Square Inch

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Square Inch existed within Li Shun from the time of his transmigration. Upon first entering it, he found two 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.

After Li Shun learned a forbidden truth concerning Chaos, the resulting counter-pressure and gaze nearly crushed Square Inch. The incident established that the space is a manifestation of Li Shun's mental will and governed laws, leaving it vulnerable to threats beyond his current spiritual endurance 234. His later Profound Insight breakthrough substantially reduced the lingering erosion at its edges, though it did not erase the danger posed by further contact with such truths 240.

During his Imperial Academy Dao-comprehension trial, Li Shun realized that the Dao Mark he had selected was not coincidentally related to Square Inch: all his perception and enlightenment had long been filtered through the Square Inch Dao because the space was already inseparable from his heart 296. This insight showed him that true mastery need not come from forcibly seizing the two Saint statues' territories; by comprehending Square Inch itself, it would naturally become his alone 297.

Afterward, Li Shun reshaped the inner realm into Square Inch Mountain and gained markedly greater authority over its puppets, structures, and concealed regions 298 299. When a later exposure to Chaos knowledge caused black fissures and invading darkness to spread through the space, he restored it by steadying his heart and will, leading Ancient Web to recognize this recovery as an achievement beyond the reach of countless Chaos gods 313.

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.
• The Formless Suspended Skull's divine phantom cracked both Sage statues during its attempted descent 216.
• Chaos' counter-pressure later caused further cracking in the statues, made the Cold Mountain Grass wither, and left a dim deathly haze around Square Inch's outer periphery 234.
• Following Li Shun's Profound Insight breakthrough, the haze at the edge of the space noticeably weakened and receded 240.
• The two ancient stone statues retain their own Saint-level wills and periodically pressure Li Shun's mind in attempts to reclaim the central core, though his later Square Inch Dao comprehension has slightly suppressed them 291 298.
• After Li Shun's Dao comprehension, the central core rose into Square Inch Main Peak, a vast divine mountain crowned by cloud seas, spirit trees, springs, waterfalls, and purple qi 298.
• The twelve plots of the first ring became twelve guardian divine peaks surrounding the main peak, while the second and third rings began to take the half-real form of distant primordial mountain ranges within persistent mist 298.
• Square Inch Mountain and its landscapes are real only within the inner realm. Li Shun cannot yet impose their creator-like manifestations upon the outside world 298 332.
• Square Inch is nearly eternally immutable under ordinary circumstances, making even minute abnormalities perceptible to a sufficiently careful observer 333.

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.
• The active method requires the target to willingly enter Square Inch without any resistance throughout the prolonged refining process 17.
• The passive method allows Li Shun to draw in a target's remains and lingering thoughts when he personally kills them in reality 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 originally knew no method of expelling an accepted puppet, even an incomplete or useless one 79.
• Following his comprehension of the Square Inch Dao, Li Shun concluded that he could expel powerful stored entities, including the two Saint statues and Ancient Web, if necessary 299.
• The space can take in nonhuman targets, including a pangolin, the strange tortoiseshell, and the Ancient Web-possessed consciousness shell 138 165 228.
• Becoming a puppet grants Li Shun access to the target's memories, cultivation experiences, and Dao insights, although such borrowed enlightenment cannot completely replace his own realization 242 298.

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.
• Li Shun can manifest the Ancient Web-possessed consciousness shell, later called Enlightenment Seeker, as a puppet body outside Square Inch 228 242.
• After Li Shun's Square Inch Dao comprehension, internal puppets such as Li Shun, Fang Xun, and Fang Han could move, cultivate, and imitate living True Persons while inside the space rather than remaining motionless 299.
• Puppets sharing Li Shun's thoughts can cultivate rapidly without ordinary bottlenecks, though they cannot break through a major realm while confined within Square Inch 299.

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.
• External cultivation and improvements can be synchronized back to the corresponding internal puppet, preserving the progress accumulated by a manifested body 62 298.

