Marcus's body slowly sank to the bottom of the lake with the current.
He felt his consciousness gradually dissipating, and the mud and sand at the bottom of the lake provided a sense of grounding for his fractured body.
Perhaps due to excessive blood loss, Marcus felt a warm sensation emanating from the lake sand beneath him, which significantly alleviated his pain.
"So this is what death feels like..." Marcus's eyes were unfocused; the warmth from below made him feel drowsy, and the oxygen deprivation in his brain from severe blood loss had already caused him to hallucinate.
Large fish swimming around stirred the lake water, and the gold sand at the bottom was agitated, with some grains floating past Marcus's eyes.
"Such beautiful sand. This is a good place to be buried..." Marcus thought as he watched the golden lake sand sway with the current before his eyes.
In the silent lake, Marcus peacefully closed his eyes, but in the next instant, the young man with green hair immediately opened his eyes wide.
Marcus's gaze fell on the golden lake sand stirred up by the swimming fish, and his pale face regained a hint of color due to excitement.
"This..."
Marcus struggled to turn his head to the side; the lake bed was covered in shimmering gold sand, along with several fist-sized, irregularly shaped energy crystals radiating a golden-yellow glow.
"gold sand! And Golden Sand Crystal!"
Marcus's eyes widened.
He recognized both materials.
gold sand, a common earth-element granular magic material, hard in texture, incredibly heavy, possessing excellent magic conductivity, and capable of absorbing free earth-element magic power from the air.
It is generally used in making staves for earth-element Mages or as the casing or decoration for common magic artifacts.
Golden Sand Crystal! A rare material!
It is a type of earth-element magic crystal.
It only appears in places with a large amount of gold sand.
gold sand itself has the characteristic of absorbing earth-element magic power from the air, but it can only attract, not absorb.
When a sufficient amount of gold sand attracts a large quantity of earth-element magic power and accumulates to a certain degree, this magic power will condense into a crystalline form under the influence of the gold sand.
Golden Sand Crystal contains an astonishing amount of earth-element magic power, and cultivating with this magic crystal can help earth-element Mages quickly increase their magic power.
As a user of sand magic, a variant of earth-element magic, he understood common earth-element materials.
Among them, gold sand was something Ezreal had mentioned to him as a special material that could help him improve his combat power.
The feeling of weakness in his body became increasingly apparent; Marcus knew he was about to die.
On the brink of life and death, a crazy thought ignited in Marcus's heart.
"I'm going to die anyway, so why not give it a shot!" he yelled in his heart.
"Gaara's mother injected all her life and soul power into the sand before she died to form that kind of magical sand, right?"
"Life force, soul force..."
"I can only try, I hope it works!"
Marcus gritted his teeth, releasing his last remaining trace of life force, mixed with magic power and soul power, without reservation.
That invisible force, like a giant net, enveloped the surrounding Golden Sand Crystal and gold sand.
The lake's current became turbulent due to his magic power fluctuations, and the surrounding fish scattered in fright.
Marcus's body trembled as he tried to guide this power, allowing himself to merge with those precious materials.
Time passed by, minute by minute, and Marcus's face grew paler.
"It must succeed!" he constantly encouraged himself in his heart.
However, fate did not seem to favor him immediately.
No matter how hard he tried, the fusion process was exceptionally difficult. His power was constantly draining, and his consciousness became increasingly blurry.
Finally, Marcus could no longer hold on, his vision went black, and he completely lost consciousness.
His body seemed to lose its last support, gradually turning into fine sand and dissipating into the lake water.
The bottom of the lake returned to calm, as if nothing had happened.
However, not long after, subtle movements began to appear in the gold sand at the center of the lake bed.
Initially, it was just a slight tremor, then the gold sand began to slowly rotate.
As if alive, the gold sand completely enveloped the surrounding Golden Sand Crystal, gradually speeding up and forming a giant gold sand vortex.
The lake water churned violently, and powerful magic power fluctuations emanated from the vortex.
The surrounding fish and shrimp were pushed away by this force, not daring to approach.
The mud and sand at the bottom of the lake were stirred up, creating a murky area.
But at the center of the vortex, a dazzling golden light shimmered.
Not long after, as the rotation of the gold sand gradually stopped, the gold sand began to recondense.
They combined and arranged themselves in an orderly fashion, as if following some mysterious law.
Slowly, a humanoid outline gradually became clear.
It was Marcus!
He had successfully fused with the gold sand and Golden Sand Crystal!
Marcus slowly opened his eyes, which gleamed with a golden light, a light like the brilliant stars in the night sky, bright and profound.
He floated silently in the lake water, moving his body slightly, feeling every movement incredibly light and fluid.
"I can survive underwater! My injuries actually..."
Marcus was pleasantly surprised to find that he didn't need to breathe, yet his body felt no sensation of suffocation, and the once fatal injuries on his body had not only fully recovered.
Moreover, he seemed to have gained some entirely new, unimaginable abilities.
Marcus excitedly looked at his arm; with a thought, his arm instantly transformed into a large mass of dazzling gold sand. The gold sand shimmered with a mysterious light in the water, and after a few seconds, it recondensed into a solid arm under his will.
"Elementalization!"
Marcus was filled with surprise and disbelief.
This was an ability only attainable when elemental magic cultivation reached a high level!
To transform one's body into an elemental form for a certain period, eliminating all vital points of the flesh.
It grants immunity to most physical damage, allows for the arbitrary restructuring of body parts when injured.
And, it enhances the Mage's control over elemental magic!
It can even enable the creation of weather changes by human power, like Laxus.
Aside from prolonged elementalization leading to the Mage's complete assimilation with elemental energy and death, it is an ability with almost no weaknesses.
For Mages with ordinary talent, reaching such a level might be difficult in a lifetime.
Marcus had not expected to acquire such an ability.
What surprised Marcus even more was that he sensed a fist-sized golden crystal sphere in his chest.
That energy sphere, like his second heart, slowly beat with his breathing.
"Magic Crystal?" Marcus was exceptionally delighted.
This was a special magic crystal that only creatures with immense magic power were capable of forming within their bodies; it could store magic skills, magic insights, and preserve the soul.
He felt the surging magic power within his body, a power dozens of times stronger than before.
Marcus had fused all the Golden Sand Crystal at the bottom of the lake; although the quantity was not large and the volume was small, it was still an earth-element magic crystal, and even a small piece contained an unimaginable amount of magic power for an ordinary person.