed the active and passive rules for refining people into puppets.
Outer plots expanded	58	Rare treasures, especially Five-Leaf Lingzhi, strengthened Li Shun's divine sense enough to open further land; he reached one-third of the sixth plot before exhausting his strength.
Seventh clearing completed	82	The presence of Heavenly Dao Severed Qi reduced the difficulty of expansion, allowing the seventh clearing to be fully opened.
Core territory expansion	116	Absorbed Mystic Yellow energy began expanding both the space's openable boundary and Li Shun's territory within the central core.
Reset-defying growth	118	Land opened through Mystic Yellow energy remained after Threefold Self-Reflection reversed time, breaking Square Inch's previous reset behavior.
First ring completed	183	Mystic Yellow energy erased the remaining mist and connected all twelve plots of the first ring. Li Shun's authority over puppets underwent a qualitative increase, producing a seven-colored rudimentary divine body.

Background

Square Inch existed within Li Shun from the time of his transmigration. Upon first entering it, he found the two damaged stone statues and the puppet resembling the body he had possessed already inside. He named the space “Square Inch,” regarding its limited land as a place containing boundless mysteries 2.

After opening the fourth area, Li Shun concluded that he must have possessed Square Inch before taking over Li Shun's body. The original Li Shun became its first known human puppet because Li Shun's transmigration effectively replaced—and therefore killed—the body's original owner 17. Later memories suggested that the two stone statues had once fought over Square Inch, which Li Shun believed originally belonged to the Great Qian world before he acquired it by chance 63.

Li Shun eventually recognized Square Inch as the anchor of his identity and consciousness: “Square Inch is my heart.” This connection allows him to persist through puppet bodies rather than depend entirely on his original physical shell 62 74. Even when stranded in the Heavenly Court ruins, his consciousness could reconnect to Square Inch through its lingering bond, confirming that the space remained real and under his control 227.

Appearance and Structure

Square Inch is reached when Li Shun sends his consciousness through vast white mist into an enclosed inner realm 2.

• The original core was divided into three equal regions.
• The core contains Li Shun's territory, the Threefold Self-Reflection stone statue, and the Heavenly Man Book stone statue.
• Undeveloped land is concealed behind dense white mist that resists Li Shun's divine sense.
• Outer plots form rings around the central core; the first ring ultimately contains twelve plots 17 58 183.
• After the first ring was completed, a seven-colored figure representing Li Shun's incomplete divine body manifested above the core, overlooking the surrounding puppets 183.
• Mystic Yellow energy can gather beneath the vault like clouds or form a defensive world-phantom during major threats 182 216.

Abilities & Functions

Puppet Containment

Square Inch can receive living beings, remnants, objects, and unusual entities as stored puppets or occupants.

• A person may become a puppet through either an active or passive method; Li Shun learned these rules after opening the fourth area 17.
• Death during the first two illusory cycles of Threefold Self-Reflection cannot create a puppet; only events finalized in the third cycle can do so 17.
• New plots can contain both people and objects 17.
• Li Shun has no known method of expelling an accepted puppet, even an incomplete or useless one 79.
• The space can take in nonhuman targets, including a pangolin, the strange tortoiseshell, and the Ancient Web-possessed consciousness shell 138 165 228.

Puppet Manifestation and Restoration

Stored puppets can manifest in the outside world, functioning as Li Shun's alternate bodies, agents, or tools.

• Manifesting a puppet requires Li Shun to split off consciousness, causing severe mental pain and leaving the manifested puppet at roughly half of its internal strength 6.
• A puppet destroyed outside does not directly damage its source within Square Inch 6.
• The internal puppet acts as an anchored “save point”; an externally manifested puppet can be restored to its preserved internal state after injury, destruction, or aging 181.
• Long-term manifestation still causes the external body to age and lose vitality, making the timing of any synchronization important 181.
• Fang Han repeatedly escaped lethal attacks in the Martial World by returning to Square Inch and descending again in a restored body 165 170.

Synchronization

Square Inch can synchronize a puppet's preserved state with its corresponding external body's cultivation and condition.

• Synchronization is manually activated rather than continuous 62.
• Li Shun synchronized the puppet Li Shun into a youthful body with mid-grade Mortal Body Realm cultivation and the Spring-Autumn Brush lineage 62.
• Stored puppets can continue cultivating, preventing them from becoming obsolete as Li Shun advances 62.
• Synchronizing the original Li Shun puppet dramatically improved its efficiency in cultivating Cold Mountain Grass because its body was restored to the peak vitality of adolescence 62.

Threefold Self-Reflection

The damaged stone statue houses the divine ability Threefold Self-Reflection, which allows a single day to be experienced up to three times.

• The first two iterations are illusory; only the third becomes settled reality 2.
• It can be voluntarily activated or triggered by Li Shun's unexpected death 2.
• Each activation damages the statue and initially required more than ten stalks of Cold Mountain Grass for basic repair 2.
• Cold Mountain Grass gradually became less effective at repairing the statue, making repeated use costly 2.
• Mystic Yellow energy later enabled expansions and alterations that persisted despite a time reversal 118.

Heavenly Man Book

The intact stone statue is associated with the Heavenly Man Book and its ability to fabricate or alter a target's past.

• The statue attempted to overwrite Li Shun's memories with a fabricated history, but Li Shun resisted and suppressed it 63.
• Li Shun can access a limited form of its power; success depends on the target's cultivation and closeness to him 64.
• Its ability works best when fabricated details are added gradually rather than invented all at once 64.
• Using the ability through Li Shun consumes mental strength, while the statue itself suffers comparatively little damage 64.
• Temporarily manifesting the statue allowed Li Shun to wield Sage-level Heavenly Man's Writing, though doing so let the statue reclaim much of his core territory 129.