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.
• A fragment of a Sage's Staff later reinforced the incomplete statue, greatly improving its stability and reducing the cracking caused by activation 239.
• With the Sage's Staff fragment, the number of usable reversions increased to nearly six, although each reversal remained limited to one day 239.
• When removed from Square Inch, the staff reacted to the statue's missing lower half and pointed toward the southwestern horizon, suggesting that the missing portion lies in that direction 239.

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.
• The statue's lingering History School Saint will remains a contested force within the central core, but proved comparatively more tolerant of Li Shun's later territorial advances than the Confucian Saint's will 291 292.

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 evolved Shentu Xin's remnant ability to resist Heavenly Dao Severed Qi into the Unbreakable Body 82.
• 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.
• Li Shun considers puppets' cultivation experiences and Dao comprehensions a potential aid to his own advancement, though he recognizes that borrowed enlightenment cannot wholly replace personal realization 242.
• Square Inch can refine puppets' physiques, traits, destinies, experiences, and karmic intersections as materials for the eventual divine body intended to belong solely to Li Shun 298.
• Li Shun's long-term goal remains the creation of an independent divine body, rather than permanent reliance on the physical body of the original Li Shun 298.

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.
• With his enhanced Square Inch Dao authority, Li Shun can grant internal puppets greater mobility and cultivation autonomy while retaining their shared connection to his thoughts 299.

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.
• Mystic Yellow energy and the two Sage statues can jointly create a world-phantom capable of resisting a divine intruder, though the defense has finite strength 216.
• After comprehending the Square Inch Dao, Li Shun no longer needed to force back the first ring's mist through divine sense or expend Mystic Yellow energy; he dispersed it by will and directly reshaped the revealed land 298.
• The distant rings remain incomplete, with their mountain ranges suspended between the real and unreal beneath lingering white mist 298.

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.
• The deeper shadowy doorway, known as the Deep Profound Gate, formed from the tortoiseshell's aura and intimidated the divine phantom of Formless Suspended Skull into retreat 216.
• Square Inch can bypass the ordinary separation imposed by Chaos and transport puppets between worlds, giving Li Shun a potential means to deploy cross-world forces unavailable to conventional divided souls 317.
• Fang Han found that Square Inch had left a mark in the realm beyond the Deep Profound Gate, preserving a route for future descents into that Other Shore world 338.

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.
• Chaos' counter-pressure proved still more dangerous, squeezing Square Inch from beyond its boundaries, further damaging the Sage statues, and initially leaving erosion at its edges 234 240.
• The two Saint statues continue to contest Li Shun's central authority through pressure on his mind, but he has resisted their retaliation and expanded his territory through doctrinal comprehension 291 292.
• Square Inch's inner restoration allowed Li Shun to repair a later Chaos invasion after black fissures and darkness spread through the realm, demonstrating that its foundation can recover so long as his heart remains steady 313.
• Li Shun considers Square Inch capable of expelling even its most dangerous occupants should they become unmanageable, although the practical limits of this authority remain unknown 299.

Isolation and Master-Protecting Authority

Square Inch can isolate its controller from external influences transmitted through puppets.

• When Li Shun used Enlightenment Seeker to directly observe the Great Dao's origin, Square Inch confined the revelation's impact within the puppet rather than allowing it to reach Li Shun's primary consciousness 242.
• This protection prevented Ancient Web, despite its status as an Outer God's mark, from affecting Li Shun through its puppet body 242.
• Square Inch's isolation also prevents the Ancient Web within Enlightenment Seeker from directly sensing the external environment while it remains stored inside the space 266.
• The same isolation can obstruct external objects from accurately locating one another while inside Square Inch, as demonstrated when the Sage's Staff could not determine the missing half-statue's location until brought into Great Qian 239.
• A Dream School cultivator who attempted to probe Fang Han's past and source through his consciousness encountered Square Inch's incomprehensible existence and suffered immediate destruction of body and soul 281.
• Negative effects affecting puppets, including Outer God corrosion and backlash from observing the Great Dao's origin, are confined to the puppets rather than transmitted to Li Shun's primary consciousness 298.
• Square Inch's resistance to the World-Ending Calamity has so far remained intact, but Li Shun treats this protection cautiously and established an independent guardian to detect abnormalities that might escape his own notice 332 333.

