Beyond this, however, the many hardships that the Elrics face on their adventures lead them to question how viable it is as a way to live one's life. They see many individuals put hard work in, only to be met with no reward, and see many lives sacrificed in the name of individuals - situations in which no equivalency appears to exist. After being confronted with this by Dante, Edward Elric finally concluded that the world was too complex a place for the law to apply to everything in life, and too imperfect for one law to explain everything, but he still chose to believe in the principle the law represents.
“ The world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange doesn't encompass everything that goes on here. But I still choose to believe in its principle: that all things do come at a price. That there's an ebb, and a flow, a cycle. That the pain we went through did have a reward and that anyone who's determined and perseveres will get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected. ”
—Alphonse Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist
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Philosopher's Stone
The Philosopher's Stone: those who possess it, no longer bound by the laws of Equivalent Exchange and Alchemy, may gain without sacrifice, create without Equal Exchange. We searched for it, and we found it. ”
—Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist
The Philosopher's Stone is thought by alchemists to allow the keeper to bypass Equivalent Exchange. The stone actually provides a way for the energy of human souls to be stored and channelled as a direct source of energy and material for transmutations. When the Philosopher's Stone is used, a certain number of souls are used up and taken away, lessening the stone's power, and eventually the number of souls deplete fully, and the stone erodes away. So in reality the stone does not bypass the Equivalent Exchange but provides an alternative to what is exchanged. It is possible through transmutation to turn an inanimate object or even a person into the stone. For example, Scar transferred the array onto Alphonse's armor, and then used the array to perform the Grand Arcanum, which created the stone out of Alphonse's armor. But when an object or body is transformed, it will decay and disappear in proportion to the erosion of the stone. It was also suggested in the series that if one of the Homunculi were to consume an object that was turned into the stone, the stone would revert to its perfect crystal form, which is why Dante orders Gluttony to consume Al to form a complete stone in his stomach.
In the manga version, a Philosopher's Stone is instrumental in creating Homunculi. Human components are gathered around the Philosopher's Stone and then transmuted into the Homunculus.
