Looking for novels or fanfictions where the main character gets little to no cheats

[DutyInternal]

something like outsider's resolve

 

[ThrillingHuman]

any non-fantasy. Preferably slice of life. Maybe school setting. Or office setting.

 

[RepresentingSilence]

Well in born of caution a pokemon ff over on Royal road the only cheat the MC has is his knowledge of zoology

 

[Rezcore]

This occurred to me, mostly due a c grade anime, but just knowing a general amount of physics would make you op in a magic setting.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Create water.

Water can be frozen, turned to steam, or what happens if you summon it with 7% of the oxygen as the O-26 isotope. It will decay into fluorine, making hydrochloric acid in less than a second. A bone seeker. And if you could summon the water as ice-7 which forms at 30k atmosphere, you basically have a chunk of explosive acid.

Bone seeking acid, I might add.

Let's not even get into how O-15 is used because it decays into positron. Or antimatter version of electrons. A PET scanner is the least useful product you can make with that.

Science applied to magic is broken.

 

[N0xiety]

This occurred to me, mostly due a c grade anime, but just knowing a general amount of physics would make you op in a magic setting.

That setting seems to assume you would have the talent to put all that knowledge to good use. So your otherworldly knowledge would be your primary cheat against your peers, while your talent would be your fundamental cheat. A fundamental cheat must exist, or be acquired through some way, otherwise you would simply be confined to mediocrity.

 

[Succubiome]

I've been writing a isekai smut where the hero/ine has generally lost access to their cheat(they no longer even count it as "theirs" at this point), but it's very much not a typical power fantasy, almost the reverse in some ways

 

[CubicleHermit]

Not web, and not traditional Isekai, but the first thing that comes to mind for "MC with no cheats" that is Isekai-adjacent is Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp.

Spoiler: Synopsis including minor spoiler

It's a time-travel story - a then-modern academic (it was published 1941) is sent back to the late Roman empire] , that sort of deconstructs the "using modern knowledge to be OP" trope - the main character does well by cleverness and some application of historical knowledge but has very, very little traction using up-time technology.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

The Adventures of a Supernatural Time Traveler

After waking up in the past, Lou Barret finds himself entangled with the supernatural. Eventually receiving the help of Scott Langston, a supernatural peacekeeper of sorts, and a witch named Elysif Avian. The three work together to keep the peace between the supernatural creatures of London and...

www.scribblehub.com

My main series could be considered the be a no-cheat MC story until later on in the series.