Well this might not be quite what you're looking for, but perhaps you might want to try Isaac. It's not really a cultivation novel per se, but the MC is a soldier who died and gets transported to another world of Martial Arts + Magic and is unable to use either. So the story is about how he has to use his brain and sheer audacity to overcome obstacles.
Without knocking Martial World, cheat is literally introduced in chapter 0. However MC finds it much later in chapter 2. As an anti-recommendation, The Gamer. Though not a cultivation novel and not even a novel. Its MC is completely the opposite of the OP's criteria.
Is not a cheat, he can't really use it because his cultivation is too low and its explained in the first ARC actually. So give it a try!
If you're scared off by just that, yeah, it's not the story for you. It's not a bad story, it's just that it takes a while to "get started" on the "meaty" parts most Cultivation Novel Readers expect by chapter 20. He also doesn't, in my opinion, have divine luck, he has developing luck, that is, luck that improves as he ages. He starts at about 3 out of 10, and is currently at 7 out of 10. Divine Luck would 10 or 11 out of 10, and probably be a trait unique to the character. Basically, for people with Divine Luck, they're the only ones who run into Divine Treasures, and end up owning most of the important Divine Treasures in existence, despite them being known about and there being people x 100,000, minimum, the MC's power who would love to get their hands on them and would, realistically, actively search for and find said treasures. Basically, what I see Beyogi complaining about here is MC gaining the Standard MC Benefits Package. I'm not even talking about the Cultivation Story MC Benefits Package, but the Standard Story MC Benefits Package. That is, MC has sufficient luck to survive. MC has the ability to succeed in what they are doing, even if they are lucky to do so. MC will not be significantly injured by random mooks, though exceptions can apply. MC is more likely to be defeated in training than in real-world situations. MC will only be completely physically overwhelmed in "special" situations where they're unlikely to die. MC can receive special treatment even when it shouldn't be applicable. There's more, but you know, that sort of thing that's consistent with every solo MC, but are more easily seen with combat based MC's than non-combat MC's.
Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality. Exactly what it says on the title. The story of a regular mortal with above average luck trying to achieve immortality. His power level usually not on MC level (able to fight some realm above), but like those talented young master A, which can fight 5v1 or more on his own level. I don't know about later chaps though..
You are missing the point, the novel is still cliche. The difference is cultural. Divine luck is cultural to the Chinese but unique to us westerners. The story trying so much to circumvent Chinese cultural cliches that it ends up being filled with Western cultural cliches, hence losing its uniqueness. It becomes a standard Western story that most of us wanted to escape from that made us read Eastern fiction in the first place
And you missed the point of the my reply, particularly the second part. But Molting the Mortal Coil doesn't load itself up with Western Cliches, nor does it attempt to avoid Eastern Cliches. It just tries to avoid giving the MC some sort of world-breaking cheat, and, instead of telling the story of how "Typical Cultivation Novel Male Main Character #38,793" became the strongest in existence, standing an entire rank beyond his nearest competitors, and thus saving the universe, it tells the story of Sage, a reincarnated programmer who doesn't get a cheat, and is probably unlikely to enter the top 1,000,000,000 most powerful in his universe, and of the world around him that he reincarnated into. It does not avoid Cultivation Novel Cliches, it just doesn't have them every 5 minutes, or gives the MC a singular cheat that is his singular reason for becoming more powerful and better than everyone else. It really does not replace Eastern Cliches with Western Cliches. Even when the MC gains some cheats, they're relatively minor when compared to other Cultivation Novel Cheats. The first and most utilised one is more of a survival tool than a cheat, and is significantly more reasonable than cheats in most Eastern Novels, particularly Cultivation Novels. It doesn't even improve his Cultivation Speed. Things like that just keep on continuing throughout the series, even when the MC gains something of a proper "cheat", it's not an unfairly powerful one and may have a drawback, or gaining it is related to a drawback. Which is why I added it to this request for stories without cheats, or at least cheats that aren't as extreme as many of the comparable stories.
Understood. I would like to add that cheats are not necessarily bad, the issue is how there are implemented. Also, because very few translators pick the most consistently translated novels, you get tired of reading what one translator likes eg wuxiaworld. If there were more variety, the cheats wont matter but only IET or Er Gen or Mao Ni's novels get translated. It gets old fast. Read one book of one author and you have read them all Look at Reverend Insanity, his cheat became a choke collar that tried to kill him.
Its kind of ironic whereas in Reverend Insanity luck is much more clearly explained and crafted into a proper cultivation system, i mean damn we know that mc in a novel has good luck but it's never explained why, here you can steal, break, connect, even attack using luck. The superiority of RI is it managed to take cliche in a novel and incorporated it in such way that it felt believable
True, but I feel Reverend Insanity's Cheat is relied too heavily upon as a major sticking point in the series for too long early on for me to consider it reasonable for this request, especially with the MC developing faster than he otherwise would due to all his exploitation of historic knowledge and benefits of his "SOS" Switch.
Reverend Insanity is very misleading. It is not what you think at all. Even I misunderstood the story