Keep top level comments as only solutions, if you want to say something other than a solution put it in a new post. (replies to comments can be whatever)
You can send code in code blocks by using three backticks, the code, and then three backticks or use something such as https://topaz.github.io/paste/ if you prefer sending it through a URL
Is there a leaderboard for the community?: We have a programming.dev leaderboard with the info on how to join in this post: https://programming.dev/post/6631465
Part 2 was tricky, I tried executing the algorithm backwards, which worked fine for the example but not with the input program, because it uses one-way functions .-.
Then I tried to write an algorithm that would try all valid combinations of powers of 8 and but I failed, I then did it by hand.