Ben

Ben Faulkner is Leo's original assassin master and surrogate father. Recreated from Lost Heroes game records as a cybernetic copy, he becomes a robotic member of the Skyshard family and returns to battle after Amanda builds him a body suited to his accumulated combat knowledge.

Biography

A master restored to the family

Leo Skyshard remembers Ben as the instructor who raised him through brutal assassin training and names him alongside his closest family. Wanting that relationship restored rather than merely commemorated, Leo asks for a cybernetic reconstruction carrying Ben's game-record memories. The resulting Ben recognizes their bond and joins the household, but his first heavy robot body cannot circulate mana or express the assassination methods he still remembers, leaving his identity intact while his practical purpose is constrained. (Chapters 253, 320, 364, 372, and 403)

Amanda answers that frustration by designing a lighter, silent, reinforced frame and investigating a synthetic mana heart. After transferring Ben's mind into the new body, she backs up his memories and allows him to accompany Leo to war. Ben uses flight boosters, guided throwing daggers, reinforced limbs, and arm blades against resisting soldiers, recovering an active mentor's role even though later repairs remain necessary after combat damage. (Chapters 466, 521, 531–555)

Ben subsequently serves as one of the people Leo trusts to protect his home, remains part of family gatherings, and is still active as a robot at Caleb and Mairon's tournament celebration. His continuation through repairable hardware and backed-up memory reduces ordinary bodily risk, but the corpus never claims he is indestructible or resolves the philosophical difference between the original man and his reconstructed continuity. (Chapters 555, 641, 709, 775, 805, and 1102)

Appearance and personality

Ben's first reconstructed body is a full metal frame covered by a thin skin-like layer and capable of reproducing his familiar expressions. Amanda's replacement has gunmetal-gray plating, seamless contours, reinforced joints, and movement designed to make little sound before cosmetic skin and hair are added. Across bodies he remains gruff, competitive, affectionate toward Leo's family, fond of cooking arguments, and eager to prove he can still fight. (Chapters 372, 403, 521, and 531)

Abilities and power progression

• Ben's original expertise is assassination instruction: he gives Leo the flexibility, technique, and mindset that underpin later high-profile kills. The corpus recalls that training but does not provide Ben's biological cultivation rank or a complete list of techniques. (Chapters 253, 475, and 514)
• His first robotic frame cannot circulate mana effectively, making much of his old knowledge unusable. Amanda's second body improves silence, joint strength, durability, and mobility; its proposed synthetic mana heart is discussed, but the supplied scenes do not explicitly confirm the final installed heart's exact output. (Chapters 403, 466, and 521)
• In war, built-in targeting guides thrown daggers, leg boosters enable flight and midair redirection, armored limbs support impact attacks, and arm blades provide close-range kills. He ignores pain and can charge through ordinary weapons, but his battered condition after the campaign shows that damage still accumulates and requires repair. (Chapters 531 and 551–555)
• Memory cloud backups make destruction of one frame less final, but no recovery time, copy limit, or immunity to data loss is quantified. His latest observed state is functional in a robot body, not a demonstrated return to organic cultivation. (Chapters 531 and 1102)

Relationships

• Leo Skyshard regards Ben as master, second father, and trusted family defender. Ben reciprocates as a teacher who still calls Leo his boy and returns to his battlefield side. (Chapters 253, 364, 403, 531, and 641)
• Amanda rebuilds Ben's body, plans its mana system, and protects his continuity with backups, treating his restored agency as a family responsibility. (Chapters 403, 466, 521, and 531)
• Dumpy is Ben's household rival in cooking, drinking, and competitive claims about battle, but their banter rests on shared loyalty to Leo's family. (Chapters 372, 531, 775, 805, and 1102)

Items

Ben's principal possession is his replaceable robotic body, equipped in its later version with flight boosters, a targeting system, arm blades, and throwing daggers. His first frame secretly contains a surveillance bug planted in an ear implant; Amanda's rebuild removes that access even though Ben did not knowingly use or control the device. (Chapters 485, 502, 521, 551, and 563–571)