very nice!

its no problem man, topic wasn't that original but quite interesting, including the backstory. I gave it a "very satisfied", and I'm pretty sure Voile was the only one that downvoted this kata lol.

Wow, I didn't think this would get approved after 2 months and the long, and honestly very childish, discourse I had with Voile.

I guess answering questions on older katas has its advantages. Thank you very much for approving it, even if this isn't my best work.

just approved it at 5kyu

Nicely done! I agree; I hope this kata gets approved as I appreciate it and all the discussion that stemmed from it.

I forked this solution to demonstrate the effect of a suggestion from Yushi's analysis.

I just ran your solution: Time: 10889ms Passed: 121Failed: 0

very fun question and optimizations, my code reliably passed the tests with at most 6000ms so you dont have to depend on luck.

there is always a level of randomness in the tests as expected, but if you are passing only sometimes there might be more optimizations to try.
Nonetheless, optimizing code for speed is important and fun.
I hope this kata is approved :)