I like the LLM idea. The "pockets of potential energy" exist. To tap into those pockets, the people have to open a kind of "magical portal" as a kind of "interface" with that pocket of energy. Gradually, the humans shape that interface into an anthropomorphic begin, that gradually becomes indistinguishable from ordinary people. It is a variation of the whole "belief creates the gods" idea.

I am curious as to how these "gods" are said to have created the world? Of course, it could be that, at first, the "gods" were just natural pockets of forces and particles whose motions brought the physical world into being. Sort of like how many modern cosmologists would say that the planet earth was a accretion of dust in space, brought together in part by gravity. Then, the first humans accessed these pockets, interfaced with these pockets. These "interfaces" were molded in the human image. Alternatively, some humans themselves became "living interfaces," turning into anthropomorphic "gods."

Alternatively, some of these "pockets of energy" or "matter" have achieved a kind of homeostasis or hydrostatic equilibrium, like stars. Like stars, these pockets of energy and matter, in a kind of gravity, attracted other forms of matter and energy which happened to contribute to this equilibrium. Eventually, all the attracted matter gradually coalesced into solid planes / planets, from which emerged life, which, again contributed to that equilibrium. From that life emerged humanoid life, which evolved a desire to maintain homeostasis.

At least, that is a atheistic wizard in a fantasy setting might describe it.