1) what is wrath's power?
i know who is wrath, but i am not sure about his powers as a sin. Is he able to see/read people's mind? Coz whenever he ask Ed and others a pressing question regarding the stone, they hestitate and don't wish to answer, but later he will just laugh and treat it light'y, leaving the others in shock. Seems that he already know the answer when he look at them... what do u all thin?

2) in chap 29, wrath killed a girl hiding in Al's suit, and her blood spilled onto his blood seal. As a result, Al remember seeing the "truth" and the process whereby his soul is extracted from his body.Later in chap 31, wrath told the father that Al, as well as the teacher are the next sacrifice he had found. Does this mean that Al can perform alchemistry without a transmutation circle?

Most of the homunculi's power are like alchemical powers. However since they cannot perform alchemy themselves (src:anime ep 22), I believe the Father invested certain powers into the Sins' tattoos. These powers will generally act on the tattoos' locations and empower them but are fixed so they cannot change the ways they use them.

List of Sins & powers:

Lust - Tattoo just above cleavage. Seems to empower her to form monoblades (usually extending from fingertips).
Gluttony - Tattoo on tongue. Seems to empower him with the ability to eat & digest anything.
Envy - Tattoo on right thigh. Seems to empower him to change his body into any shape.
Greed - Tattoos on hands, more importantly the skin. Allows him to transmute carbon in skin into a diamond-like skin.
Sloth - Unknown.
Wrath - Tattoo on left iris. Speculation: The window to the soul is the eye. Wrath could simply be superhuman then, all physical abilities are amplified greatly. It could also be that Wrath can 'see' all possibilities in a situation. Hence he would always know where to strike and dodge. His eye might also allow him insight that allows him to know the opponent's weakness.

Not really. You have to see the Truth and understand it. We are still unsure if Al understood the Truth. Recall his answer to Izumi's question of "One is what, what is one?" (not exact, need to go back and get the exact quote). His seem to be the "good enough" answer but Ed's answer was the true answer.

Lastly, you use your body to form the structural(alchemical) matrix. The human body with its complex compounds and structures enable Ed & Izumi to do almost any alchemy with ease. Al has a metallic body. He could at best perform limited alchemy without using sigils.

More specificially, Ed ask al whether he saw the "Thing" immediately after he got fitted with automail. Al plainly don't know what Ed's talking about. Thus far the only two people who can use their own body to form structural matrix with their own body both managed to lost something significant. Ed lost his left feet before he saw the truth. He than uses his new found power to bind his brother's soul to the armor at the cost of his right arm. We're not sure who Izumi Curtis tried to bring back (I'm guessing a still born baby), but I'm speculating that it has cause her to be physically frail (caughing up buckets of blood at the most comical time).

Though as we saw at the end of Chapter 31, Al didn't remember the moment he was rescued by Ed until the Chimera's blood touched his seal, so he might have glimpse at The Truth, and not understand it (Ed most certaintly did).

Izumi lost her unborn child because of a sickness during her pregnancy, and she tried to bring back her child through alchemistry. She saw the "truth" and lost her kidneys. poor thing.. i think losing one's internal organs is worse then losing the limbs.. at least limbs can be replaced by automail

I believe it is not her kidneys that were taken from her. I believe it is the womb and/or ovaries. This is suggested by the touchiness over the issue of her not having anymore kids and her continued pained acceptance of joy at watching children grow. Plus the location where she patted when she mentioned what was taken seems to indicate the reproduction organs.

In this chapter, which is divided into two parts, the first part deals with this little girl from the China-like country of Xing. This girl somehow managed to traverse the impassable desert (made impossible by the burrial of the railroad line) and got into mining town that Ed & Al saved. This girl repay her gratitude to the miners for feeding her by uncollapsing the mine shaft #8 (which has some miners trapped). When they mention Edward Elric, she became extremely interesting in meeting this overly idealized version of Ed.

The second part deals with Ed & Al going to RushValley to find Winry (Ed's Automail needs more work again, after his fight with Greed). It is here that he meet a man from Xing, who's also searching for Philosopher's Stone, even though he isn't an alchemist...

The goal and type of alchemy practiced in Xing is slightly different from Amestris, where the focus is in making of potion and pills. As in Amestris, the ultimate goal is to create Philosopher's Stone, which can grant immortality.

Well, at least her imagination does resemble Ed...somewhat :heh:

The man mentioned a ruin in the middle of the desert as a midstop...maybe there's some clues regarding PS there that he overlooked? C'mon, a ruin guarded by the desert sandstorm; sure sounds suspicious to me!

Ed explains the political bodies around Ametris and that the militarization of Ametris began when Bradley came in power...so what is Father planning with all the military power? Take over the world? Wreck havoc? Hmm...

