He never used his darknorth swords for the thousand swords formation iirc they were strictly used in close combat and it was usually his primaltwin that used sword formations cause it was a Ki refiner which, as a result of having a weak physical body, is forced to fight from a distance just like any other ki refiner.. but @Magron was right about him spending long periods of time carving the formation sigils into each new swords he got before actually being able to use it (cause every level up would allow him to use better weapons, remember?) it’s just that IET didn’t do a good job of explaining it tbh, he spent more time repeating useless things instead lol. I actually liked the thousand swords formation because (to me at the time) it was something new, to have many small treasure swords flying around and resonate to produce an energy sword of Ki to implement his sword moves was just new and fresh.. instead of the typical close combat sword techniques (which I also enjoy btw) but back to the main point, I get what you mean about the rain water sword moves splashing- giving you the impression of pissing on his enemies