"The victor of round one is... Lemi Lightfoot!"
This announcement from the judges' table surprised nobody. Mir hadn't been able to fight back effectively, whereas Lemi had left visible marks on his face.
But something else in that announcement was quite the shock for many of them, including Mir himself. And that was the victor's surname.
Surnames were exclusive to the aristocrats living in the subterranean cities. Each Nation under the United Empire could at most grant 100 surnames to their elite citizens. This grant could come due to a tremendous amount of assets, or contribution to the Nation in certain fields, or even for having a high number of influential transcenders in a big family.
