Arcane Magic

Magic and enchantment is all about short cuts.

Large arcane rituals are dangerous, with the Machina Noctus as broken as it is a would be mage is liable to kill himself and possibly others.

To skirt around this smaller scale magics are used. For example, using the levitate spell at a high enough level to enchant flying ships would be disastrous, instead the Duvel'Cai use a low level summoning spell to conjure forth a sand elemental and bind it through arcane rituals and bargains.

However, the Machina Noctus retains patterns, it is able to learn. Sometimes this allows the machine in the shadows to optimize its functions where magical usage is greater thereby making it safer for mages to use more powerful magics. Other times this optimization allows the machine in the shadows to repair itself faster causing greater backlash against mages.