A mythical/legendary/demonic creature that steals talents or abilities

Question

I swear I heard about this a long time ago but I can't remember it for the life of me (to the point that I am beginning to doubt if it exists). I faintly remember some type of monster that was able to mimic or outright steal the abilities of other people... Can anyone help me out here?

Answer 1

• The Mead of Poetry is a prime example. The power is transferred not once, but twice:

Kvasir was a man considered most wise, who is murdered by a pair of dwarves. The motivation of the dwarves is to create a magic potion that would confer this wisdom to any who drank it.

Odin, likely not content to allow such a power to be freely accessed, uses trickery to steal the mead, and is mostly successful. (The part that spilled confered a lower form of capability in simple rhyming, while Odin himself keeps the greatest form of the gift to bestow at his discretion.)

• Mimir is another such example:

When Mimir's severed head is sent to Asgard, Odin uses magic to re-animate it, and afterwards benefits from Mimir's knowledge and secrets.

Answer 2

"If that's what you want," the Patriarch replied, "come here and I'll teach you the spells." Thereupon he whispered into Sun Wukong's ear, and who knows what miraculous spells he taught him? The Monkey King was the sort of person who understands everything once he is told a tiny part, and he learned the spells on the spot. He practiced and trained until he had mastered all seventy−two transformations. One day the Patriarch and all his disciples were enjoying the sunset outside the Three Stars Cave.

Journey to the West-Chapter 2 Things like Sasuke's Sharingan come only from this part of Journey to the West. And all the 'eyes with powers' and power to 'copy abilities'

here, 72 is not an assigned limit to Sun Wukong's power, but a number often used to denote infinity.