Well, it was quite strange. Basically as far as Darius could tell, the story of the game that Vena based Gravitas' laws on was a land called Phantasmagoria.
The mana in that world was usable by anyone but humans. No mages and no special powers, but they did live in a magical world since plants could make use of mana and special beings like dragons existed as well as using the energy for themselves.
However, these dragons were guardians and did not raid human lands.
Naturally, in the pursuit of technology, ether was discovered and refined from mana. However, the caveat was that every time ether was refined and consumed for various stuff, it would be converted back to mana at a loss, which was then reabsorbed from the atmosphere and so on.
So after years of this, a crisis came to the land, but the humans didn't much care.