If you read this part I must warn you, while you will understand the mechanics behind the story better you may also get spoilers.
Magic can be considered—no, rather it is similar to programming, if not exactly like it. In Eltaria Continent and World Zero as a whole, most mages are like programmers who do not understand mathematics. This is a rough explanation:
While they can still achieve results, it is inefficient.
Emlyn is one of the few mages who began linking magic with math. She discovered that mana compression, which at the time could only be done 2–3 times, was pushed to about 4–5 times after her findings became known. This caused pressure in the upper circles of mages, which were dominated by nobles, and they chose to suppress it as much as possible. This suppression was largely successful.
NEXT PART INCLUDES MAJOR SPOILERS!
This is because the Causal Membrane (the one Victor calls "God") actively uses its authority over events to ensure certain discoveries remain hidden or do not immediately destabilize the world. However, it still allows limited progress, because in the future a major disaster will occur that Jack may be partially responsible for, and this knowledge will help in overcoming it.
Now for more nuanced parts of the magic system. The expression Emlyn wrote is not a clean mathematical form like "f(x) = ax² + bx + c", but rather a descriptive structure like:
"Compression-1 (x)^2+Resistance(x)-OriginalCostWithLocalResistance=New cost"
Or even just words.
This is standard for how spells are written in practice. It differs from the clean notation used in mathematics and physics because magic is not unified under a shared symbolic system. Regions describe the same ideas in different ways, and no universal language exists.
This is one of the reasons magic is difficult to revolutionize, and why Emlyn only shared her discovery without fully formalizing how to solve it.
Most mages simply increase X gradually by pouring mana into the spell until it stabilizes. This is inefficient and wastes large amounts of mana.
The core limitation of magical development is lack of abstraction. In mathematical terms, this would mean reducing "resistance Times x" into something like a simple coefficient "bx" , but such standardization does not yet exist.
MAJOR SPOILER — YOU CAN SKIP IF YOU WANT!
Victor himself is not a mage. He understands mathematics at a structural level beyond normal comprehension due to being a fragment tied to causality, the avatar of the Creator, and a transmigrator.
Because of this, he can bridge magic and mathematics with ease.
This only becomes fully relevant after he awakens through a major future event. At that point, he is known as AHIH, also called the Angel of Sound Lehatot. The Creator is Lehatot, also known as Main Body Lehatot. You may also notice my pen name, LehatotTheAuthor, which is intentional, an Easter egg.
Now back to AHIH.
Before fully awakening and evolving into the Ahih race, an angelic species that can only reproduce with itself or dragons (and where AHIH is currently the only known instance), AHIH relies on artifacts left behind by its future self, sent backward through time. That one is Victor.
AHIH is not a mage. It does not primarily cast spells through structured systems. Instead, it alters reality through instability, forcing local rules of existence to shift and reassemble into new valid patterns. It also possesses the innate ability of the Ahih: the World-Changing Song.
The World-Changing Song is not ordinary sound. It behaves like sound, but is not restricted by physical conditions. Even in space, it can still be "heard."
This ability grants both perfect three-dimensional perception and a more direct method of influencing reality. Similar to Skyrim's Tonal Architecture
At present, AHIH also plays a role in suppressing this mathematical formulation until the necessary conditions for handling instability safely exist, allowing civilization to progress beyond this point without collapsing prematurely.