All citizens are assumed, automatically, to have accepted the Covenant of Mantor at birth, although each youth (of either sex) officially accepts it (or repudiates it) in his fifteenth year. To knowingly and willingly practice magic for any purpose is, by definition and automatically, to reject the Covenant and its benefits. (Note that this does not apply to worshipping other gods or goddesses along with Mantor--he's not jealous--but only to the working of secular magic. But devotees of other gods who want the benefits of the Covenant must also subscribe to and practice the code of honor that goes with it--which lets out some gods and their followers.)

The Covenant dates from roughly four or five hundred years ago, during the Civil War period. The primary question of the Civil War--who would be Emperor--was settled, finally, by single combat between the contenders. One had an ensorcelled blade, the other (the winner) bore the holy sword given by Mantor to the ruling house nearly four hundred years previously. Stories differ as to just how the original Covenant came to be made, but it is agreed that the Emperor claimed his victory was made possible by it. (A dark rumor has it that this battle was also the inspiration for the founding of the Nai Shang Academy of sorcerous infamy--that the sorcerers, being deprived of their political power by the wholesale adoption of the Covenant, resolved to prove that magic was as powerful as Mantor.)