Before Fairy Swordji and the others arrived, Ling Tian had stayed busy, observing the Rune Cultivators at work. With his formidable comprehension and understanding of formation patterns and restrictions, he quickly spotted a few clues and gained a basic understanding of runes. For instance, runes were more powerful than formation patterns and restrictions because far more runes could be packed into the same space than hand seals. In other words, runes could be compressed into a smaller area.
As everyone knew, hand seals and runes could both draw on the energy around them or draw energy from an array's core, whether for offense or defense. The more runes or hand seals there were, the more energy they could draw from the surrounding universe. Naturally, their attacks and defenses would be more powerful. That was the main reason runes were stronger than formation patterns and restrictions.
It made sense. Countless runes were fused into a single jade slip in a bizarre manner, allowing it to draw on immense energy. That was the essence of jade talismans like Lightning Talismans and Thunderstorm Talismans.
After figuring this out, Ling Tian tried using his powerful spiritual sense to compress the number of hand seals in formation patterns and restrictions. He made some progress. Though the improvement was nowhere near as great as with runes, at the very least, the patterns he laid out were much stronger than before.
Of course, Ling Tian knew he hadn't grasped the essence of it. He had compressed the hand seals to the utmost through sheer control of his spiritual sense, but the Rune Cultivators clearly didn't possess such powerful spiritual sense. Yet they could arrange many more runes in a confined space, which meant they had a unique method. He couldn't learn that method just by observing them.