Collect Shaohao’s Sage Serpent mount by playing Mists of Pandaria Classic

World of Warcraft players can earn a green colored variant of the Reins of the Astral Cloud Serpent mount called Shaohao’s Sage Serpent as part of the upcoming Mists of Pandaria Classic launch this July. Unlocking this mount is pretty straightforward: between July 1 and July 30, create a Pandaren character and complete the Pandaren starting experience in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Even though the expansion doesn’t launch until July 21, the Mists of Pandaria Classic pre-patch goes live on July 1 and is when the Pandaren and their starting zone, the Wandering Isle, becomes available to everyone.

The Pandaren starting zone questline takes place entirely on the Wandering Isle and is considered complete once the player chooses a side between the Alliance and Horde, you can complete it as any class available to the Pandaren and still qualify for the mount. Once you’ve completed the questline, this skyriding mount will show up in your mount collection in retail World of Warcraft only for you to claim and use.

One largely positive aspect of the Pandaren starting experience is that all characters start at level 1 so it should take most players about two-three hours to complete the zone if they’re playing at a regular pace. Like the other starting zones, players will be around level 10 at the end of the zone and move on to Stormwind City or Orgrimmar depending on the faction they choose to align with.

This isn’t the only freebie Blizzard is offering to players for Mists of Pandaria Classic either. If you’ve kept up with Season of Discovery, you can also earn a free level 85 character boost by killing Balnazzar in the Scarlet Enclave raid, which can come in handy for your newly created Pandaren character or for one of your existing Classic characters that you would prefer to take into the Mists of Pandaria Classic expansion once it launches.