So there is a syntactical language of glyphs that change the effect of the "magic" that flows through it. So what happens is I essentially cause M/AM annihilation on some air particles and turn that resulting energy into Magic by some unknown mechanism, and then I use my mental fortitude to shape it along certain lines that change its function. This explains all of my questions essentially, but I think it might fuck your world's logic in the eye, or at least soon it will when characters start being smart about things.

One thing that worries me right off the bat is that repeating the same step [presumably requiring 2 times the mental fortitude, and the same amount of magic] causes something x^2 result. This not only makes little sense when balancing the requirements of mental fortitude, essentially inserting an extra up arrow into any considerations, but it also confuses me as to what is powering the magic. Imagine for a second I want to use magic to create 10 ounces of gold. I pull enough magic out to use one X loop to cause this result [presumably ~10 ounces of gold in energy]. But my friend, who wants the same thing, throws his magic through the X loop twice, using twice as much mental fortitude and creating 100 ounces of gold with the same amount of magic expended.

This also fucks conservation of energy right in the eye, unless there is a theoretical limit of energy efficiency of 100% as x=number of loops -> infinity, and any amount of loops less than whatever the maximum efficiency number is causes a lack of efficiency in the magic. For example, pulling numbers out of my ass, I rip 1 mole of hydrogen apart for energy, and because I only use 2 loops, I output .2 moles of hydrogen with my "create hydrogen" spell.

Not sure what you want to do about this, but if you could clarify that would be grand.