It’s hard to read things back in time. Because you read them and you think “oh, this feels derivative” and, no, it’s the thing from which all that you know is derived. But encountering the Ur-text in the wrong order is confusing.
So, anyway, this was fascinating and, with the obvious grain of salt that martial arts don’t WORK that way and we don’t really write fantasy novels where they do (except Yoon Ha Lee’s machineries of empire trilogy somehow manages to do so because reasons, but okay), really fun to read. But, yeah, reading backwards. It’s a heck of a thing.