Min-Max Path

There are $N$ stones numbered $1$ through $N$. Each stone has a value written on it; for each valid $i$, the value on stone $i$ is $V_i$. You are initially on the first stone and your goal is to jump to stone $N$ by perfoming a valid sequence of jumps. Formally, let's denote a sequence of visited stones during these jumps by $S_1, S_2, \ldots, S_M$, where $M-1$ is the number of jumps. Then, the f