Artist's commentary
"Mage"
In the world of Karindou, there are various people with special abilities, such as swordmasters, superhumans, spiritualists, feng shui masters, etc. Mages are also included in this. Basically, they're generally categorized as a class of people with special abilities.
The majority of people with special abilities are youkai who have adapted to human society, and similar beings associated with the U.N. anti-demon organization (referred from here on as the Sweepers). Only a few are associated other organizations (not including underground or criminal organizations). In contrast, there are only a small number of mages associated with the Sweepers, the vast majority are associated with the International Mages' Alliance. There's also an organization called the League of Magic, but since they believe that mages should rule over all others, they are extremists who are antagonistic towards the Mages' Alliance.
To put in game terminology, the job you choose at the start would be "mage" or "magician". In the world of Karindou, it's called "Mist" (It's an old magical term for magical energy, since magical energy covers the world like mist. So it refers to someone who controls magical energy.)
"Wizard"
In the world of Karindou, completely unimaginable stuff happens all the time, and there are many long-lived hermits, and wizards are classified as a type of hermit. Basically, they're something absurd in the world.
Since they took the miracle drug, they can go beyond their limits and boundaries as humans, and are existences separate from the so-called common sense of the world.
Those who are long lived fundamentally are not associated with any groups, and each lives doing whatever they want, and wizards are no exception. The International Mages' Alliance tries to have a wizard in charge, and invites them to lead. (Seren's predecessor and successor were selected since they were graduates of the mages' alliance. The reason was that Seren was not only the apprentice of a famous wizard, but was also a famous wizard herself. When they invited her, she lived up her to bad reputation, and was uncomparable to her predecessor, and was far more scary than they anticipated.)
Sometimes they take an apprentice for fun, but without exception, those who they take as apprentices are exceptional, or have some special ability. If they aren't, then those who want to become their apprentice are outright rejected, and suffer being driven away by force (maybe it's a test?). (So those with only a little ability die before they fully mature.) It's extremely rare for someone to be forced to become an apprentice, but in those cases, they have a unique ability (since it isn't known how their ability will manifest itself, it's difficult to discern it). Once they obtain a successor, they do whatever they want based on their whims or desires. It becomes a real mess.
The power of those who are long lived, excluding the outliers (according to someone with experience) "An average person with a special ability trying to challenge one of them is like a baby with a stick trying to take over a city."
(Among those with special abilities) When asked to classify wizards, they said "Weirdos" "Odd people" "Stylish weapons made to slaughter huge numbers of people" "Natural genociders" "You mean compared to my wife? No matter which I choose, I'm going to die" etc.
To put it in game terminology, they are an advanced class "Sorcerer" or "Wizard". However, the difference in their attributes are incredibly huge (due to the influence of the miracle drug, their attributes skyrocket). In the world of Karindou, they are called "Mistless" (It's an old magical term that denotes that the hazy mist is gone, and they clearly have powerful magical energy. Also, they can control magical energy.)
*The ancient magical language are the foundation for the language of magic/sorcery, called True Word. Almost all of the words are unpronouncable by humans, but because of this, chanting increases the effect of magic/sorcery by several times to several dozen times more powerful.
This puts an extremely large strain on the caster, and may even cause damage to their soul, so the more difficult and restricted the magic/sorcery is, the more dangerous it is. Even wizards, who are for all intents and purposes immortal, can die from it, so nowadays, it is restricted information told only to a select few.
This is an aside, but in the history of the future Genyuu, this was the cause of death of Seren and Elza, as they together unleashed an extremely powerful spell powerful enough to shift the Earth's axis. Due to the influence of the curse inflicted upon future Genyuu's soul, she became unable to use True Word chanting herself (never mentioned background).
All of the above was the foundation...
And now.
Both magic and sorcery use the same magical energy, but the difference is the level of the casting itself, and whether or not it has an upper limit and the properties of sorcery.
You can say that for anyone who can use magical energy, magic is just a downgraded version of sorcery.
"Magic Power/Energy"
Magic power is an attribute which increases the effect of magic/sorcery. Naturally, it varies from person to person. This is what is responsible for the difference in overall effect.
