What slight edge does Wade have on the other gunters? How did he use it to his advantage?

In Ready Player One, Wade’s crucial edge is that he realizes the location of the first key (the “Tomb of Horrors”) is actually on Ludus, the free virtual planet where he attends high school. Most other gunters assume they need to travel off‐world—which costs credits—but Wade is already on Ludus and can reach the tomb on foot.

Because he’s poor and can’t afford teleportation or interplanetary travel, Wade studies the clue until he figures out that the coordinates match a spot on Ludus itself. He then simply walks there, enters the tomb, and wins the Copper Key before anyone else. This “small” insight—recognizing that the first key is hidden in plain sight on a free, “low‐level” planet—gives him a head start over the entire competition.