While Bumpy was inside the man's pouch, he tried to absorb his experiences.  He pondered the thoughts of gods and men.  He questioned wormie theology as he knew it.  He wondered how his family and the village were faring.  But most of all he replayed his vision with the beautiful girl wormie over and over again, trying to make sense of what was happening to him.  He was keenly aware of things going on outside, using both his sense of hearing and smell.  He finally realized he was on a long journey somewhere.  He occasionally heard the sounds of shouting and battle, although he wasn't sure what it meant.

 After what seemed to Bumpy was years spent travelling, the man finally took him out of the pouch and put him in a small jar of soil.  Bumpy now saw that the round bright sky ball didn't shine in this place; only small sharp lights that were strewn about a dark sky.  The man appeared to shed his shell, and sat down next to Bumpy's jar.  The man seemed to eye up Bumpy, as if to make sense of him.  Then the man said, "I don't know if you are a god come to deceive me, little slug, but I intend to make you my own private treasure trove, as Ares is my witness!".  Bumpy didn't like the sound of that, but he remembered his vision and kept an open mind.

 The man started to treat Bumpy differently than Hand ever did.  Instead of dropping the yummy food that Bumpy was used to, the man gave him a red liquid that tasted yucky.  In the beginning Bumpy refused to eat this new food, but after a few days he got hungry and had no choice.  After a while, though, he got used to it. The man taught Bumpy how to do things, like how to lift a heavy stick over and over again, how to stand up on his tail end; things like that.  He told Bumpy stories of his life, of things called battles and how these things made the man rich and famous.  Bumpy, ever conscious of the vision in his dream, paid attention to the stories and tried to learn his lessons well.

 A month passed since Bumpy was brought to his new home, and even though Bumpy couldn't see it, he had grown tremendously in that time.  He was now able to lift branches, big ones, and toss them quite a distance.  He could perform acrobatic tricks, like jumping and twisting in mid-air, and he could crawl as fast as the man could walk.  But the biggest change in Bumpy was in his own mind.  Bumpy now fancied himself quite the earthworm indeed.  He spent a lot of time in front of the shiny wall looking at his reflection. The man praised him all the time, and told him that someday he could be the best thing to ever happen for all earthwormdom.  Bumpy believed everything the man told him, especially about himself, and on a time Bumpy asked the man if there was any task that he could perform to prove his worth.  The man pondered that a moment, and a smiled seemed to slowly grow on his face.

 Then man started instructing Bumpy in the art of combat.  He showed him how to lunge and parry with his body, how to perform different techniques designed to knock down opponents and stun them.  The man started to give Bumpy other strange liquids as well as chunks of smelly stuff covered with the red liquid.  The man also started doing things that were strange to Bumpy; ceremonies that were noisy and smokey, and the man called out the name Ares a lot.  During these ceremonies the man often held Bumpy high up in the sky.  Although Bumpy thought it strange, he wasn't much scared anymore.

 One morning after a ceremony that was especially smokey, Bumpy was having a hard time talking.  He crawled over to the shiny wall and to his wonder he noticed sharp white things growing out of his face!  When the man saw what happened, he praised the gods and told Bumpy the time had come to face his first opponent in combat...to the death!

 The man took Bumpy outside along with a wide shallow bowl and a small mouse.  He put the bowl on the ground and placed the mouse in the bowl.  Then he took out a vial with a liquid Bumpy had never seen before.  He put a drop of the liquid in Bumpy's mouth and dropped him into the bowl as well.  Now Bumpy looked up at this huge monster that skittered around the bowl, and he began to worry a little; after all he heard stories as a toddlewormie about such creatures and they frightened him.  But the liquid was taking hold, and Bumpy felt strange; he was growing very angry, more angry than he ever felt before.  He was gaining strength, too.  He now looked at the mouse and saw his worst enemy.  All of Bumpy's thoughts were now concentrated on defeating his enemy there in the bowl, and he crawled towards it.

 It was over in a blink of an eye.  Bumpy had his first taste of battle, and he rejoiced in it...until the liquid wore off, that is.  Bumpy looked at his vanquished foe lying dead next to him, and he started to cry.  But the man didn't let Bumpy rest for long.  He put a bigger mouse in with Bumpy and gave the earthworm another dose of liquid, with the same results.

 These exercises were repeated over and over for many days, and with each passing day the liquid would have a longer effect on Bumpy.  The liquid caused Bumpy to appear drunken with rage and somewhat obnoxious; revelling in his own apparent bloodlust. Only rarely did Bumpy have moments where he was wholly clear of the liquid's effects, usually at night when he was in bed, and at those times he thought back to his sandpile, and his mommy, and the beautiful girl wormie in his dream, and he wept.