Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig L3.net. NS
Answer
L3.net. 5 NS ns1.L3.net.
L3.net. 5 NS ns1.Level3.net.
L3.net. 5 NS ns2.L3.net.
L3.net. 5 NS ns2.Level3.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.l3.net. 5 A 209.244.0.1
ns2.l3.net. 5 A 209.244.0.2
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0