Sigh. You're still overcomplicating this.
To reiterate what I've already said, you need to stop thinking of all these different of the -ていた form as completely different distinct things that need to be puzzled out each and every time, and find a way to realize that they are all related.
The larger point is that the "past" tense in a novel, as a general rule, can be actual past, or it can be "narrative" past, where the past tense is used to narrate events that are, technically going on in the "current" timeline of the narration.
Honestly, I think you're confusing yourself unnecessarily by thinking that -ていた "can mean" or "is used for" present states or present progressive. It's still a past form, it's just that the past form is being used to narrate the "present" (i.e. current) timeline of a story, just like it commonly is in English.
As for "state" versus "progressive", surely you understand that this entirely depends on the nature of the verb, yes?
If the very first sentence of a novel is:
角を曲がって駅前に出ると、そこには大きなビルが建っていた。
...then that's a state, because 建つ is a stative/instantaneous verb. (i.e. 建っている can only mean "is standing [i.e. was built and is now in that state]", not "is in the process of being bulit")
If the first sentence is:
家に着いたとき、弟はテレビを観ていた。
...then that's progressive, because 観る is a durative/continuous verb (i.e. 観ている／観ていた here means "is/was watching")
You don't (or at least, you shouldn't) have to worry/stress out about whether it is "present" or "past" any more than you would if the first sentence of an English novel was:
I turned the corner and came out in front of the station, and a large building was standing here.
(or)
When I arrived at home, my brother was watching television.
If you saw these sentences in an English novel, would you be pulling your hair out thinking, "Oh no! Is this 'was standing' and 'was watching' present state, present progressive, past state, or past progressive?" Or would you be able to process it, simply and easily, as a story being narrated in the past tense? I highly, highly suspect it would be the latter.
Again, I'm not saying that Japanese verb tenses always function entirely like English. (The example from a while back with ゴーストタウンになっていた vs. -になった, for example, is an important distinction that can be difficult for second-language learners to grasp.) But you've seen and asked about countless examples of -ていた and "narrative past" at this point, many of which are (or should be) fairly straightforward. The only way you're going to overcome this mental block about -ていた and narrative past is by finding a way to abstract this concept in your mind and realize that it's not nearly as complicated as you're making it out to be.