The best option for the next step in Marcus's proof is Option #1: Use the Product Rule of Exponents to rewrite the equation as \( mn = b^{x+y} \).
This follows logically because \( b^{x} \cdot b^{y} = b^{x+y} \) is the Product Rule of Exponents. Therefore, it’s the correct way to proceed from \( mn = b^{x} \cdot b^{y} \). The next logical step would be to relate this back to logarithms.