Well this is a bit premature after spending roughly 4-5 hours seeing how this should be done.
The answer is to select your view controller in the storyboard, hit 'Editor' > 'Embed In' > 'Navigation Controller'. It opens a separate line of navigation. This is quite a common pattern across various apps. For example, the official Twitter app's settings has the same usability pattern. Whether they do it the same way is another question, but the eventual outcome is the same.
Thanks!