Trait Extraction and Body Forging

Square Inch can extract special traits from stored puppets and apply them to other puppet bodies.

• Shentu Xin's incomplete phantom yielded the trait Life-Qi Furnace, which explosively increases life-qi activity at the cost of lifespan 79.
• Li Shun can transfer extracted traits to another puppet, as demonstrated by placing Life-Qi Furnace upon Fang Xun 79.
• Because puppets can restore their internal state, traits with lethal drawbacks can be used with far less permanent risk than they would pose to living cultivators 80.
• Li Shun believes accumulated traits can eventually be used to forge a unique, perfected body for himself, though the project initially remained only a rudimentary possibility 79 183.
• Completing the first ring produced the initial form of this divine body, built from the destinies, experiences, and karmic ties of six gathered puppets 183.

Managed Mode and Puppet Heaven Eye

After the first ring was completed, Square Inch gained improved autonomous control over puppets.

• Li Shun no longer needs to directly control every manifested puppet in real time 183.
• In managed mode, a puppet follows behavioral patterns established while Li Shun previously controlled it rather than the habits of its original owner 187.
• Li Shun can set temporary conditions that alter a managed puppet's priorities 187.
• Through Mystic Yellow energy, puppets can function as Li Shun's “eyes across the worlds” 183.
• Fang Han's puppet was used to observe and select candidates among the enormous number of Martial World cultivators receiving the Twelve Longevity Method 187.

Spatial Expansion and Mystic Yellow Energy

Square Inch expands through strengthened divine sense, rare treasures, and especially Mystic Yellow energy.

• Five-Leaf Lingzhi strengthened Li Shun's divine sense enough to push back the white-mist boundary 58.
• Mystic Yellow energy can erase the mist with far greater ease, allowing land to appear according to Li Shun's intent 183.
• Faith, merit, and worship connected to a stored puppet can generate Mystic Yellow energy that flows into Square Inch itself 143 152.
• Fang Han's status in the Martial World created an especially vast and sustainable source of Mystic Yellow energy, initially estimated at nearly one hundred strands per year 182.
• Mystic Yellow energy is not harmless: a blue-black, unusable strand of karmic hindrance formed around Fang Han's puppet after repeated use 186.

World Traversal and Unknown Doors

Mystic Yellow energy and the tortoiseshell's aura caused doorways to appear within Square Inch.

• The Gate of Myriad Mysteries enabled Fang Han's descent into the Martial World, where Mystic Yellow energy created an appropriate identity for him 156.
• A later eerie, shadowy doorway formed from Mystic Yellow energy and the tortoiseshell's aura, leading toward an unknown shattered world 182 183.
• Li Shun judged the doorway too dangerous to explore without understanding its origin 183.
• A deeper shadowy door formed from the tortoiseshell's aura intimidated the divine phantom of Formless Suspended Skull and forced it to withdraw 216.

Defensive Authority

Within Square Inch, Li Shun can exercise powerful suppressive authority over stored beings.

• Li Shun subdued the Wu Peng legacy phantom by asserting that Square Inch was his heart and imposing his will upon the space 89.
• The two Sage stone statues and accumulated Mystic Yellow energy jointly resisted the descent of Formless Suspended Skull's divine phantom 216.
• This authority is not absolute: the Formless Suspended Skull nearly shattered the space, cracked both stone statues, and forced the defenders to their limits 216.

Known Puppets and Occupants

Puppet / Occupant	State	Significance
Li Shun	Active puppet linked to Li Shun's original Great Qian body	Performs the Spirit-Splitting Life-Creation Technique to cultivate Cold Mountain Grass; can synchronize with Li Shun's cultivation 2 62.
Threefold Self-Reflection stone statue	Damaged half-statue	Provides the three-cycle daily reset ability; repaired with Cold Mountain Grass 2.
Heavenly Man Book stone statue	Intact but cracked and resistant	Can fabricate past experiences and grant access to Sage-level Heavenly Man's Writing 63 129.
Fang Xun	Active puppet	Served as Li Shun's major external proxy and can receive extracted traits such as Life-Qi Furnace 45 79.
Shentu Xin	Half-puppet phantom	Incomplete, without readable memories or life-qi, but contains the Life-Qi Furnace trait 79.
Three Elders' remains	Stored remains	Generate Mystic Yellow energy through public faith connected to the Three Elders 138 139.
Pangolin	Stored living creature	Taken into Square Inch alongside the Three Elders' remains after worshipping them 138.
Fang Han	Cross-world puppet identity	Operates in the Martial World, gathers substantial Mystic Yellow energy, and enables world-spanning observation 156 182 183.
Strange tortoiseshell	Stored anomalous relic	Resists manifestation in both Great Qian and the Martial World; its aura formed the shadowy doors above Square Inch 166 183.
Ancient Web-possessed consciousness shell	Accepted puppet	A shell of Li Shun's separated consciousness parasitized by the remaining imprint of Ancient Web Across Time 228.

Relationships

• Li Shun — Controller and core consciousness of Square Inch; he considers it the true anchor of his heart and identity 62 74.
• Threefold Self-Reflection stone statue — Damaged resident statue whose divine ability protects Li Shun through repeated daily timelines, but demands constant repair 2.
• Heavenly Man Book stone statue — Powerful but dangerous resident statue that contests Li Shun's control over the core and can tamper with memory and history 63 129.
• Mystic Yellow energy — Primary resource for rapid expansion, divine-ability comprehension, and territorial recovery; also carries the risk of karmic hindrance 116 186.
• Formless Suspended Skull — Divine threat whose phantom nearly destroyed Square Inch before the shadowy door forced its retreat 216.
• Ancient Web — Outer-god remnant that sought voluntary containment as a Square Inch puppet after parasitizing a separated strand of Li Shun's consciousness 226 228.