Python minimize sum of connected or interconnected numpy array values

Question

I have a 2D numpy array with the following values e.g:

[[1 -2 -4 -3 1],
[1 0 -1 -2 3],
[-100 2 4 3 0],
[ 1 -2 4 -3 3],
[ 1 2 1 3 1]]

I want to identify 1 or more Min values. The total amount of requested cells is defined as TOT_CELLS = 1,2,3....n.
For example, if TOT_CELLS is 2, optimization  procedure must return values -100 and -2 that are connected. If TOT_CELLS=3, optimal values are -100,0 and -4 that are interconnected.
How can i implement this?

Answer 1

That array is 5D not 2D