Korva is pretty sure that the gods did create mortals from scratch at some point - even with the claims about heredity in some of the past transcripts, which she has read, she's still extremely dubious about the idea that no higher power has ever shaped a lower one from nothingness or near-nothingness - but it does seem possible that no mortal has ever developed the power, and if it can be done with math at all, then it makes sense that it's the sort of thing a mortal could do. If Keltham does know some sort of building block towards mortals shaping mortals from scratch, that's the sort of thing that would go some way in explaining why the gods are so obsessed with him.
It's terribly inconvenient that this would actually be an important thing to study, given that Korva hasn't been following along for the past several minutes and is once again despairing of her future. Although if even dath ilan hasn't figured it out, then it seems pretty improbable that the collection of people here will.