It's pretty obvious that there's something major going on at the ruins. I figure the Xerxes ruins and the nation of Amestris shared a common history or will share a common fate at least since historically Amestris was the wife of Xerxes. Plus, the whole bit with the "destroyed in one night". Brrrr.

One particularly major point that Bigfire missed was that Ed was planning on going back to Central to investigate a few things. That would also include a trip to visit Hughes (Armstrong never told them that he was killed).

He saw even more than Ed did, up to the point where he saw the completed "product". The real question is why did he see himself instead of his mother?

In my haste of running through the chapter, I failed to realized that the alchemist girl from Xing has a tiny panda who mimicks her every single movements. Is this a small scaled hybrid familiar?

Also her method of casting the alchemist sigil is interesting. She uses two sets of 5 throwing blade (each with a corresponding sigil tied ribbon). She drop the first sets of blade on the ground, and drawing a pentagram from the blade point. She then throw the second sets of blade towards the collapsed mine shaft entrance, and applied her transmutation on the smaller pentagram. The second sets of blade recreates the energy applied to the first set, and thus she is able to transmute somewhat remotely.

Yeah, she's somewhat mistaken Ed to be a tall handsome bishounen. She's going to be so disappointed when meeting the real person.

I believe it to be a true Panda! Maybe they grew them small in that world. The Xing girl is named Mei Chan. I believe Chan is the surname as it is one for the Chinese and no one addresses themselves as 'name'-chan (correct me if I'm wrong). Mei calls the panda 'Little Mei'.

Actually it can be explained through resonance and broadcast. Basically alchemical energy can be treated as energy and hence waveforms. So you can transmit and receive them through resonant materials. Hence the throwing darts actually act as the antenna for transmitting & receiving. However it is likely to be directional and requires line of sight.

Oh yes I can't wait to see that scene. I wonder how she's going to handle her disillusionment. Also how Ed is going to violently handle a female kid who most probably going to insult his height when disillusioned. :heh:

Anyone else here thinks it's modelled after the ancient city of Lou Lan? and the railway somehow sounds like the Silk Road? I mean, this railroad connects Xing and Ametris across a desert like Silk Road connects China and Europe across a desert. And Lou Lan served as a midstop of the Silk Road like that ruin as a midstop between Xing and Ametris. Also Lou Lan is now a ruin, and there are legends saying it was destroyed overnight...

Ed and Al get separated and end up fighting Lin Yao's underlings. Obviously Ed and Al win.
Three basic important points to the fights though.
1. Al can now transmute without drawing a circle.
2. The guy Ed was fighting turned out to be a pretty cute girl o.o
3. Ed had to resort to deconstructing a part of his arm to remove it and use it as bait to lure out and trap his opponent.

After the fight is over, Lin consults his servants and decides that he'll have to kiss up to Ed and Al in order to find out what they know. Apparently, whatever reason he has for wanting to obtain the so-called immortality that the Philosopher's Stone grants is pretty serious.
After that, Lin notices something unusual in the sky and thinks that there's something strange going on in this country.

And so, Lin sucks up to Ed and decides much to Ed's dismay to become his friend and go with him to Central (after the automail gets repaired).

The last several pages has Scar riding in a horse-drawn wagon (with Yoki as the driver hahaha) to get to Central (remember, the slums where Scar was recuperating at was located in East City).

So, Al has finally remembered the seeing 'truth' as seen by Ed and Izumi. At the end of Chapter 30, King Bradley personally wipe out Greed's gang, and one of the last one was hiding inside of Al's armor. When Bradley killed her, blood splashed inside of Al's armor for the first time, and onto his soul binding sigil. This allowed him to remember what happened Ed & Al tried to resurrect their mother. And he does see the shape of his mother's soul. Except when he reached for it, it becomes himself dissolving. This is somewhat different from Ed's experience at the end of Chapter 23, where he went through the door and back. He talked to a soul who claimed to be 'himself' and 'himself' exacted the payment for seeing the 'truth'. Al didn't managed to come back through the door by himself like Ed did, but the fact that he went across the threshhold of the truth and back is enough to do transmutation without sigil. He just have to remember it.

Ooooo....:eyespin::love: possible addition to Ed's harem :heh:?

Since Ed basically messed up his automail up again and also messed around with a pretty young thing, did Winry turn him into paste again? :heh:

After travelling in the desert without much food and water, Lin's servants still have energy to fight with Ed and Al. haha

Seems that everyone is going to meet in central.. btw did Winry follow them to central?

She'll probably end up as being nothing more than Lin's love interest, unfortunately.

So far, Winry has only met Lin so she doesn't know how Ed mangled his arm. He still got slaughtered though.

Ed and the others haven't actually left Rush Valley yet. Winry did get permission from Garfiel to go with them to see Hughes though, so yeah. EVERYONE will ultimately meet up at Central.