Mists of Pandaria "Level Boost"

I’ve never made a topic on here so I apologize if I don’t understand how to categorize my question.

Back in February of 2013, I briefly lived with a friend who worked as a GM in the Blizzard offices down the street from our apartment. He would often bring home WoW and Starcraft II memorabilia. I told him I loved playing WoW, but I had to stop because the zone I found myself stuck in made me wanna strangle someone because of how boring and painfully slow it was to level in. It essentially killed my enthusiasm for the game, that zone being pre-Cataclysm Desolace.

So I hadn’t touched the game since Wrath and he said the newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, was exactly my type of thing. He knew I loved Chinese aesthetics and pandas are my favorite animal, so I was sure to like it. He told me he’d be able to take my Blood Elf Paladin and “Soar” him to level 80 so I could just start right away in Pandaria and ignore the tedious level grind. I took him up on the offer.

I found out my character’s name had also been changed because I hadn’t logged on in many years and he told me he could just just get it changed for me. He did so and “Kail” was back to his former self. When I logged in, there was a little icon (where the level boost icon of today now sits) with the number 80 in a golden circle with wings on either side of it. Because he had called it “Soaring” I assumed the wings were a reference to that.

For the longest time, I didn’t think much of it. I called level boosts “Soaring” for years after that and the only reason I’m now writing this is because a friend asked why I call it “Soaring.” I told him this story and he had never heard of it. I’ve looked everywhere online and I can’t find anyone who has mentioned “Soaring” either. And this isn’t a normal level boost because my Blood Elf Paladin was still able to get his heirloom armor even though I skipped from level 42 to 80, way back in the day.

So my question is this: Is there anyone here who worked as a GM back in Mists of Pandaria that is familiar with what I assume is an early prototype of the level boost that was introduced in Warlords or simply a GM-only perk that because a public feature later?