Cryptic Aurelid
Find a character at the top of the page to see whether your account has this mount, and where that character stands on what it asks for.
Look it up on WowheadHow to get it
Earn the meta-achievement From A to Zereth: seven Zereth Mortis achievements, the slowest being Exalted with The Enlightened.
Guides Wowhead: Back from the Beyond Shadowlands Meta Achievement Guide · True Endgame: Cryptic Aurelid · Wowhead: The Enlightened Reputation Guide
Before you go
- The Enlightened to Exalted (42,000 reputation from dailies, weeklies and rares) · about 45 h over 9 weeks
- Cyphers of the First Ones: every research node (4,549 cyphers, timers up to 10 days) · 4 weeks
- Zereth Mortis campaign, all 7 chapters (103 quests) · about 5 h
- Three rares, 29 special encounters, 27 treasures, five synthesised pets or mounts · about 16 h over 7 days
In all: about 66 h of play, spread over 9 weeks, starting from nothing.
Getting there
/way Zereth Mortis 35.7 65.1 - Take the portal from Wizard's Sanctum to Oribos*
- Speak to Tal-Inara within Oribos to travel to Zereth Mortis
- Fly the rest of the way
- Take the portal from Pathfinder's Den to Oribos*
- Speak to Tal-Inara within Oribos to travel to Zereth Mortis
- Fly the rest of the way
/way is for the TomTom addon. Travel times are estimates: flying at 55 yards a second in a straight
line and 30 seconds for a portal. A star marks a portal that needs a quest or other unlock done first.
Notes and sources
A two-month project, not a trip: about 70-80 hours of play in total (estimate). The mount is granted the moment the last criterion completes.
Guides: Wowhead has no guide to this achievement alone. Its guide to the Shadowlands meta-achievement Back from the Beyond (updated 2024) has a section, From A to Zereth, that goes through all seven parts, and True Endgame's guide (updated 2024) is written for the mount. Wowhead's Enlightened reputation guide dates from 2022 and still describes the campaign as released a chapter a week.
From the guides:
- the three Dune Dominance encounters (Iska, High Reaver Damaris, Reanimatrox Marzan) appear in the Endless Sands 2 to 6 hours apart, announced by a zone-wide message (Wowhead; True Endgame says what sets them off is not known)
- 11 of the 29 rares are on a daily rotation, five of them up each day
- three treasures need Cypher research first: Drowned Broker Supplies needs Dealic Understanding, Unripened Protopear and Architect's Reserve need Sopranian Understanding
The cypher total differs by source:
- the wiki's cost table: 4,549
- Wowhead: 4,470
- True Endgame: about 4,134
Confidence in this entry: medium. Looked up in 2026.
Sources