Prototype Leaper

About 4 weeks of waiting or dailiesGuaranteed

Shadowlands · Profession

The game's mount journal

Profession: Protoform Synthesis

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 Wowhead

How to get it

Craft it at the mount forge of Protoform Synthesis in Zereth Mortis from Schematic: Prototype Leaper, 350 Genesis Motes, a Bufonid Lattice and a Tools of Incomprehensible Experimentation. The schematic is in the Forgotten Proto-Vault, a treasure on a mountain top above the Untamed Verdure; the lattice drops from the zone's frogs; the Tools are a rare drop from Lihuvim in the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid.

Time there about 5 min a visit

Guide Wowhead: Protoform Synthesis: Eternity's End Mount and Pet Crafting System

Before you go

Cypher research timers: Aealic 18 h, Dealic 3 d 18 h, Sopranian 5 d 18 h, one after another · 10.25 days
Zereth Mortis campaign to chapter 3, which opens the Cypher Console, and 470 Cyphers of the First Ones (Metrial 5, Aealic 45, Dealic 200, Sopranian 220) · about 5 h
The quests that open the mount forge once Sopranian Understanding is researched: Finding Tahli and the chain after it (The Final Song), then after a daily reset The Lost Component and A New Architect · about 1.5 h over 2 days
The schematic, in the Forgotten Proto-Vault at 67.0, 69.4 on top of a mountain overlooking the Untamed Verdure. Fly up (flying in Zereth Mortis is the account-wide achievement Unlocking the Secrets), or ride the Bounding Bufonid of the world quest Frog'it up on a day it is offered, or climb with a displacement ability such as Door of Shadows from 63.4, 73.2 by way of 63.7, 73.8; 65.8, 70.8; 66.1, 70.4; 66.1, 69.8; 66.1, 68.7; 66.1, 68.5. It starts Schematic Reassimilation: Prototype Leaper, handed in at the forge · about 0.25 h
A Tools of Incomprehensible Experimentation from Lihuvim in the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid (entrance at 81.0, 53.3 in Zereth Mortis; on Raid Finder the wing Cornerstone of Creation, entered through Ta'elfar in Oribos at 41.5, 71.2): about a 6% drop, with one loot per difficulty each week for a character, so some 16 or 17 kills are to be expected, four weeks of Raid Finder, Normal, Heroic and Mythic on one character or fewer weeks with more characters · about 3 h over 4 weeks
350 Genesis Motes (most creatures in Zereth Mortis) and a Bufonid Lattice, a low-chance drop from the zone's frog creatures, likelier from rare ones · about 2 h

In all: about 11.8 h of play, spread over 4 weeks, starting from nothing.

Getting there

Mount Synthesis Forge, Protoform Repository

Zereth Mortis · 70.2, 28.6

/way Zereth Mortis 70.2 28.6

From Stormwind (Alliance) about 2.4 min of travel

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

From Orgrimmar (Horde) about 2.4 min of travel

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

The journal says only 'Protoform Synthesis'. The recipe is 350 Genesis Motes, 1 Tools of Incomprehensible Experimentation and 1 Bufonid Lattice by Wowhead's data for the craft (spell 365062), the wiki and Wowhead comments; the table in Wowhead's guide (updated 2025) says 400 motes.

The Tools are what makes this mount slow. Wowhead's count by difficulty:

Raid Finder: 229 in 4,535 loots (5.05%)
Normal: 359 in 6,553 (5.48%)
Heroic: 300 in 3,875 (7.74%)
Mythic: 251 in 3,837 (6.54%)

They bind to the Warband and are Unique (3), so other characters can hunt them and send them over. The other sources: the quest A New Architect gives one, once for the account, and the Deathrunner uses it (Wowhead comments; the Deathrunner's notes); an Olea Cache, 700 Cyphers of the First Ones from Olea Manu, has held one in 199 of 22,954 recorded openings (0.87%).

Players' own counts:

2 Tools in 23 Raid Finder kills (2023)
3 in 30 (2026)
2 from 52 kills and 168 caches (2022)
none in about 50 (2024)

Who can loot them is not settled: comments of 2022-2024 say only a character that has opened the mount forge sees them drop; comments of 2024, 2025 and 2026 report them on characters that had done nothing in Zereth Mortis, and one of 2026 never saw one on such a character.

Inside the raid, a 2025 comment takes the Ancient Translocator at the start of the Raid Finder wing to Genesis Cradle Omega, with Lihuvim straight ahead; on the other difficulties the same stop opens when Subjugator Zeltoth, in the hallway after the first boss, is killed before he teleports away (2025 comments). The wiki lists Lihuvim sixth among the raid's bosses and on his own page calls him the fifth.

The schematic's vault:

Wowhead's guide: the Untamed Verdure, 67.0, 69.4
the wiki: the Catalyst Gardens, 67.0, 69.5
comments: 67.0, 69.4

Until a hotfix of 29 September 2022 the vault only showed while Frog'it was up; it no longer needs the world quest (warcrafttavern.com quoting the hotfix). If the vault was emptied before the mount forge was opened, the schematic lies by itself at the same spot (Wowhead's guide). A 2022 comment found the spot empty until the chest came back while the player waited. The climb's waypoints are a 2022 player's, who needed Door of Shadows or flying for it; another made the jumps with an item that crosses a distance, which reached far enough only at the fifth level of its Cypher research (a 2022 reply).

Wowhead's guide says the mount-only rare reagents start to appear once the Sopranian research and the forge quests are done, and that a lattice pets use too drops from the Dealic research on; the Bufonid Lattice is used by pets. Comments say the lattice can be had from other players on the auction house, a mention only.

The mount shares its research gate of about 10 days and the forge unlock with the other Protoform Synthesis mounts, and the Tools with the Deathrunner and the Unsuccessful Prototype Fleetpod. Guides give two spots for the forge: Wowhead's guide 68.5, 30.1 for the Protoform Repository's cave, comments 70.2, 28.6 for the Servitor Interface itself, which is used here as for this guide's other forge mounts. The raid is not given as the instance because the mount is made at the forge; the raid visits are one of the requirements. wow.gg's guide (2026) is not linked: it has the Tools coming from rare creatures and treasures of the zone, which no other source says. The item binds when picked up.

Confidence in this entry: medium. Looked up in 2026.

Sources