Life-and-Death Restorative Power

Square Inch possesses an innate restorative force that preserves its occupants and can return damaged things toward their original states.

• The restorative force underlies a puppet's ability to return to its anchored condition after an external body is destroyed or grievously damaged 298 299.
• It can slowly repair heavily damaged objects, as shown when the damaged Turtle Shell within Square Inch began recovering without deliberate intervention from Li Shun 299.
• The remains of the Three Elders are gradually being restored, raising the possibility that even long-dead beings may eventually be revived as puppets 299.
• Li Shun believes that the process could be accelerated through appropriate external materials, and has considered using a surviving record of Shentu Xin to restore the incomplete phantom 299.
• Li Shun has only sensed the principle behind this force; he cannot yet comprehend its connection to eternal existence, restoration, life, and death 299.

Guardian Creation

Li Shun can use his authority within Square Inch to transform and assign functions to inhabitants of the inner realm.

• To create an indirect warning system against the World-Ending Calamity, Li Shun chose the pangolin as a guardian because it possessed no knowledge of the calamity and therefore could monitor the space without transmitting the danger through his own thoughts 332.
• He empowered the pangolin with wind-riding, earth-burrowing, spirit-communication, and duplication abilities, assigning it to inspect the Square Inch Mountains for abnormalities 332.
• The transformed pangolin has become too fundamentally different from ordinary life to safely enter the external world, reflecting the distinction between Square Inch's internal reality and outside reality 332.

Known Puppets and Occupants

Relationships

• Li Shun — Controller and core consciousness of Square Inch; he considers it the true anchor of his heart and identity 62 74. His later comprehension of the Square Inch Dao elevated his authority to the point that he could reshape the realm by thought 296 298.
• Threefold Self-Reflection stone statue — Damaged resident statue whose divine ability protects Li Shun through repeated daily timelines, but demands constant repair; it was later stabilized by a Sage's Staff fragment 2 239. Its Saint will still resists Li Shun's complete control of the central core 291 292.
• 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. Its lingering History School Saint will remains a rival source of authority within Square Inch 291 292.
• 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 Deep Profound Gate 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; Square Inch's master-protecting authority prevents it from influencing Li Shun through its puppet body 226 228 242. Despite its submission, Li Shun remains wary of its actions outside Square Inch 320.
• Chaos — A forbidden source of truth whose counter-pressure and gaze nearly crushed Square Inch after Li Shun probed its nature 234. Li Shun's later mastery allowed him to restore a subsequent Chaos invasion, suggesting Square Inch may offer a means of resisting forces that even Chaos gods cannot easily overcome 313.
• Sage's Staff — A same-origin relic that reinforced the Threefold Self-Reflection statue and reacted to the direction of its missing lower half when exposed to the outside world 239.
• Hundred Schools Essentials — A collective scholarly treasure used by Li Shun to learn from manifested sages and contest the two Saint statues; its collision with their wills allows it to recharge within Square Inch 291 292.
• Pangolin — A former stored creature appointed and empowered as Square Inch Mountain's independent guardian against potential World-Ending Calamity anomalies 332 333.
• World-Ending Calamity — A threat capable of spreading through thoughts and memories. Square Inch has remained free of detected corruption, but Li Shun considers its protection insufficient reason for complacency 332 333.
• Deep Profound Gate — The tortoiseshell-born doorway within Square Inch that deterred Formless Suspended Skull and led Fang Han toward the Other Shore realm, where Square Inch has now left a return mark 216 338.