To use TRPG formulas as an example, it also includes a level adjustment (or correction). At that point, a wizard is already totally different (on top of a wizard being an advanced class of a mage, their attributes are higher too), so they have an incredibly huge different in magic power.
Magical energy (as in MP) does not depend on the person, and everyone has the same amount. To give an analogy, it's like the differences in fuel consumption. The better fuel efficiency, the more magical energy you'll have.
As you get more used to using it, you'll become more efficient and use less magical energy for the same thing. This is reflected as different levels (like the old Sword World's mental points consumption).
*Even if you were to think about this as numbers turned into data, the actual numbers would be different.
Also, magical energy is not just what you store inside you, it also is present in the air (not as particles, but as pure energy). When you run out of stored magical energy, you can supplement it by sucking the magical energy in the air into your body. It gets restored even faster if you're resting (this is my personal view of how sleeping restores MP).
The density of the magical energy in the air depends on where you are. There are places where magical energy gathers easily, and places where it quickly fades away. Using rituals, it's possible to temporarily increase the magical energy density. Depending on the location, there are places where you can use magic/sorcery with only the magical energy gathered there, which normal people call Power Spots. It's because of this that the headquarters of the International Mages' Alliance was founded on that solitary island, and why those who work with magic/sorcery work out of there.
Japan (and more broadly, eastern Asia) have more spiritual power spots, and the magical energy density tends to be somewhat low. However, Karindou's location is pretty dense, but compared to other power spots around the world, it's only slightly above average. For Seren, even this is plenty.
It's very rare, but magical energy can materialize (liquid ether = mana potion, ether crystal = magical crystal). Also, the particles of light given off by a fairy's wings and their bodily fluids (like blood, etc) contain magical energy (as a result, there was the tragic disaster of 1999, where the fairy population who had strayed from their hidden villages became endangered due to poachers trying to make cheap magical energy restoring medicines.)
"Magic"
A skill that "causes a phenomenon to occur" by coaxing nature using magical energy as an intermediary.
There is always a limit to the effect of magic. If, for example, the upper limit was 10, no matter how much magical energy you put into it, the effect would not exceed 10.
Magic spells have a limit to the amount of magical energy you can put into them. If the upper limit was 10, it would be unable to stand more than 10 magical energy, and it would break. This is like a kind of safety mechanism, but since the normally invisible spells will emit light based on the strain, it's easy to figure out the limit, and this sort of thing rarely happens.
By the way, Meguru, a mid level mage, can't use elementary level magic. This is because of her spell booster disposition, which makes even her minimum magical energy exceed the limits of spell (the spell breaks before any light can be emitted, so it was just assumed that she couldn't use elementary magic, and everyone thought that she was bad at constructing spells). It's for the same reason that Seren can't use mid level magic.
"Sorcery"
A skill that "materializes a phenomenon" by imposing the caster's will on nature using magical energy as an intermediary.
Sorcery does not have an upper limit like magic, and the effect can be increased by just putting in more magical energy. Even if the effects are the same, magic might only be able to have an effect of 10, while sorcery can have an effect of 20 or even 100. Even with the same amount of magical energy used, there can be a huge difference in the power output.
However, the spells still obey their own levels, and with the same magical energy used, a low class sorcery cannot exceed a high class sorcery (my personal interpretation).
Sorcery can only be learned by those who possess the ability for it. Even if someone has the knowledge of it, as long as they don't have the ability, they will be unable to construct and maintain the spell. And even if they were able to construct it, it would immediately be unleashed or get out of control, or possibly cause a magical energy flow reversal, and the caster would be in grave danger. It would be like risking your life by playing a horrible game of russian roulette with 1 rubber bullet and 5 real bullets. There is no salvation.
Since this can be absurdly powerful, anyone who does it must have the appropriate foundations and abilities.
Anyway, you can think of it as magic is essentially like what a normal PC can use, and sorcery is the completely crazy stuff that powerful NPCs can use. lol
...Huh?
Does this just mean that magic = low rank, sorcery = high rank? (sweat
Uhh... well, to explain magic, you have to explain the foundations, you know, it's like that.
And this is the short version. No really, it is?