Helen held a piece of stone in her palm. She concentrated on it, focusing all of her Intent into it as she commanded the stone to lift. The stone trembled slightly, nearly becoming weightless, but it didn't float.
Helen strained with her eyes on the stone, but she could barely make it stand on its point. Beyond that, she failed to do anything at all.
She let out a breath as the stone dropped back onto her palm.
"God, my head."
The pain that came with trying to use one's Intent directly, and not through any medium either physical or with Qi, was extremely high.
"You'll get better," Alex told her. "Imagine this as though you are trying to use a Dao you don't understand in the slightest. While normally you could do nothing since you don't have a Dao, with Intent, it gets used up regardless. And if you don't find the right way to use it, it would be no different from trying to carry a weight whose center of mass is on the edge instead of its center."
