Honestly, I do not know why you guys are all up in a tizzy and try and shut down fantasies. I state a desire to see nonsensical magic in a fictional world and y'all like 'lol magic ain't real, get a real job'
It's actually because
truly nonsensical magic is incredibly unsatisfying and no one actually uses it; there is always at least
some degree of order. This is because magic appears in stories and stories themselves have order. This is where Sanderson's First Law comes in about the ability to solve problems with magic corresponding to the reader's understanding of how it works: if the magic can "do anything" it undercuts tension and makes a story less satisfying. Now, inexplicable magic can create problems that require solving that is okay, because it increases tension.
Where this comes in within the context of the quest is that the characters have the tools to explore their world and thus can uncover more about magic. Even if the result is "Tools inadequate, underlying structure unknown" that is in of itself establishing a rule "X does Y and Z occasionally for no reason we understand, so be prepared to just randomly have Y and Z happen, and possibly I dunno, W maybe?" It's a loose rule, but you understand it and the potential consequence. If there is no understanding then it is "There are no rules, anything can happen at any time" and then there is nothing to talk about.
And like, again to remind you, we live our lives in a completely insane, nonsensical way from the viewpoint of our ancestors, but once we explain the logic behind why we get up according to a clock instead of according to the sun or when we are no longer sleepy and travel in contraptions of metal and explosions to pillars of steel and concrete and glass to sit in little boxes and click on little bits of material that have no real analogs to what they know so that we can make symbols appear and disappear on a screen so that we can have other symbols change elsewhere in the world, allowing us to simply pick up the necessities of life from a stranger we may only know in passing. Like, trying to describe modern living to a hunter-gatherer using only terms within their lexicon would be an exercise in absurdity and insanity, but you can do it because all the things we do follow underlying patterns and order that are not immediately obvious from the surface.
So basically, most 'absurd' magic is just stuff where the rules behind it is beyond the observer, and insisting that it remain that way in a game where the players have the agency to explore it is a bit disingenuous and unfair to them. Now, as this game has demonstrated, I can simply tell you "Your studies return nothing this time" and most people will be cool with that, but a society that doesn't figure out the workings of its environment on even an empirical level quickly vanishes, so it would pretty quickly stop being 'magic' and start being 'mundane'.
(Insert rant on Black Clover's incredible bad world building and how the main character is essentially the blind kid with no legs being essentially bullied by everyone around him because magic isn't something special to them, it is literally an expected part of their bodies like an arm or eyes)
(Insert second rant about wanting to strangle everyone involved in the main character's realization because I had to sit through the obligatory first episode in my anime club and my ears are still ringing)
