I have always liked magic in almost any book I prefer to read, which is almost always in the fantasy realm and hardly any other type has the draw or potential of a good fantastical book.
It does seem thought that magic systems and their use is rather hard too balance. Many of the better ones I have read such as "Name of the Wind" , "Farseer Trilogy" and begrudgingly the "Mistborn" Series do execute their rules quite well yet stray into the camp of under developing the system and leaving the rest to the protagonist to be a special little dolly.
Which I guess is a given right, it is the protagonist of course and if their weapon is magic then surely they are the best for reason X.
Other systems try to make it more earned, which unlike the general fantasy tale has more of a progressiveness to it.
Obviously Harry Potter and that world is not even going to be in the equation since I don't think they ever even tried to make it seem like people can get better beyond drinking someone's blood.
As fun as Potter might be at the start it is hardly a convincing magical world. For that you are better off following Rincewind in Terry Pratchett and those clueless Wizards of Disc World.
Anyway, I digress.
For now I am more leaning towards the differences in seemingly Western vs Eastern philosophies of magic. Not that I know all the details , but I do know enough terms to be dangerous.
Alongside that I have learned of genre called "Progressive Fantasy" which at the end of the day I am sure is just a term created to describe the repetitive nature of most Manga and Light-novel hero paths.
It is a bit more explicit than the average hero journey , or character development and usually is what allows a person to initially be like "Oh shit I know a break through is coming."
It is like the gamification of story telling, dopamine mining, aura farming of genres.
Then it gets too repetitive and almost always too convoluted.
What does that have to do with the magic system?
Well it has to do with it because it also makes the system predictable, which really just removes all the impact from new discoveries or breakthroughs. Even the basic usage becomes a tedious affair once you are over the initial setup because the magic is so tied to these specific steps.
In the more traditional systems Magic seems to feel more freeform but is limited by resources. In the more eastern systems it is a kind of locked system, albeit not always locked to type but locked to skill level and genius.
Now I might be describing there in a very black and white fashion which is not strictly the case, there are obviously paths like artificing, potions, seal creation and other specialities.
These hardly ever play a big role in the better stories. If there is a story where the world feels alive like that exists then I would love to read about it but chances are they stopped drawing the manga at chapter 20 and the lightnovel may be on chapter 3500 but anything after the first 150 can be considered repetition. There is surely not a single novel or trilogy with such depth.
I don't mind reading a story with a strict focus on the hero being the hero and magic just being a cool way to slay thousand but it would be nice to find something where it is not an after thought or gimmick. These stories are far and in between, so maybe they should borrow from each other a bit.