Bonus Chapter: Tales of the Master

The chapter opens on Izumi, before she took the Curtis name, collapsed and near death in a snowbound forest during a storm. A flashback carries the story back to her arrival at a building in the mountains, where she presents herself to an elderly man she addresses as Silver Steiner, having traveled there on the strength of his reputation for alchemical knowledge. The old man appears hard of hearing and makes her repeat herself, but confirms his name and, when she asks to become his apprentice, hands her a single knife and sets her trial: endure a full month in the wilderness with nothing else. She finds the demand strange yet accepts it.

Waking in the snow to find herself still alive, Izumi begins plotting how to survive. A Briggs soldier confronts her at gunpoint, taking her for a spy out of Drachma, and when he refuses to relent she knocks him out and helps herself to his food and gear. Later, exhausted and starving with no strength left to run or fight, she reflects on how insignificant her existence is and how nature's balance would carry on whether she lived or died. From this she concludes that nature's immense flow is built from countless small beings like herself, and that learning to work with that flow is the essence of alchemy, giving rise to the principle One is All and All is One. A month on, soldiers gossip about a mysterious woman ambushing their comrades in the mountains just as Izumi strides in, drops a dead bear before the old man, and again asks to be taught. He replies that she must mean his younger brother, revealing himself as Gold Steiner, an elder sibling renowned in wrestling rather than alchemy, and adds that the brother she sought has passed away. Though he offers to take her on anyway since she proved she could last a month, a furious Izumi beats him up and walks off.

The chapter was featured in Fullmetal Alchemist Perfect Guidebook 2, released in Japan in September 2005. It depicts Izumi without her later signature box braids.