list

missing "non-empty"

In description says return the smaller number if 2 numbers are same distance from n, but right now asking for the one appear first.

retired, duplicate

yes

Duplicate?

ah ok

Let me edit the description to make it clearer, also I will put some hints.

The main difference between this 2 Kata is that going back to the beginning point or not

For this one, you can save 1 step in certain situation, because you can end at anywhere.

Ending at one of the particular points will save you 1 step. But these points might not always exist, so you will see it has 1 less in some cases, but not all.

Are the solutions of the first kata even correct? I find that your ref sol here has in many cases -1 moves than the expected min number of the other kata.

.

Forgot about this, now user will be given a copy of grid, should be fixed.

Random tests are vulnerable to input modification.

Lua translation!

Damn, I thought 42 characters was the optimum, but you managed to pull off 41. Well done!

Interesting finding a solution in linear time.