
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
A rock travelled through an n x n board, stepping at each turn to the cell neighbouring the previous one by a side, so that each cell was visited once. Bob has put the integer numbers from 1 to n^2 into the cells, corresponding to the order in which the rook has passed them. Let M be the greatest difference of the numbers in neighbouring by side cells. What is the minimal possible value of M?

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
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